An Evening With Alex Stewart
On the 2nd of September 1964, Murray Gibson, who had met Alex Stewart a few days before, went to Nelson, BC to spend an evening talking to Alex. With Murray were Fred Morrish (who acted as prompter) and Bill Wadeson. Murray made a tape of the evening and Bill made this transcript of that tape.
There was originally a larger group that wanted to go along, but the rest couldn't make the trip for various reasons. That group included Murray Gibson, Bill Wadeson, Fred Morrish, Alfie Albo, Clyde Michaely, Warren Crowe,and Jimmy Hunter. When Bill made the transcript the entire group met at the Rossland Club and discussd the evening. Alfie made a few notes from that discussion to clarify or expand on some things.
Alfie gave me the transcript and I added a couple of notes to clarify things that are contrary to the historical record. All notes that have been added are in italics and are credited. I asked Murray's daughter, who is now Gael Fisher, about the tape. She doesn't know what might have happened to it, but doesn't think it survived to this day.
Alex was born in 1874. In the original introduction to this transcript, Bill Wadeson says that Alex was on the police force in Rossland from 1897 until 1911 (Alex actually says that he first came to Rossland in 1897 and joined the force "right away - at least before 1900" ). In actual fact it's not clear exactly when he first came here, but the nightly police log shows that his first shift was on 10th February 1902 . He first shows up on the voters list in 1903. His last shift was on 30th November 1914. At that time both he and Chief Long of Rossland went to Nelson and took over there, and Chief Devit of Nelson came to Rossland and took over. When Chief Long retired, Alex took over as Chief and remained on the force in Nelson until about 1940.
Wayne Krewski