BROATCH

Tom Broatch and his family moved to Ocean Park in 1923 from Coghlan, near Aldergrove. The road we call 130th Street today was called Broatch Road, and Tom cleared many of the road allowances in Ocean Park under contract to the Municipality. Later he worked for the Municipality as road foreman.
Tom's wife, Ethel (nee Perry), had been scheduled to sail on the Titanic with her parents, brother and sister, but were delayed and, fortunately, took a later ship. Tom and Ethel had three sons, Gordon, Robert and Raymond (Pete). Ethel operated a store at the United Church Camp upon the family's arrival in Ocean Park.
The Broatch's lived first in a house belonging to Ben Stevenson on the Ocean Park Road, and later moved to five acres at North Bluff and Broatch Road. Shortly after coming to Ocean Park, Tom built a cabin below the Great Northern tracks where his family stayed during the fishing season, and Tom fished for smelt. In the evenings Tom would row his catch to White Rock in his skiff, sending it on the evening train to Vancouver.
In the Thirties Tom had a contract to haul luggage from the train to the United Church camp. From the train he would skid it up the hill on a stoneboat, and his son Gordon and the author would take it to the camp in the Model A truck.
Local mail came on the morning train. A metal stand was mounted beside the tracks, and each day the postmaster would hang the outgoing mailbag on it. The baggage master on the train would swing out a metal arm to catch the mailbag and bring it on board, but if he missed, as sometimes happened, the mail would have to wait until the next day's train. The incoming mailbag was tossed out of the train by the baggage master. Needless to say, nothing fragile was trusted to the mail!
Ocean Park residents depended upon well water. The United Church Camp west of Stevenson Road had the only water system in Ocean Park. It was fed from a tank on Broatch Road south of Marine Drive. The tank was filled by a hydraulic ram that pumped water up from a ravine between Broatch and Olympic Avenue. A pipe ran along Sanford Road to the church camp. When wells went dry in the summer, residents could get water from taps in this pipe.
Precious indeed are the memories of life in our community from the early days of its settlement, and too rare the opportunities to hear them recalled by pioneer residents.
- Bob Broatch