THIS IS ARCHITECT R. BERWICK'S conception of the West Vancouver War Memorial Public Library now undergoing
construction on Marine drive. The sketch is by R. J. Thom.

By SYDNEY SCOTT
Two wars face each other on Marine drive, in West Vancouver.
A granite archway sits on the north side at Twentieth street, at a bend where buses and motorists 'poyr by. Morticed in the stone are the names of 20 of the fallen in ‘the Great War, 1914-18.” They are all names familiar to the beginnings and in the growth of West Vancouver.
Through the opening of the arch, unseen and unknown to most who pass by, is a vernal shrine, bench-set and lovely with its background of trimmed trees and little stream and little park.
Directly across the drive, through the fast traffic, rises the memorial to the 80 or 90 who fell in a greater war, whose cause was the same.
FULFILLMENT OF SEVEN-YEAR DREAM
It is a long, low building whose sloping roof overhangs a face of glass. A softening frame of cut stone and a bank of blooms seen through a window will be its chief visible physical association with the mature mother across the way.
Except for a sign on it, which says “West Vancouver War Memorial Public Library.”
This is their affinity. The settled, lasting stone of the memorial of a quarter of a century ago, which took seven years to lay, looks out upon the bold glass of a library which also took seven years to grow from a dream to a fulfillment.
The lasting purpose is evident in every functional line put into the structure by its architect, R. A. D. Berwicke and the contractors who have donated their services; the perpetuating memory is celebrated in the Shrine and the Book of Remembrance enclosed in one flank under the classic permanence of a cut-stone wall. And it is evident in the ever-fresh flowers of the “planting area” before and behind the westermost windows.
SIMPLICITY IS DOMINANT THEME
The facade Is strong but soft. For more than a third of the way from the east, cedar siding	 rises	almost	 to	 the geurdon of striated fir and the heavy	 cedar shakes of 	the roof. 	Above is a	line 	of
SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1950
windows, under the eaves. Then as the eye travels west the front recedes under a.deep roof overhang to form a porch nearly half the length of the building and advances again in the “planting area” to form the contrasting facade of the stone-flanked memorial section.
The art of the interior is primarily in its utility. Trimmed in yellow cedar, the dominant themes are light, cheerfulness and simplicity. DESIGNED FOR EFFICIENCY
Except for a librarian’s inner office, heating and washrooms and three other little work and stack-rooms, it is a single large chamber 90 feet long, 40 feet wide with a height of 14 feet to the crossing of heavy exposed timber trusses. The expanse of glass at the front is duplicated all the way at the back.
There are no dividing partitions anywhere in the main section. Every corner of the adults’ division on the east and the children's part on the west is controlled and observed from a U-shaped central service desk.
This treatment derives from the discovery of modern library experience that full efficiency depends on every segment of a small library being visible from an attendant’s desk, both for rapid help and for the care of books in possibly careless hands. Partitions and further divisions mean more staff assistance.
TASK WAS DIFFICULT
For this reason the initial plan to make an enclosed memorial chapel of the extreme western section has been given up but the integrity of this section is still strongly preserved by contrasts. A lowered full ceiling, an abrupt rear wall, the stone flank and the extended front emerging into the planting area all help to make it with the influence of its shrine a separate worshipping room within the larger shelfed-lined chamber rising through the beams to the roof.
A window in the stone is designed to throw the rays of the setting sun on the shrine. This opening will later be in stained glass.
In September the West Vancouver Library committee will hand over this building.
debt-free to the municipality, for operation. From the first E. S. Robinson Vancouver City librarian, has been one of its chief advisors on planning. His experience has repeatedly changed them to conform with modern library practice and the committee has welcomed his help.
The council is now negotiating with his Vancouver commission to take over the complete staffing of the library and for the continuing supply of upwards of 4000 books.
The West Vancouver Library, unique as the only one in recent Canadian and coast history financed almost solely by voluntary donations, was not an easy task for its sponsors.
WOMEN RESPONSIBLE FOR FINAL SUCCESS
A plebiscite as long ago as 1943 gave authority to the then-council to build, but more utilitarian demands pushed it into the background.
Another plebiscite three years ago definitely made it the official choice as West Vancouver’s war memorial, but the labor of a committee then headed by Edgar Wilson, now vice-chairman of the library group, was nearly frustrated by general apathy.
Enthusiastic high school students made canvasses which brought in many hundreds of donations in cash and established a basic supply of books, but the thermometer of total subscriptions still standing, somewhat faded, on Marine drive, rose disappointingly slowly, despite adult subscriptions sometimes in the hundreds.
It remained for the women of the municipality to bring final success to the endeavor —and they did it. Col. G. W. Smart, present energetic chairman of the library committee, agrees that it was to their amazing energy, ingenuity and perseverence that the district owes its $30,000 library. COMMITTEES SET UP
A committee headed and inspired by Mrs. Harold Ostrum developed a machine which conscripted the members of every West Vancouver organization, men and women. At the outset, 200 women made a new house-to-house canvass after a “ways and means” committee had been set up.
This group included Mrs. G. Rees-Thomas, Mrs. A. Watts,
Mrs. W. Hemphill, Mrs. A. B. Smeale, Mrs. L. R. Oliver and Mrs. Nora Britten. With them were associated a close group of 100 other women through whom contacts were made with many organizations. MASTERPIECE OF EFFORT
And these organizations nearly all helped, stepping out of their individual fields to do so. The Sketch Club gave a Beaux Arts Ball that is still talked about; the Holly-burn Study Group diverged into square dancing and raised $100. The Little Theatre, the IODE, rival political- organizations, the Townswomen’s Guild—every group turned itself inside out to try to do its share.
A co-ordinating committee of Mrs. Ostrum, Mrs. D. H. Whittal, Mrs. E. G. Therrien and Mrs. F. T. Richardson unified the group efforts. It was a masterpiece of effort.
But sill there was not enough.
Then the astounding “Sacrifice Shop” came into being. In staid premises formerly occupied by a bank, great piles of every sellable thing congested floor and walls and hung from the ceiling. A gravity clock overhung huge boxes of slightly chipped cups and saucers from a Vancouver department store that sold for a nickel each. Italian tapestry, a hand-made violin, and a ship’s anchor mingled with purses and books. CONTRACTORS DONATED
Mrs. F. W. Pepper and the late Miss Belle Gray, with a volunteer staff, sorted over goods from attics, basements and drawing rooms.
The shop was filled and emptied and filled again many times and when it had to be vacated $3500 had been raised from the project, and the fund climbed toward the $19,000 mark.
Final gesture was made by a group of half-a-dozen West Vancouver builders, suppliers and contractors. They agreed to put up the building and to donate to it all their individual profits, even, in some cases, obtaining a reduction in the cost of materials. Their offers, partly already fulfilled, are placed at more than $10,000.
And throughout the campaign appeared and reappeared the spirit of the wives
THE VANCOUVER DAILY PROVINCE MAGAZINE SECTION
and parents of those who had made the real sacrifice. They added gifts to the great gift each of them had alreaiy made, thus doubly endorsing the library as a memorial, with its double significance.
Memory and purpose. Two years of patient labor by Mrs. A. S. Grigsby have gone into the Book of Remembrance. Careful checks and re-checks with Ottawa have made sure of accuracy and touch with relatives have made doubly
BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE
Then came the illuminaton work of which she is a master. The decore is in English, French and Italian script with the badges of the respective services in their correct design and color.
Design was more difficult because the services have lately changed badge formats: sheepskin at the outset was difficult to obtain at all and the required quality of pigments was scarce. These were incidental obstacles, some so lasting that the book is not yet finished.
Between the heavy covers of the book are the ornate title page “In Memory of Those Gallant Sons of West Vancouver Who Gave Their Lives in World War H, 1939-45,” the requiem from Duncan Campbell Scott; the inscribed name; of the fallen in sheet after sheet of sheepskin in the categories of their respective services, and an apostrophe by the English poet Humbert Wolfe. LASTING SYMBOL
There is feeling, mysticism and symbolism in the lasting lines of names and the artist’s emblazoned figuring. There is poignancy in the inscribed words of Wolfe—
“—you and the company of saints are here; while one man knows that all creation is simple as
fades like a rose and has the roses’s thorn
but sees behind the fallen petal, the bulb and understands, and although his heart is torn there was and is salvation in blood while anyone lies down to sleep, accepting everything beneath the