BY: BG EDITOR
Nov 19, 2016 GREENWOOD, BC (BG)
Today we present another of Greenwood's early personalities of note Dr. Sidney S. Oppenheimer, whose biographical sketch is included in the book, A History of British Columbia by R. Edward Gosnell:[1]
SIDNEY S. OPPENHEIMER, M. D.
"It is the young men who are winning notable success in the professions and among the abler representatives of the medical fraternity in Greenwood is Dr. Sidney S. Oppenheimer, one of the native sons of British Columbia, his birth having occurred in Yale, February 12, 1873. His parents are Isaac and Celia (Sidenbach) Oppenheimer, old residents of Vancouver, now residing in New Orleans, Louisiana.
His youth was spent in his parents' home, and as a student in the public and high schools of Victoria and Vancouver he mastered the common branches of English learning and was also tutored by Mr. Tucker, of Montreal, a brother of the Rev. Tucker, of Vancouver. Thus well qualified to enter upon the study of medicine he pursued a full course in medicine in McGill University of Montreal and was graduated with the class of 1898.
During six years he practiced in Greenwood, his patronage constantly growing in volume and importance. When he had been located here for six months he entered into partnership with R. W. Jakes, with whom he continued for three years, he took charge of the first hospital established in Greenwood. He has since practiced alone and now numbers among his patrons many of the best families of this city, for he has fully demonstrated his ability to cope with the intricate problems that continually confront the physician and surgeon. He keeps in touch with the advanced thought of the medical fraternity and with the most modern methods and success has attended him in his efforts.
He is dominion medical health officer for the boundary, and medical health officer for the city of Greenwood. Like many residents of British Columbia he has made investment in mining property. Fraternally he is connected with Greenwood Lodge No. 29, K. P."
The biography above notes that Dr. Oppenheimer had taken charge of the first hospital established in Greenwood, however he was not the first in-charge at the hospital. The Greenwood Hospital was built by town founder Robert Wood in 1896, two years before Oppenheimer had graduated from medical school. As described by author Garnet Basque in
Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of the Boundary Country:[2]
The Greenwood Hospital, c. 1900
BC Archives, # C-07996
"Constructed on the hillside overlooking the town, the Greenwood Hospital commanded "a picturesque view of the valley and the pine-clad ranges in the distance." The hospital, built at an estimated cost of $10,000, was placed under the charge of Dr. Jakes, and in mid-September he moved his family from Boundary Falls and took up residence in the institution. Two months later, on November 19, the hospital was almost destroyed by fire.
Dr. Jakes discovered the fire between the hours of one and two in the morning and immediately spread the alarm. However, before the volunteer fire brigade could arrive at the scene, flames were seen issuing from the roof of the building. "Fortunately the air was very still," reported the Times, "and this, together with the praiseworthy exertions of the volunteers alone saved the building from total destruction. … By mid-December the fire damage had been repaired."
The Greenwood Hospital, 1895
BC Archives, # C-04838
Less than two years later the Greenwood Hospital would suffer another setback, described in a Boundary Creek Times article from July 23, 1898:[3]
"Hospital To Close Dr. Jakes announced this week that after August 1st, the Greenwood hospital will be closed. The doctor intends engaging in private practice after that date. The announcement does not come as a surprise… the hospital would do credit to any city in the province… and yet has received nothing but discouragement from the government in Victoria. Money was lavished on similar institutions in other parts of the province but the Greenwood hospital never received a dollar. The residents of the district appeared as indifferent about the hospital as they generally are regarding all public matters. The majority of them thanked God they were never sick and allowed Dr. Jakes to assume a responsibility in the care of the sick which should have been borne by the entire district. The natural result followed."
According to these footprints on the timeline, the Greenwood Hospital was only open for a year and 10 months before its closure was announced. Given that Dr. Jakes' announcement in the Times was the same year that Dr. Sidney Oppenheimer was graduating from McGill, it seems he had the perfect opportunity to advance his career here in Greenwood.
Like Dr. Jakes, Dr. Oppenheimer did not rely solely on his hospital position, but also set-up private practice in Greenwood. In an April 4, 1902 edition of the Boundary Creek Times we hear of one difficulty he encountered:[4]
Boundary Creek Times, April 4, 1902
In this same edition of the Times in fact, on the same page the following announcement was made, and was run a second time a month later:[5]
"NOTICE. Notice is hereby given that the partnership heretofore subsisting between R.W. Jakes and Sidney S. Oppenheimer, as Physicians and Surgeons, was this day dissolved by mutual consent.
The practice and business of the firm of Jakes & Oppenheimer will be continued by Dr. Oppenheimer to whom all debts owing to the said firm must be paid forthwith.
Witness: R.S. JAKES, J.P. McLEON, S.S. OPPENHEIMER"
There is one final news item of significance mentioning Dr. Oppenheimer. In the March 19, 1909 edition of the Boundary Creek Times[6] is a report on matters brought before City Council, particularly the desire of some Greenwood residents to have the City support the building of an underground tramway from Greenwood to Phoenix. Dr. Oppenheimer was apparently one of the leading citizens behind this effort, as evidenced by the fact that his name preceded the others in the news statement, that the petition "was signed by Sidney S. Oppenheimer and 63 others".
"A letter was read/ from Mr. Richard Armstrong asking for a bonus of $50,000 in bonds to assist the building of a tramway between Greenwood and Phoenix $15,000 to be paid on completion of 3,000 feet; $15,000 to be paid on completion of 6,000,feet; and $20,000 when the tramway reaches the limits of the City of Phoenix. …
The following petition, signed by Sidney S. Oppenheimer and 63 others, was read:
The petition of the undersigned humbly showeth: 1. That your petitioners are the owners of real property within the limits of the municipality of the City of Greenwood of the value of at least one-tenth of the total value of the real property in said municipality, as shown by the last revised assessment roll. 2. That your petitioners request your honorable body to introduce a bylaw to raise upon the credit of the corporation of the City of Greenwood a sum not exceeding $50,000 to assist in the construction of an underground tramway to tap ore bodies under, between or adjacent to the cities of Phoenix and Greenwood, and carry said ore to Greenwood. The City Clerk was instructed to draft an agreement according to Mr. Armstrong's letter."
Shortly after the Tramway funding effort that Oppenheimer helped lead in March, 1909 he immigrated to the United States, moving his family to Spokane, Washington.[7] The Census record for 1910 gives us further details about the Oppenheimer family's history. Sidney S., born in 1873, was 37 years old in 1910. He was married to Dorthea Oppenheimer, and they had one child, Maurice D. The record confirms that Sidney's father was born in Germany, and his mother was born in Ohio, U.S.
Dorthea was born in Germany about 1885. Her father was born in Austria, and her mother in Germany. She immigrated to the United States in 1893. In 1910, at the age of 25, Dorthea was married to Sidney, in Spokane.[8] Their son Maurice D. was born three years earlier, in Canada in 1907.[9]
Both Sidney S. and his mother, Celia Sidenbach Oppenheimer were laid to rest in the Fairmont Cemetery in Spokane. Celia was buried on October 12, 1913, having died at the age of 59. Her son Sidney S. died at the age of 67, and was buried on September 23, 1940.[10]
One of the most fascinating aspects of Dr. Sidney S. Oppenheimer's background is his family history. In fact, he was the son and nephew of two very prominent personalities in British Columbia's history. Sidney's father was Isaac Oppenheimer. In the above biographical sketch from Gosnell's history of B.C. (1906), Sidney's parents are listed as "Isaac and Celia (Sidenbach) Oppenheimer, old residents of Vancouver". Gosnell's bio-sketch was written well before Isaac and his brother David Oppenheimer became widely recognized for their important contribution to the province's history.
Oppenheimer Brothers Merchantile Store, Yale B.C., c. 1868
BC Archives, #E-01924
The picture above, of the Oppenheimer Brothers Mercantile in Yale was taken about five years before Sidney S. Oppenheimer was born in that town.
In the picture below, Sidney's father Isaac Oppenheimer is shown dressed as a fireman, in 1868. Strangely enough, one of the many business challenges the Oppenheimer brothers faced was a fire that destroyed one of their mercantile buildings in Barkerville, BC, around 1871. In 1872, the brothers donated a fire engine to the town before selling up and moving their operations to Yale in the early 1880's.
Isaac Oppenheimer, c. 1868
BC Archives, #C-03663
Sidney Oppenheimer's uncle David (Isaac's brother) was the first president of the Vancouver Board of Trade, and he was the city's second Mayor. The following excerpt from 'The History of Metropolitan Vancouver' by Chuck Davis[11] offers some interesting background on the brothers, including how they came to arrive in Yale, B.C. during the Cariboo gold rush.
David Oppenheimer served as mayor of Vancouver without pay from 1888 to 1891
[ Photo: 'The History of Metropolitan Vancouver' by Chuck Davis ]
"Vancouver's oldest company is older than the city itself. The story began in Germany in the last century when four young brothers, Godfrey, Charles, David and Isaac Oppenheimer left their native Frankfurt "to help in building a new continent." They left in 1848 and settled first in New Orleans. In 1853 they moved to a California just beginning to burn with Gold Rush fever, but by 1857 the fever was beginning to cool, so they looked north.
It happens that the four Oppenheimer brothers had dealt with people in Victoria, which was then almost entirely supplied not over land, but by water from San Francisco. "So it was to this outpost of the British Empire," says a company history, "that the brothers moved in 1858 and entered the grocery business in that tiny village. (The population then was slightly more than 3,000.) It was a hardy settlement of soldiers, sailors, miners, trappers, businessmen and a mixed group of adventurers and Indians."
Their timing was excellent: Not long after they arrived in Victoria, gold was discovered in the Cariboo and a stampede of development began. They realized immediately that the company must be moved to the mainland, closer to the thousands of newly arrived gold miners operating along the banks of the Fraser.
They chose Yale, at the head of navigation. Sternwheelers brought supplies from New Westminster and Fort Langley to the Oppenheimer Brothers' store and warehouse, and from there they went out to all parts of the Cariboo "on a road of sorts that had been hacked out of the
wilderness and rock by the Royal Engineers."
By 1863, with the establishment of a regular freighting service, the importance of Yale had diminished and the Oppenheimers went back to Victoria.
By the early 1880s the Cariboo Gold Rush was over. By then, however, David Oppenheimer, the second-youngest of the brothers, was looking elsewhere. He found out somehow that the Canadian Pacific rail terminus would not be in Port Moody, as was expected, but in the tiny village of Granville (more commonly called Gastown) on Burrard Inlet. He and Isaac, the youngest, moved to Granville. It was 1885.
The firm of Oppenheimer Brothers has been here ever since. By 1886, the year of Vancouver's incorporation, the company was firmly established. David and Isaac played a part in the incorporation, and they quickly became a force in local politics. Isaac was elected to council, and David became the second mayor of the city. He was 52.
A brief biography gives the bare bones: "In 1888 he was elected mayor by acclamation and served for four (one-year) terms. During his office such advances as the purchase of the water works, the sewage system, and street paving were initiated, as was the city's first transportation system with the introduction of streetcars in 1890. The first Cambie Street Bridge and the first Granville Bridge were opened while he was in office. Oppenheimer served as mayor without pay and donated his own land for schools and parks. He established the lighting company (later B.C. Electric, now B.C. Hydro.)"
It isn't mentioned in that brief paragraph, but David Oppenheimer also officially opened Stanley Park and established the Parks Board."
A very detailed history of the Oppenheimer Brothers can be found at BuildingVancouver.wordpress.com
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A History of British Columbia by R. Edward Gosnell (1906)
[2] Ghost Towns & Mining Camps of the Boundary Country by Garnet Basque, page 60