Patrick family cars

In a 1935 memoir serialized in the Boston Globe, Frank Patrick recalled that when the Patrick Lumber Co. was sold, his father gave him and his brother Lester $25,000 each (out of the reported $1 million price).

Frank added: “As [my father] also had helped me make a timber turnover by which I netted about $35,000, there I was at age 25 with nearly $60,000 in my jeans. I immediately bought a big new car and blew a good part of the suddenly-found fortune in racing around.”

As a young man flush with cash and interested in technology, it’s not surprising that Frank invested in a car. Lester soon bought one too. The details surrounding these automobiles have never been explored before, but we can glean a little bit about them thanks to Chris Garrish’s amazing website on the history of BC license plates.

Among other things, Chris has uploaded archival records of the Motor Vehicle Branch, which reveal Frank, then living at 1027 West Pender in Vancouver, secured license No. 1,761 on May 23, 1911. License numbers were issued chronologically and stayed with each car, rather than their owners. So Frank’s car was therefore the 1,761st to be licensed in BC. (Licensing began in 1904.)

Frank’s car was a Napier, a British luxury brand, although we don’t know its exact model or year. He probably bought it in Vancouver. Nelson, where the family was living immediately prior to moving to the West Coast to start the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, didn’t have any cars until 1912.

1909 Napier T23 Roadster. (Wikimedia Commons)

Frank doesn’t appear to have owned the Napier for very long. He still held its license as of a December 1912 list of registered motor vehicles, but it looks like he sold the car the following year. Between 1914 and 1918, it was shown as belonging successively to D.S. Mantgansen [sp?] of 1108 Nicola St., Catherine Vos of 561 Hornby St., and J.W. Freeman of the Central Garage, whose notice of transfer was received on May 30, 1918.

Lester, meanwhile, bought a Havers, a now-obscure make, for the company was only in business from 1911 to 1914. The December 1912 list of registered motor vehicles had him with license No. 4,130 and gave his address as 1019 Cook St. in Victoria, which is where he had established himself as a tire salesman (with help from Frank and possibly other brothers).

1913 Havers Six-44 “Knickerbocker Speedster.” (Wikimedia Commons)

A photo in the book The Patricks: Hockey’s Royal Family, seen below, has the caption: “Lester, with youngest brother, Guy, and wife, Grace, in the family Studebaker, Victoria, 1911.” Car buffs are welcome to tell me otherwise, but I think the photo actually shows Lester’s Havers. Lester did later own a Studebaker, but he didn’t have it in 1911.

Lester had the Havers through 1917, then sold it to a neighbour of his parents, W.D. McColaim [sp?] of 405 Michigan St. The car was sold again on Nov. 21, 1918 to Frank Pulici of 1057 Mason St.

I can’t find Frank or Lester holding BC licenses immediately after that, although Lester was on the board of the Island Automobile Association in 1915. He also sold used cars in Seattle around 1918-19, working at a Cadillac and Hupmobile dealership.

The second episode of the 2006 CBC-TV series Hockey: A People’s History included a recreation of Frank and Lester booting along in one of their early vehicles, but I don’t know what the make or model was. I have cued it up below.

Frank and Lester’s father Joe acquired license 1,095 on March 13, 1919 from H.H. Clare. The car was a Chevrolet. Joe is not listed again in the next available index from 1921, but there is a listing for G.W. Patrick, who held license No. 30,751. This was likely Frank and Lester’s younger brother Guy, but I don’t know the car’s make.

In 1924, Lester bought a “handsome new” Studebaker. We know this because it was stolen one night near the corner of Blanshard and Johnson streets in Victoria. A police officer found it the next morning on Cedar Hill Road. No sign that the thief was ever caught.

Victoria Times, Sept. 12, 1924

When Lester died in 1960, he owned a 1956 Chrysler Newport two-door hardtop, which he had purchased new. It was auctioned off. I wonder who bought it and what became of it.

1956 Chrysler Newport hardtop (four-door, unlike Lester’s two-door). (Wikimedia Commons)

Victoria Times, July 18, 1960