A Ghostly Get-together at the Victoria Golf Club

HAPPY HALLOWEEN MARY

We figured this would be a spooky 5th meeting of the month when we were met at the door by Brian wearing Mary's weird and wonderful witch's hat. Once inside, the anthem was not required, which was just as well as President Joan’s first announcement was that our regular pianist Tom Lidkea, recently had surgery. Hopefully you are healing quickly, Tom. 

Announcements: 

1. The bike racks, which are a club Community Service Committee Project, will be dedicated in Uplands Park on Sunday, November 4^th at 10:00. Chris Hyde-Lay, the Oak Bay Parks' manager will say a few words in recognition of our donation. 

2. Several more members have ordered those spiffy OBR vests. If you decide you want one, email Joan Peggs and she will place another order - they're $35. 

3. On a sad note, Joan informed the club that former Oak Bay Rotary Club Past-President Nels Granewall died last Tuesday.

Guests: 

There were several invited guests at today’s meeting: Flora King, Rita Estock, Tara Douglas, Alison Hawksworth, Ruthie Tiessen, Natalya Parsons and Tim and Heather Travers, all guests of Joan Peggs. Jim Force and Mark Bedford brought their wives, Colleen and Josephine. 

The Golf Club chef treated us to a tasty spiced-chicken dish served on a small spinach salad. The dainty chocolate-filled cookies were tempting too.

Our speaker, John Adams, was introduced by Hans. John, at right sporting an appropriately spooky tie, is one of Victoria’s leading historians and story tellers. Our city is believed to be the most haunted in the country. He spoke of two of the most well known haunted spots in Victoria, one of them being very close to where we were sitting. In September 1936, a woman  named Doris Gravlin was murdered by her husband at the Victoria Golf Club. He strangled her on the 7^th Fairway and then dragged her body down to the beach, covering her with logs and driftwood. He was found nearby four weeks later after apparently having committed suicide. Her shoes and hat were in his pockets, and so, the story goes, the case was closed. The ghost of Doris has been spotted wandering the 7th Fairway in several mystical apparitions: in an all-white dress, as a floating mist, and various other phantasmal phorms. Her most common manifestation has her wearing a brown 30s-style tailored suit. She has been known to cause problems on Beach Drive, sometimes walking into the traffic, and occasionally appearing in a vehicle beside the driver. John also told the story of Tod House, located at 2564 Heron Street near Willows Beach. It was built in 1851 by John Tod, the former Chief Fur Trader with the HBC. Since 1929 various owners of the house have complained of ghostly activities and many other unexplained events. John demonstrated how to recognize the energy our bodies generate. In the photo below, some of us are really getting into "feeling the energy".

David Sills gave a hearty thanks to ghost-story-teller extraordinaire, John Adams. There is a story about the ghosts of the Victoria Golf Club on the front page of today's (Wednesday, October 31) Oak Bay News.

HAVE A TOE-TAPPIN' HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Reported  by Lynne M.