Thrums

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan author, also wrote Auld Licht Idylls, A Window in Thrums, and The Little Minister, set in the fictional Scottish village of Thrums. In 1900, the second book in the trilogy gave Thrums, BC, a railway switch, its name. The suggested proponent/s are Robert W. and Janie A.S. Chalmers (a farming couple who settled around this time), an unknown female train passenger,[2] or the daughter of an unspecified Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) director.[3]

CP's adding of this Columbia and Kootenay Railway siding to the timetable in 1900[2] may have been merely as a designated siding. The flag stop, which appeared around 1905 was 5.8 kilometres (3.6 mi) northeast of Brilliant, and 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) southwest of Tarry's.[4] Passenger service ended in 1964.

Fruit growing was initially the main industry,[19] which transformed to farming over time. The Chalmers, longtime residents from Scotland, also raised poultry. A general store opened in the 1910s.[20] Becoming predominantly a Doukhobor community, the Thrums Cemetery opened in 1912. Operated by the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC) from 1940 until the 1970s, the site is now disused and overgrown.[21] Several stores operated by the 1940s.[22] The Chalmers ran a small store and tea room called The Window from the early 1940s.[2]

The population was about 150 by 1928,[23] 250 by 1934,[24] 174 by 1939,[25] 387 by 1943,[26] 250 by 1946,[27] and 218 by 1951.[28] The post office, which opened in 1906, did not reopen after burning down in 1978.[2]

Various incidents linked to the Freedomites:
1930: Attempted arson of community hall[29] and damage by explosives to school.[30]
1932: Parading in nude prompted 118 arrests[31] and three-year sentences.[32]
1938: Church burned.[33]
1946: Doukhobor hall destroyed by fire.[34]
1947: Barns burned.[35]
1958: Nearby gas pipeline dynamited.[36]
1959: Three feet of CP track dynamited.[37][38]

A market/deli and small businesses operate. Since Thrums can be used as a generic name for the area that stretches north to Glade, the boundary with Tarrys is unclear.[2]

Joe Irving (1911–2015), author, ironworker activist, graduated high school in his 90s, and centenarian, was the first baby born in Thrums.[39][40]

• Cran, Gregory James (2003). "A Narrative Inquiry into the Discourse of Conflict among the Doukhobors and Between the Doukhobors and Government" (PDF). www.library.uvic.ca.