One of the most interesting women I had the pleasure to meet in my many years of historical research was Victoria Donaldson Clay.
Treasured daughter of Alexander and Amanda Donaldson, Victoria was born in 1897 when the family lived in Victoria and was barely more than a toddler when they moved to the far reaches of East Sooke.
Her father, a mining prospector with an appreciation of his role in history, had settled down to marry and raise a family, buying a part of the land holdings of Robert Weir, a pioneer who had taken over the area decades before, and then left to move further east.
The Donaldson property was almost surrounded by water and festooned with Sitka Spruce, the limbs beaten inwards by the relentless winds, and hanging shaggy with lichen. For those who loved the land as that family did, it was the ideal place to grow up.
The Donaldson farm had horses, sheep, cattle, swine, and grew much of their own produce as farmers did in those days. Victoria learned to do the farm chores along with her brothers, and this photo of Victoria handling a team of workhorses illustrates her competence – no shrinking violet was she!
One of her chores from the age of 10 was rowing across the passage to Whiffin Spit, where she was to light the coal oil lantern (a primitive navigational aid) at night, and back again in the morning, to douse it. When she was 12, her father died, and the youngsters, particularly eldest son Alexander “Allie”, pitched in to help their mother run the farm.
At 21, Victoria married William Clay, a construction worker who’d come to town. She and her husband raised three sons (Donald, Eric, Leonard), each tuned to the forests and the oceans, and becoming part of our West Coast history.
People kept telling me, 'You must meet Victoria Donaldson (Clay) as she knows so much history.' They were right.
When I contacted her, she was 80, in retirement at Shawnigan Lake, and she did not hesitate to drive down to the Sooke Region Museum to help us. She steered us straight on our history of Moss Cottage, on the Sooke River bridges, on the Belvedere Hotel and on our downtown buildings.
A particular contribution she made was describing the advent of the Bible Student Colony near Whiffin Spit in the mid-1920s, and their creation of a pilchard reduction plant on the Spit itself.
Victoria Donaldson Clay lived to see her grandchildren grown, passing away in 1988.
Elida Peers is a historian with Sooke Region Museum
