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• Introduction
• The N'laka'pamux Territory
• About N'laka'pamux Basketry
  and the work of James Alexander Teit (1864-1922)
• The Pearson Basket Collection at the LCM
• N'laka'pamux Basketry Making Today
• Conservation of the Baskets
• N'laka'pamux Basket Makers
  • Langley Centennial Museum
  • Yale & District Historical Society
  • Lytton First Nation
  • Kwantlen First Nation
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements

Basket Maker Bios

Aida C. (Southwell) Freeman

1913 – 2005

Basket Donor
Keeper of History

Foreword note: All cities and towns mentioned in this article are located in British Columbia unless otherwise indicated. Also, we do not have details of Mrs. Freeman’s life, such as birth, marriage and death records, as these are protected under the Canadian Privacy Act. Only details that have been made available by her family members are used here, as well as information Aida gave herself in taped interviews or to archivists at the museums.

Aida C. (Southwell) Freeman was a daughter who cared for her mother’s large Nlaka’pamux basket collection, and eventually split the donation of it between the Langley Centennial Museum and the Historic Yale Museum in 1993 and 1994. Her mother, Kathleen Edith (Pearson) Southwell, collected the baskets over time, roughly between the years 1912 and 1922; most were given as gifts from native people for her services of reading and writing letters for those who could not read and write themselves.

We assume that Aida Southwell was born either in North Bend or Lytton. North Bend was where her parents, Kathleen Edith (Pearson) Southwell and Frederick William Southwell lived until 1922, both before and after their marriage in 1912. Many births were at home in those days. The only hospital, St. Bartholomew’s in Lytton, is the other likely place of her birth, as it was a short train ride away. The Southwells moved to Revelstoke in 1922. The Southwell children’s’ birth records are too recent for public access.

Aida had two sisters, Helen Kathleen, and Beatrice. We don’t know when or where Helen married Mr. Vining, and later passed away, but it may have been in the United States, as most of her descendants live there. Beatrice A. Southwell married John Herbert Carmichael in Revelstoke, Oct. 3, 1930. She died in 1964 at age 54, so she was likely born in 1910. We can assume, from the family history drawing by Joan Farrar, that Helen was the eldest, and may have been born before Beatrice’s birth 1910.

Aida Southwell eventually married Bill Freeman, another CPR man employed as an engineer, though we don’t know where or when; likely in Revelstoke or Vancouver. Obviously it was quite some time after her birth in 1912 and undoubtedly after the family’s move to Revelstoke in 1922 when she was about 9 years old. We can assume that she was married after the age of 15 which she was in 1928; (probably within a few years of her sister Beatrice’s Revelstoke marriage to Carmichael in 1930). So the closest dates we can venture to guess for her marriage are between 1928 and 1969, though I personally would think she would have been wed before 1940.

We first see her married name on a death certificate for Frank Oscar Carlson in 1969. Frank Carlson and his wife Pauline Youla Carlson lived in either Spuzzum or North Bend when the Southwells lived there; and Aida’s mother collected baskets from Pauline’s sister Christina Youla James, and her family. Frank and Pauline lived in Vancouver, and so did Aida and her husband. In any case, it is obvious that the friendship between the two families continued for decades after living in North Bend.

Aida’s father died in 1973, and her mother in 1975, when we assume Aida inherited the baskets.

Aida donated half of her mother’s basket collection in 1993 to the Langley Centennial Museum; but unfortunately, she did not give the names of the makers to the Museum. She did give the basketmakers’ names to the Historic Yale Museum when she donated the other half to them. This has led to much valuable research information, since it is one of the few collections where names have been attributed to the actual makers. In fact, it was the discovery of these recorded names that led Jennifer Iredale to embark on finding funding for the exploration of the histories and genealogies of the basketmakers. This has become very important work for the history of BC, especially for its aboriginal peoples.

In 2002 Aida was interviewed on tape by Lisa Codd of the Langley Centennial Museum, and revealed details of the baskets, as well as memories of growing up in North Bend, and her later life in Revelstoke and Vancouver. She said that her grandfather James Edwin Pearson was a Royal Engineer in the Fraser Canyon, perhaps during the construction of the Cariboo Waggon Road. He later moved to New Westminster and gave brief mention of his owning a ship chandler’s shop in Victoria after that.

She said her father Frederick Southwell moved to North Bend in 1911 as a CPR engineer after working as a civil engineer in Ladysmith. She talked about her mother Kathleen’s memories of attending school at All Hallows in Yale, and of her later work after her marriage as nursing with Mrs. Dykens at Chaumox, five miles east of North Bend.

Aida spoke of her family’s move to Revelstoke in 1922 and also of the baskets which were made for her; specifically the rattles by Hannah, Chief Stout’s wife, and the very large basket which was used as her playpen.

At this time we do not know when her husband passed away, but Aida herself lived to the ripe age of 92; and despite her failing health from emphysema and perhaps other medical problems, was still very proud of her ability to use email to keep up with outside contacts.

Aida passed away in August of 2005, as recounted to me in an email from her very good friend and executrix, Marilyn Cross; “I am sorry to tell you that Aida passed away last week, although very peacefully.”, wrote Ms. Cross.

I had spoken briefly on the phone with Aida about a week previously, after sending her an introductory email. She knew who I was and what I wished to know, but unfortunately she had to cut the call short as she could barely breathe because of her emphysema, and this was the only chance I ever had to speak with her before her death. I broke the news to a group of saddened people at basketry workshop in Yale several days later, who all expressed their great sorrow at the passing of Aida and the loss of her valuable knowledge. We will never know what more she could have told us, and it is a hole in the history of British Columbia that will likely never be filled.

Written by Irene Bjerky