Ivor Mansell Bassett

1901 England Census [Ancestry.com]: living in Carlton, Carlton, Yorkshire.....Charles M. Bassett (58, b. St Mary Hill, Glamorgan, Wales, Toll Collector) with wife Mary J. (52, b. Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales) and 3 children.....Gladys (19, b. Cardiff, Wales), Ivor (11, b. Knighton, Radnorshire, Wales), and Muriel (9, b. London, England).

Wore wire rimmed glasses/corrective lenses.

Ivor's 1st teaching certificate was dated April 1, 1913, and issued in England. Employed as a teacher by the Thetford Council, Norfolk, England, April 1 - April 14, 1913.

Migrated to B.C., Canada, in 1913. Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 [Ancestry.com, Roll #T-4796]: Ivor Bassett, age 23, departed from Southampton, England, aboard the S.S. Ascania and arrived Quebec, Canada, on May 19, 1913. Ivor is cited on page 4 ("STEERAGE" passengers) of the ship's record, line 9: #5639 (RR contract ticket), 25.00 (amount of cash), Wales (country of birth), Welsh (race of people), destination Vancouver, B.C., school teacher (occupation both in country from which came & intended in Canada), and GTR (traveled inland on)--the Grand Trunk Railway. A British Pound in 1913 had the purchasing power of about £65.53 GBP in 2011.

Canadian first class teaching certificate #1140 issued in B.C. on June 6, 1913.

Joined by Frances Emmeline Lambert from Thetford, England, in 1914, whom he married immediately on August 7th in Vancouver, B.C. B.C. Archives cite her name as Emma Frances Lambert. Vital Event Marriage Registration: Registration Number 1914-09-075694, Microfilm Number B11378, GSU Microfilm Number 1983706. http://search.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/sn-1E3A4B9/view/Marriages/find-a...

"British Columbia Marriage Registrations, 1859-1932," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JDZN-F28 : accessed 31 July 2012), Ivor Bassett, 1914. … Marriage Date: 07 Aug 1914; Marriage Place: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Groom's Name: Ivor Bassett; Groom's Age: 25; Groom's Birth Date: 1889; Groom's Birthplace: Kinghten, Wales; Groom's Marital Status: Bachelor; Groom's Father's Name: Charles Mansell Bassett; Groom's Mother's Name: Mary Jane Peunock (sic); Bride's Name: Emma Frances Lambert; Bride's Age: 28; Bride's Birth Date: 1886; Bride's Birthplace: Thelford Norfolk, England; Bride's Marital Status: Divorced; Bride's Father's Name: William Lambert; Bride's Mother's Name: Harriet Peploe; Film Number: 1983706; Digital Folder Number: 4400861; Image Number: 887; BC Archives Film Number: B11378; Registration Number: 887; Banns or License: License

His first son Mansell Ivor Bassett (later Barron when he was adopted by his mother's next husband) was born in Cranbrook, B.C., on August 16, 1916.

Introduced the first audio teaching aids into B.C.

At the peak of his short, Canadian, professional career in Revelstoke, B.C., Ivor was the Supervising Principal of two public schools (Selkirk & Central)--with 20 teachers under his supervision--and the President of the local Conservative party.

Unfortunately, Ivor abandoned his wife Frances and first son Mansell in Revelstoke, BC, to elope with pregnant, young teacher Marcia Valdene Kane, whose father David Kane hired private detectives to find. The two were discovered in San Francisco about to board a ship for Australia. Consequently, Ivor was arrested in the matter of a small amount of missing school funds, returned to Revelstoke, BC, and subsequently sentenced to a short prison term in BC. Young Marcia Kane was dispatched by her father to the Catholic hospital in Portland, OR,--where her oldest sister Mona had been born--to bear their son Garth Ivor Bassett (later styled Murphy after his step-father) on November 7, 1922, alone and unwed.

Vancouver Daily World [Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; 27 May 1922, Saturday; page 2, column ] ... https://www.newspapers.com/image/64714974/?terms=Ivor%2BBassett ... MAKE NO EFFORT TO CONCEAL THEIR LOVE, May 27 ... Love prevails. This was the verdict that Miss Marcia V. Kane, 20-year-old school teacher and Ivor Bassett, also a school teacher, gave for their sudden departure from Revelstoke, B.C. They made no effort to deny their love today while being held for the B.C. police. Miss Kane will be deported to British Columbia, while Bassett is held on a charge of wife desertion and using the school's money for private purposes. Miss Kane admits that she knew that Bassett was married but that she would marry him if his wife would divorce him. Bassett said he met Miss Kane when both started to teach at the same school. The charge against him is of "having used money raised by the school to buy a motion picture machine for his own benefit."

Temple Daily Telegram [Temple, Texas; 15 June 1922, Thursday; volume 15, number 179, edition 1, page 5, columns 4 &5; with photograph of Marcia's head entitled "Miss Marcia Kane" ] ... http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth468572/m1/5/zoom/ ... PRISON BARS FAIL TO DAMPEN LOVE OF TEACHER FOR MARRIED PRINCIPAL ... "I am willing to pay the price of our love." Thus spoke Marcia Kane, twenty-one, pretty Canadian school teacher, between the bars of a San Francisco jail. Her sweetheart is facing larceny charges. He's in the same jail. She and Ivor Bassett, thirty-three, were teachers in a little school in Revelstoke, B.C., Canada. When they eloped, Bassett is alleged to have left his wife penniless.

See a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, article with the same photograph of Marcia used in the Temple, Texas, article in his Media/Documents section as well as a San Francisco, California, article advising that Marcia's father was en route to collect her and revealing that Marcia had used the alias "Sheila Paget" (the name of her own small niece/older daughter of her oldest sister Mona Kane Paget) plus an Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) article. Marcia was almost 3 months pregnant with their son Garth at the time of the elopement.

Marriage Certificate for Ivor Bassett and Marcia Valdene Kane … http://search.ancestry.com/iexec?htx=View&r=an&dbid=2378&iid=929032... … No. 5589; State of Washington, County of Lewis, Chehalis; Justice of the Peace P. C. Beaufort; 14 September 1923; Ivor Bassett of Grays Harbor County, Washington, and Marcia Valdene Kane of Multnomah County, Oregon; Witnesses: Mrs. Clara E. Kane and Charles Kane [Marcia's aunt and uncle]

Marriage certificate to Marcia Kane: "Washington, County Marriages, 1855-2008," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FLNM-MZY : accessed 31 Oct 2014), Ivor Bassett and Marcia Valdene Kane, 14 Sep 1923; citing State Archives, Olympia; FHL microfilm 4135594. See a photograph of their original marriage certificate in their respective "Media/Documents" sections or here: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-674-11237-279-43?cc=1534448

After release from prison, Ivor rejoined Marcia and, on June 22, 1924, their daughter Nadine Marcia Bassett (later also styled Murphy after her step-father) was born in Hoquium, WA, where he worked as a laborer per Nadine's birth certificate. He soon departed this second "family," never seeing any of them again.

Vancouver Broadcasters: http://members.shaw.ca/vancouverbroadcasters/B.htm Ivor Bassett - Announcer/classical music show host CFDC Vancouver circa 1926

CFDC Nanaimo/CKWX Vancouver [By Dennis Duffy; published in 1982] http://www3.telus.net/vanradiomuseum/CKWXroots_html.html “Stanley Goard provides a detailed first-person account of the beginnings of CKWX.” Stanley Goard: “…About that time, a fellow by the name of Ivor Bassett came along. He was a school teacher, very good command of the language, very knowledgeable, had an appreciation for classical music and an ability to just ramble on on a microphone. So he was up on the top floor of the Belmont Hotel, playing the records and announcing the program. He had a voice that bothered ladies like nobody's business. I was amazed at the mail that man got, and the things that wer (sic) in the letters that he got. Ivor Bassett really did a lot to help that station go; he just had something. I don't know what it was. He wasn't anything to look at; he was a round-faced, red-faced individual, and bald. He didn't look anything like he sounded. I think a lot of the ladies or girls that wrote letters to him, if they saw him, they'd wish they hadn't.”

Reno Evening Gazette [Reno, Nevada; Saturday, 9 July 1927] ... SUITS FILED ... Marcia V. Bassett vs Ivor Bassett (no other information)

Ivor was discovered dead upon a Miami, Florida, park bench in December 1939, then buried later in a Miami pauper's cemetery by Dade County when his body was unclaimed by any relatives...per advisement to his daughter Nadine Vasquez in the 1970s. See LDS Family Search, Florida Deaths, 1877-1939, film number 2116106, reference number Reg.#1876, Fn.#20795. ... https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FP9R-LLR ... Ivor's occupation on this record is cited "Author." Full record information: name "Ivor Bassett"; death date “20 December 1939”; death place “Miami, Dade County, Florida”; “male”; “white”; death age “about 58 years”; estimated birth year “1881”; father’s name “unobtainable”; father’s birthplace “unobtainable”; father’s name “unobtainable”; father’s birthplace “unobtainable”; mother’s name “unobtainable”; mother’s birthplace “unobtainable”; occupation “author”; place of residence “possibly British Columbia, Canada”; cemetery “R. Vault”; burial date “28 December 1939”

See also: "Florida, Death Index, 1877-1998," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VV92-8YS : accessed 31 Oct 2014), Ivor Bassett, 1939; from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : 2004); citing vol. 872, certificate number 20795, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.

The Ottawa Journal [Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; 4 January 1940; Thursday; page 4, column ] ... http://www.newspapers.com/image/44422420/ ... Mining Writer Found Dead in Miami ... "A communication from Miami police to the Ottawa department reported the death there on December 22 of a man thought to be a Canadian citizen. Found dead in Miami's Bay Front Park, there were no signs of violence on the body and death was attributed to natural causes. A man answering to his description is known to have lived in Texas two years ago with the name of Ivor Bassett. He had written several books on mining, newspaper articles and was known to be a Canadian. Bassett was 60 years of age."

None of Ivor's three children bore his surname after their respective mothers married other men, only one of his grandchildren bore his first name as a middle name--more in acknowledgement of that child's father's middle name, and none of their descendents ever bore any of his names.