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This is Pansy Mae Stuttard (1875-1963). She was Canada’s first female sea captain & later operated the Pansy Mae Cabaret, a brothel and bar in Tsawwassen. She said her cabaret was a “place to bring a girl for a drink, and if you don’t have a girl, we’ll supply one.”
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Born Pansy May Miller in New York, she came to British Colombia about 1905 and married sea captain, Rupert Stuttard. They eventually owned five boats for a freight business. They opened a brothel on Helen Island called the “Blind Pig’s Inn” https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ir-ECgAAQBAJ&pg=PT101&lpg=PT101&dq=Pansy+Mae+Stuttard&source=bl&ots=dh20fxnPOL&sig=ACfU3U2AStXCG6apVAG4KD4O5_mUEDJucA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj75IiK1ujoAhU4UBUIHQ2uC8cQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ">https://books.google.co.uk/books...
In the mid-1920s, Pansy Mae leased a 27-acre plot of land at the south end of English Bluff Road and built a small house there right up against the Point Roberts border. She started to smuggle liquor from Vancouver to the U.S. during the prohibition.
She went as far as building a cable-and-pulley system to heave crates of alcohol down to Tsawwassen beach, where boats waited to smuggle them into the USA.
In the late 1920s she decided to build what she called a “cabaret,” but it was really a brothel. She advertised it as “a place to bring a girl for a drink, and if you don’t have a girl, we’ll supply one.” https://www.surreynowleader.com/community/delta-residents-share-their-memories-to-mark-canadas-150th-birthday/">https://www.surreynowleader.com/community...
Her cabaret was shut down several times by the Delta authorities. Pansy would go to court where she would pay her fine and then go back to business as usual.
Pansy and her husband continued to live the highlife but the ending of prohibition put a serious dent in her business and the Cabaret closed in 1933. Pansy continued to live in her small house at the end of English Bluff Road until the 50s.
Pansy made the national papers in 1958 when two men broke into her house when her husband was away, tied her up and stole $15,000.
Friends had told Pansy to put her money in the bank but she described herself as “an old pioneer type” and kept it in her house instead.
Friends had told Pansy to put her money in the bank but she described herself as “an old pioneer type” and kept it in her house instead.
Pansy told her story to the Vancouver Sun. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/50186700/">https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/...
She the intruders she had no money, but ‘the bigger man of the two grabbed her by the feet and shook over the bed, banging her head a couple of times.’
“I had the money in a towel under my nightgown. The bundle fell out. I had fastened the towel with seven safety pins and they broke every pin.”
Although the robbers tied her to the bed, she wriggled free. https://pressfrom.info/ca/news/canada/-191617-week-in-history-pansy-mae-stuttard-was-a-b-c-granny-with-a-gun-who-ran-a-brothel.html">https://pressfrom.info/ca/news/c...
Although the robbers tied her to the bed, she wriggled free. https://pressfrom.info/ca/news/canada/-191617-week-in-history-pansy-mae-stuttard-was-a-b-c-granny-with-a-gun-who-ran-a-brothel.html">https://pressfrom.info/ca/news/c...
“I picked up the shotgun and went to the door. I couldn’t see anything because it was pitch dark, but I fired one blast in each direction along the street.”
Her cocker spaniel Muffett was in the house with her but she said “he is so friendly with everyone he was no help.” https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/week-in-history-pansy-mae-stuttard-was-a-granny-with-a-gun-who-ran-a-brothel/wcm/b81aafd6-8ec8-4bca-b64c-abb89987f7c2/amp/">https://vancouversun.com/news/loca...
Pansy missed but the two men fled and her story was reported in the national press.
At the time of the robbery, Pansy was recovering from a nasty fall that had nearly killed her. But she told the press “I’m going to live to be a hundred. The Lord don’t want me and the devil won’t take me.”
It is unknown if it was God or the Devil who relented but Pansy died in 1963 in Cloverdale. She was 87.
