The Starks
When Emma Stark found herself a job as a teacher in Nanaimo, in 1874, she must have felt proud. We do not have, in the documents at our disposal, her exact birthdate, but in 1874 Miss Emma Stark was not yet 19. She began her teaching career in a one-room school, a log cabin in the North Cedar district. The school was modest, Just as the entire system of public education was only two years old. But, at a starting salary of $40 a month, the young teacher was richer than any store clerk and more independentthan most other women of her time.
The story of the Starks begins in slavery, their freedom was gained at a high personal cost and after much scrimping and saving, to gather the money thar few freed slaves would have been able to raise. They became farmers in the south-east until they were forced to move by the nightriders. They settled in California and prospected, but with so much difficulty that the year 1859 found them among the pioneer farmers of the Saanich peninsula. Their years of fame were acquired on Saltspring Island, where their success, along with other Black farmers, created the legend that Saltspring Island was a Black colony.
On Saltspring Island, Mrs. Sylvia Stark, who died in 1944 at the great age of 106, is remembered as a happy and quiet person, deeply religious. She was for a long time the volunteer nurse and midwife of the island, helping to bring new life into the world. Often she was quoted, even by non-religious people, because her words showed a real determination to improve life: "I see the hand of God guiding me through all my troubles, guiding me to the high life." She had troubles, but she had a higher life.