Descendants of Frederick and Mary Paulin gather here
The Times, Feb 3, 1947
Hickey – In San Mateo, Feb 2, 1947, Daniel Lewis Hickey, dearly beloved husband of Nellie Pauline Hickey, brother of Mrs Helen Judge, Portland, Ore. A member of the Pacific Service Employees Association.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, Feb 4, 1947 at 2 pm at the Chapel of Crosby-N Gray & Co, 231 Park Road, Burlingame.
Times Colonist 26 July 1951
Well-known Victorians wed
Victoria friends will be interested in the announcement that Mr Benedict Bantly and Mrs Nellie Hickey were married in Burlingame, Calif on July 18.
Now on an extended honeymoon, Mr and Mrs Bantly will spend a brief time in Victoria Friday, arriving on the Seattle boat at noon and leaving again on the afternoon boat for Vancouver, en route to England.
Both wedding principals are well known here, Mrs Bantly being the former Miss Nellie Pauline of Victoria, and Mr Bantly being one of the city’s outstanding music teachers some years ago.
Victoria Daily Times, 21 Jun 1906
Mr Daniel Louis Hickey, an electrician of Seattle, and Miss Nellie Pauline, of Oak Bay, were united in marriage at St Luke’s Church, Cedar Hill, yesterday afternoon. The marriage was performed by Rev Mr Connell, rector of the church. After the ceremony a reception was held at the residence of the bride’s parents, Mr and Mrs Pauline, Oak Bay, where many friends assembled to extend well wishes to the young couple. Mr and Mrs Hickey left on the steamer Princess Victoria last night and will spend their honeymoon in California. They will afterwards take up their residence in Seattle.
Victoria Daily Times, 11 July 1899
A concert is to be given in Sir William Wallace hall on Wednesday evening, 19th inst, the proceeds of which are to be devoted to assist Mrs Miller, a poor lady, to reach England, where she has relatives. Mrs Miller is partially blind and her case is an eminently deserving one. Mr WJ Hanna will take the chair at the concert and among those taking part are Mesdames Hall and Hunt, Misses Wilson and Baker, and Messrs George Burnett, Benedict Bantly, JG Brown, G Watson, H Firth, WD Kinnaird, R Wilson, R Robertson. A subscription list has been opened to aid Mrs Miller and the charitable disposed are invited to assist this truly deserving case.
Victoria Daily Times, 11 Oct 1906
Benedict Bantly, who recently opened a studio in the Garesche building, has determined to introduce a little innovation into his methods of teaching here. At the request of a number of friends he has decided to commence class tuition along the lines of the Liepzig and other large European conservatories. This system has served special advantages in that a pupil has the opportunity of benefiting by the instruction given to others in the same class and gains confidence by playing before them. Other advantages are also claimed for this system.
Here is the map for Nellie Paulin, who was first married to Daniel Louis Hickey in 1906, then Benjamin Bantley in 1950. She lived in Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle and San Mateo.
The Times, 27 Sep 1954
Bantly – In San Mateo, September 25, 1954, Nellie Hickey Bantly, beloved wife of Benedict Bantly; loving sister of Mrs Polly Williams of Vancouver, BC; Mrs Nugent Short of Victoria, BC; Mrs Violet Lapraik of Etna, Calif, and Fred a Pauline of Victoria, BC; also survived by several nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, September 28, 1954 at 2:00pm at the Colonial Mortuary of Crosby-N, Gray & Company, 2 Park Road, Burlingame. Internment will be in the family plot in Victoria, BC.
Los Angeles Times, 27 January 1957
Music Sounds Note in Life of La Puentean
La Puente – Rooms filled with instruments, compositions, pictures of composers and musicians reflect the musical career of one of the city’s most colorful personalities, Benedict Bantly.
The house at 15802 E Temple Street has become so crowded with his collection that Bantly is remodelling the attic to serve as an extra music room.
Of all his possessions, the 79 year-old musician is proudest of a framed diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music at Leipzig, Germany, where he studied from 1902 to 1906.
Started in Canada
Bantly’s musical training began more than 70 years ago when he was a boy in Victoria, British Columbia. He and his father, brother and a sister played at dancing clubs in Victoria.
At one performance, Bantly, who was also a photographer, arrived with his violin case, only to discover that instead of the instrument he had a camera inside.
The La Puentean met his first wife while studying in Germany. She was a vocalist and he wrote many compositions for her.
“This was a particularly mushy one,” he chuckled, thumbing through one of the many scores that fill a bookcase.
Played for Actors
During the early days of silent motion pictures, Bantly played mood music for such actors as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin.
In 1922 Bantly joined the faculty of La Puente High School and was head of the music department there for 30 years. One of his special productions was the Ben Sing Laundry act put on for the annual vaudeville.
For this number he used bamboo rakes as music stands and several authentic Chinese instruments. He still has a Chinese violin and a botak, or mandolin, from Malaya.
Has Dozen Violins
Of more than a dozen violins, his favorite is a model of an Amati which he played in the Leipzig Gewandhaus where Mendelssohn first conducted.
Among his smaller instruments is a 100-year-old yellow clarinet made of box wood, with only seven keys, which his father brought from Germany. He has three others of the Albert system that date from the 80s, a mandola, similar to the present viola, and old metronomes.
Of his five pianos the oldest is a three and one-half octave piano built in Paris in 1809. Beside a modern electric organ, which he said shocked him at first because it sounded synthetic, he has an 1875 Reed Organ.
Bantly was concertmaster for Harold Scott’s San Gabriel Valley Symphony Orchestra for 10 years. He organized the Rotary Orchestral Club in Victoria, and returns there for a visit each year.
Practiced Diligently
Proving that there is no substitute for practice, Bantly produced a record of his practice week in his early days which showed a total of 45 hours spent on the piano, organ or violin.
Bantly, whose philosophy is “if you can’t laugh it off, it’s too bad,” believes that the best method for staying young is to keep busy.
He practices what he preaches. He still teaches music and has organized a local Rotary music group.
Daily Santa Maria Times, 25 October 1926
Recital will be Attraction Wednesday
The recital at the Presbyterian church Wednesday evening will give the people of Santa Maria an opportunity to hear again a large number of their favorite local singers and musicians and also a recent accession to the musical circles of the community in the person of Mr Benedict Bantly. Mr Bantly is a gifted musician who has had the best training and a long and varied experience in his profession.
As the family have become permanent residents of the community a few words introducing them to the people of Santa Maria will be of general interest. Mr Bantly is a native son, born in Lassen County, of naturalized German parents. At an early age he became a resident of Victoria, BC, by the removal of the family to that city. Here he passed through the high school and pursued musical studies from childhood, giving early evidence of unusual promise. Victoria is an old and cultured city, offering many advantages to the student of music, of which the young enthusiast availed himself fully. But the time came when he felt the need of larger opportunities, and soon after becoming of age he went to Germany, where he pursued his studies for four years, in the Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipsic.
This institution is one of the most famous music schools in Europe, founded in 1843 by the great Mendelsohn. Here Mr Bantley studied the violin under Arthur Nikisch, a renowned orchestra conductor, at the time head of the school. He studied the piano under equally good teachers. It was his honor to be chosen for one of Europe’s greatest musical organizations, the famous Gewandhaus orchestra, where he played under Nikisch.
Upon his graduation, he returned to Victoria, and founded the Bantly School of Music, which he conducted for fifteen years, quite a number of his pupils having since attained high rank in their calling. During this time he was organist in St Andrew’s Cathedral.
In 1922, desiring a change of climate, moved by the lure of California, the family broke the social ties and sacrificed their business interests, and came to Los Angeles. The next year, at the solicitation of the Puente school board, Mr Bantly became head of the musical department. His acceptance of this work in our own school occasioned universal regret, both in the Puente school and community.
While Mr Bantly was in Leipsic he met a young lady student of the same institution. A romance developed and their marriage followed. Mrs Bantly is an accomplished musician also, and collaborates with her husband, teaching voice and piano.
At the concert Wednesday evening Mr Bantly will play and Mrs Bantly will sing. The recital promises to be of unusual interest.
Victoria Daily Colonist, 11 Sep 1889
Per Str RP Rithet from Westminster – Mr. and Mrs. Pauline, Misses Bessie, Flora, Sarah, Marion, Nellie and Violet Pauline, Mrs. Ferloyd, Mrs. Burns, Miss Murchison, Miss Sharp, WL Thompson, EG Fletcher, George Doing, JW Todd, WW Wilson, WH Bone, S Clay, Gelley, Dr Cardwell, J Harvey, J Pauline, G Brooks, Bondier, Greenwood, Wilson.
The Amazing Paulin(e) Family 