Grace Van Voorden

Jaap and Emmy: The Story of Jack and Emma Manten Grace Van Voorden

Jaap and Emmy is the life story of Jack and Emma Manten. It describes their family and lives in the Netherlands before immigrating to British Columbia, Canada in 1923. The struggles of Dutch immigrants raising three daughters and starting Manten's Nursery, a horticultural business that specialized in importing propagating, and selling trees and shrubs is documented based on their letters and business records. Manten's Nursery was instrumental in the restocking of the B. C. tree fruit industry with dwarf rootstock after the 1949-50 frost, growing the BC filbert nut industry, the development of the dwarf Jubilee apple variety, and for propagation of a new Daphne variety called Daphne mantensiana. Manten conducted experimental research and served as a mentor for University of BC academics and students as well as researchers from the Dominion Experimental Station in Summerland. Manten's Nursery supplied plants to local and international government and research stations as well as stock for many of the well known gardens, parks, and nurseries in B including the University of British Columbia, UBC Botanical Garden, Queen Elizabeth Park, Stanley Park, Queens Park, and Vancouver and Penticton street trees.