The People Behind Our Street Names

Frank Kappel born in Wales in 1886 was an early pioneer of the Shuswap area, arriving in Canada in 1911 and settling on a homestead in Celista. He cleared his own land, married Janet in Kamloops in 1912,worked as an accountant in Vancouver in 1913 and audited city books for Kamloops and Salmon Arm that year. He returned to the Shuswap and became a scalere. he then joined the army in 1914 and returned to the Shuswap in 1919. He joined the R.W. Bruhn Co, in 1921 and moved to Sicamous to manage the company from the head office on CPR Hill until it folded in 1947.

Visiting the Kappels as a child was a treat. The house was filled with beautiful paintings and countless African artifacts. The African artifacts had come from Mrs. Kappels brother who was an early African explorer. Mrs. Kappel was a painter of some renown, having studied in Germany in the early 1900's. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kappel spoke fluent German, French and Spanish. Their daughter Betty became a teacher and was one of my first teachers at the one room school on CPR Hill. Stanley became a mining engineer.