Semerad, Charlie “Donuts”

See picture P.975.47 Green Album, Princeton Pioneer Days. Per Sylvia Hurd April 14, 2026:

Twice now, I’ve seen a picture recently posted online of a huge log cabin that existed somewhere in Princeton. It was titled ‘Simerod family log house near Princeton, B.C.’ I’ve done a lot of research around here, but have never encountered that picture, or that family name. It got me thinking, which is always a bad thing, who were the Simerod’s? My first place to look was our museum archives. They also mention the same family name, but it didn’t match up with any other records – B.C. archives, directories, Ancestry, etc. I then traced the Simerod’s daughter to a man she married in Princeton, a Mr. Colebank, who married Mary Olga Semerad, not Simerod! Ah ha! The name was misspelled. Now that I have found the correct family name, the research can begin! Mary’s father was Cenek Vaclav Semera, a Bohemian native of Belgium (Slovakia) who was a university graduate who spoke 5 languages. A confectioner, fruit merchant, known as Charlie V. Semerad, he established several businesses at the turn of the last century in various B.C communities and Edmonton. In 1909, he moved his wife and six children (five girls, one boy) to Princeton, where he opened a bakery and restaurant, earning him the moniker – Doughnut! In 1912, when he learned the KVR railway was passing through Princeton to Summerland, he sold the restaurant and built a commodious log hotel, Semerad’s Road House, with an attached house, on the Fivemile (about 15 miles northeast of Princeton). This building provided accommodation for the various workers and contractors working on the railway. Charlie further started a stage line that went to and from Princeton, delivering goods and passengers. He and his wife, representatives of the B.C. Nurseries Co., LTD. continued to sell fruit and ornamental trees from their new home. Shortly after moving in, he applied for a liquor license but was denied. Two years later, in 1914, he was sentenced to six months’ jail in Kamloops for ‘running a blind pig.’ (term for operating an illegal drinking establishment). In early December of 1914, when Charlie was in Edmonton on business, his road house in Princeton burned to the ground. The family was cared for by Guthrie, McDougall & Co. at their railway camp until Charlie returned. During the war, in 1917, while taking orders for the nursery in Merritt, B.C,. Charlie was arrested on suspicion of being a German spy before he could prove his identity! Shortly after this the family moved to the Cultas Lake area of Sardis where Charlie settled into the life of being a farmer. Sadly, in 1928, he would be fatally injured when his horses bolted, throwing him from his rig, then running him over with his cart. He was only 56.