Lacey, James E. “Jim”

Jim Lacey was born in 1854 in Ireland. He died on May 1, 1945, at Princeton General Hospital.

It appears Jim Lacey came to Princeton at some point before December 1913, when the Similkameen Star reported that he was “in town … from Hedley renewing old acquaintanceship.” In September of 1915, he was (along with Messrs. McLean, Ingram, and Tomlin) surveying a government road to Nickel Plate mine (Hedley) but later that year, in November, he was in Princeton supervising the grading of Bridge Street (1915). 

He was one of the original bond holders (1911) of the Portland Cement Company and attended a meeting in Princeton on June 16, 1916, at which time the company was in liquidation. He was still in Princeton in June 1917. In fact, it seems he had made Princeton his home – he served on the jury for the inquest into the death of John McDonald in November 1921 and was one of the pallbearers at the funeral of Jim Wallace in March 1928. In March 1941, he won a lace-edged linen tablecloth St. Peter’s Catholic Church Altar Society fundraising sale. 

He was hospitalized at the Princeton General Hospital in the spring of 1945 and died a few months later. His funeral was held at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Rev. Father Collins officiating. His very brief obituary (May 24, 1945) noted that “he had latterly retired as a contractor and Government road foreman.”