1901 House on Victoria Drive
The Story of Two Houses and a Tent
Vancouver and West Vancouver, B.C.
Elizabeth Ruth Clarke was born in 1874 in London England. In 1902 Elizabeth married Frederick James Ades. They moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1905. They had three children, Nina, Gordon, and Nancy and owned their own home on Victoria Drive. (Built in 1901.) Elizabeth worked as a maid to vaudeville actors performing in Vancouver. She was a dresser for Marion Davies, who married William Randolph Hearst. She was also a cleaner at the Beacon Theater in Vancouver. In 1922 Frederick left the family and never returned.
Elizabeth could not pay the taxes on the Victoria Drive home, and a neighbor, Mr. Robertson, purchased the house for the price of the tax bill. Elizabeth and the three children moved to a tent with a wooden floor at 19th and Railway in West Vancouver. The tent in the photo below is an example of the kind of tent it might have been. Nancy and Gordon continued to attend Lord Selkirk School in Vancouver by taking the West Vancouver ferry to Vancouver each day. Elizabeth and her daughter Nina also took the ferry to go to work in Vancouver.
Tent of type Elizabeth Clark Ades and 3 children lived in-NVMA #4008
In 1923 Elizabeth and the three children moved back to Vancouver, to an apartment on Commercial Drive. In 1926 Elizabeth bought the house at 1833 Lakewood Drive, Vancouver. The house was on a 1/2 lot south of the lane between 17th and 18th Street. Her son Gordon and his wife bought the house from Elizabeth in 1948. Elizabeth moved to Pico Rivera, California to live with her daughter Nancy and her husband. She later lived in Huntington Park, California with her daughter Nina and her husband and their son Alan Wilson. Elizabeth died in 1963 and is buried at Rose Hills Cemetery in Whittier, California.
1833 Lakewood Drive, Vancouver House
Note: Elizabeth Ruth Clarke Ades was the maternal grandmother of Alan
Wilson, husband of Suzanne Wilson.
Photos: Top photo taken of Victoria Drive, Vancouver house in 2010.
Tent photo taken of NVMA photo number 4008.
Bottom photo copied from family history of Lakewood Drive home.
Demolition: House on Lakewood Drive was demolished in 1982 and the
present house built.
present house built.
