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Page 9 West Vancouver Historical Society March 2003 Ambleside Park Village New Community Asset to West Van Ambleside Park Village is an example of what can be done when local government and other agencies get together in an effort to provide housing for returned veterans. It is an example of what can be done by a little co-operation, a good proportion of “get-up-and-go” and a determination to cut through red tape. There are ten returned soldiers’ families established in the new little community now. There will be fifteen by the first week in the new year. Ambleside Park Village is not the place where these returned men want to bring up their families for the rest of their lives. It is not an imposing collection of soldiers’ mansions. But it is the very best that could be devised out of the material at hand, and it provides warm, dry, comfortable housing for fifteen families that were desperately pleading for a decent chance to make respectable homes for themselves. The agencies behind Ambleside Park Village are the local Rehabilitation Committee, the Canadian Legion, the Municipal Council and Claire Downing, chairman of the Parks Board. Through them, the old army huts at Ambleside Park have been converted into comfortable homes. Typical of the ten families that have already taken up occupation are Cornelius, Pamela and Boyd van Aggelen. Cornelius left West Vancouver High School to join the army, and after serving in the ranks became a lieutenant with the famous Thirteenth Field Regiment. He was in the D-Day invasion, and because of his outstanding courage in the Falaise Gap encounter, was awarded the Military Medal. Details of the exploit are unknown even to his family. Cornelius refuses to talk about it. While overseas, Cornelius met Pamela Pailes, a civil servant in London. Eventually they were married. He was discharged in Vancouver on August 5th of last year. Also in the new little community are Mr. and Mrs. Nick Williamson and their four children, Mr. and Mrs. Angus McTavish and their two children, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney and their baby, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gill and their two children, Mr. and Mrs. Crickmay and little junior Crickmay, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Stevenson and their two children, Mr. and Mrs. Wally Breeden, Mr. and Mrs Jack MacDonald and their two children, and Mr. and Mrs. Johnston and their two youngsters. The van Aggelens, who occupy one of the smallest suites, will pay $25 per month. The other suites are priced at $30 and $35 per month. There have been more than 60 applications for accommodation in the hutments, and the housing committee of four from the Canadian Legion and four from the Rehabilitation Committee have sprouted new grey hairs in making the allocations. The fifteen chosen have been selected on the basis of need and merit, (from The Lions Gate Times, Jan 2, 1947) Sixty years ago West Vancouver seemed to do more with less. The huts at Ambleside Park provide a good example. Another was the Hollyburn Pavilion, which was purchased by the Lions Club and converted into “The Youth Centre" and later the "Community Centre Every square foot of this old wooden building, upstairs and down, sloped and creeked. (Although, according to Ken Garland, the dance floor was equalled only by the Commodore and the “Roof" at the Vancouver Hotel.) Cast your mind back sixty years (if you were around then and had the beginnings of a memory) and visualize what you saw at the southeast corner of 14th and the waterfront. Here was the Blue Bus garage and repair depot. Astonishing that it stood for such a long time. It was pulled down to make way for the waterside elegance that is there now. It was earlier thought that the old building would inevitably succumb to wind, gravity or both. By contrast the war surplus huts comprising Ambleside Park Village amounted to elegance itself. Our January Speakers We’ve had such an enthusiastic response about the presen- tation at the January general meeting that it seems appropri- ate to reprint the following article from Nikkei Images: Tenney-Sean Homma - A Journey of Discovery In November 1991 Tomekichi Homma’s children and grandchildren proudly attended the opening ceremony of the Tomekichi Homma Elementary School in Steveston, the seaport community that was home to a thriving Japanese Canadian community prior to World War II. In \90S?, Homma, a naturalized Canadian citizen who had immigrated to Canada in the late 1880’s, applied to be included on the voters’ list. His application was denied, starting a chain of events that went all the way to the Privy Council of Britain. Homma’s struggle to gain the franchise for Japanese Canadians is a matter of public record, yet for his own family, the man himself remains somewhat of a mystery. Keay (See “Journey of Discovery”, pagelO)