Elizabeth Fordham
Elizabeth Jane Fordham, nee Bray, was born in London, England in 1901. In 1924, Elizabeth accompanied her ex-boyfriend’s aunt to Regina, Saskatchewan, to put some distance between them. She worked at several odd jobs and as a domestic before moving to Vancouver by 1929. She worked as a presser for a time at Swan Brothers. In 1930, she married Richard Henry Alfred Fordham (1896-1977), a sawmill worker and fellow English immigrant. Richard was unemployed for a large part of the Depression and, facing eviction, they joined other unemployed in picketing landlords evicting the poor. By the 1940’s, Elizabeth was with the Women’s Auxiliary of the Worker’s Unity League. The League was responsible for establishing the Children’s Jubilee Summer Camp in Indian Arm for workers’ children in 1936. Elizabeth is recorded as a first director in the society’s 1944 incorporation papers. By the 1950’s, the couple had settled in the suburbs of South Vancouver. Elizabeth’s passion for the pacifist movement, summer camps, and civic concerns, can be traced through her letters to the editor over the following decades.