Tadasu and Sumi Ide Residence

Built around 1921, 1618 East 8th Avenue first appears in city directories in 1922. Built for the Ide family, it was the home of Tadasu Ide, a Japanese Interpreter at the court house and co-owner of an import-export company based on Powell Street. Tadasu played an important role in the community, was on the Vancouver Nippons Baseball team, and a member of the founding group of Canadian Japanese Association. In 1922, Tadasu along with Nobutaro Yasuno went to Ottawa on behalf of the Skeena River Fishermen’s Association and the Steveston Japanese Fishermen’s Association to lobby for fair treatment regarding the unfair distribution of fishing licenses.

In 1942, under the War Measures Act, nearly 22,000 Canadians of Japanese descent were forced out of their homes. The Canadian Government authorized the confiscation of the evacuees’ property, which was auctioned off at the fraction of its value and without the consent of the original owners. The evicted persons were sent to internment camps. The Ide family was removed from their home in 1942.

The house was added to the Vancouver Heritage Register in 2019 as a C-listing. It features a full width porch with flared posts, decorative dental pattern spanning front and simple brackets in gable, a wooden entry door with multi-pane upper and leaded glass sidelight, transom leaded glass window arrangement, and a clinker brick exterior chimney.

Source

City of Vancouver Report 2018, http://www.attheplate.com/wcbl/1910_1g5.html, http://nikkeimuseum.org/www/item_detail.php?art_id=A3569 , Misuo Yesaki- Sutebuston: A Japanese Village on the British Columbia Coast p. 79