10288 Highway 1: The Gordon Balcom House

Architecture Style: Vernacular

Built: 1947

Frank and Gladys Balcom combined home and work in their property in Paradise.  Frank had a garage where he could work on his trucks, and Gladys ran a little convenience store in the front of their home.

Their son Gordon went off to war in the 1940s,  as did 71 other young men from Paradise and West Paradise. Six of them were Balcoms.  So too these farming communities had sent 83 soldiers to fight in World War I. In each of the wars, the young veterans were changed forever by their experiences, and the path of their lives altered. Gordon served with the Royal Canadian Air Force overseas, and he met and fell in love with Elsie Gledhill of York, England.  Elsie and Gordon became part of Canadian history when she came over to Canada from England as one of our many  “War Brides”.  Gordon wanted the best for his bride, and they improved the stretched-out home of his parents into a pleasant two-story home for themselves and their daughter, Anne Marie, and son, Kerry. After working in the trucking business for a time, Gordon re-enlisted in the Air Force, and the family travelled, as Air Force families did, to various postings. In 1962, when he was only 41, Gordon died in Germany, and Elsie and the children returned home in 1963. Anne Marie remained in Paradise and married Jack Pearle, son of Louise Jackson and Mason Pearle.

Elsie was fresh air and light to Paradise. Far from her childhood home, she made Paradise her home and formed close friendships with the people of the village. She came with energy and ability and gave her gifts to the Women’s Institute, the church choir, and community activity. She was a talented amateur photographer, and with her camera, she preserved the records of homes and well-known locales in Paradise- a valuable record for researchers, and a photographic memoir of the home she had adopted, and came to love.

When she died in 1997 her will entrusted the home to her longtime companion, Randall Myrick.