Gunner John Robert Terryberry

John Terryberry was born on a farm in Burford in 1922. He was the youngest child of John Terryberry and Bessie Beatrice Jackson. He was single when he enlisted but he married and had two children after serving in WWII.

In 1954, the family lived at 3 Churchill Drive, in Victoria Survey. This neighbourhood came to be known as wartime housing. In a step meant to meet the growing demand for affordable housing, for both defence-related industry workers and returning veterans, the Federal Government jumped into the world of residential development for the first time in the 1940s and Victory Homes were born.

Constructed of prefabricated components (walls and roofs), the homes mimicked the mass production of the war effort. In all, over 30,000 homes were built across Canada under the direction of the Wartime Housing Corporation, later to become Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in 1947. Most homes were one storey, with steep pitched roofs and small sash windows. Although some homes had brick exteriors, the majority had clapboard wooden siding. Both centre and side-hall plans were available. The homes typically had an eat-in kitchen, living room, one bathroom and two bedrooms downstairs, with room to expand upstairs into the attic if required. Victory Homes were designed to be comfortable and large enough for a single family. Their unique and recognizable designs have become “classics” in the Canadian urban landscape.

John Terryberry died in 2006 and is buried in the Burford Pioneer Cemetery.