Lucy (Evans) Drury

Lucy was born in Birmingham, England, on October 17, 1882. In 1889 she moved with her mother, brothers and sisters to Port Arthur, , where she completed school and became a clerk for the city. Bowling was a pastime and she had the distinction of attaining the highest score by a woman in 1915. 

Lucy and her mother, Ellen Evans, travelled to Whitehorse in 1917 to visit her sister, Clara, who was matron at the hospital. It was during that summer that she met William Drury. There were casual encounters at picnics and social events with mutual friends, but it wasn’t until they were both taking the boat south that the romance blossomed. She and Will were married in Port Arthur on November 5, 1917. They honeymooned in St. Louis where Will was attending and selling at the International Fur Market.

Lucy and Will built a home (which was pre-fabricated ‘outside’ and shipped to Whitehorse via boat and rail) on the corner of 4th and Main in Whitehorse. There they raised their children: Thomas, William and Mary. When children in town would come to visit, they always received a prune, ‘to keep them regular’. Her grandchildren, Shirley and Bill, recall stopping in to visit on their way home from school.

Dinner parties, followed by games of bridge or canasta, were part of their social life in Whitehorse. On one occasion, Lucy prepared the whole meal from only Yukon grown foods: vegetables and berries, fish and moose meat, butter, cream and milk, eggs, honey, flour ground from wheat grown near Pelly. Lucy was very active in the IODE and the Anglican Church. 

When the children were sent to boarding schools in Victoria, Lucy would spend several months there as well, to be closer to them. She rented rooms from Emily Carr and her sisters. While there she took pottery classes from Miss DeGroot. Frogs and pansies became her trademarks identifiable by a distinct LD on the bottoms.

Lucy and Will returned to England on a few occasions combining business with family visits. There were furs to be sold for Taylor and Drury’s as well as merchandise to be purchased for the stores. In their later years they enjoyed spending winters in Santa Barbara, California. 

Will died in 1953 and two years later Lucy moved to Vancouver. She lived with daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Sid Poulton, who built an apartment onto their home in North Vancouver. When a new ‘condominium’ concept building was built on English Bay she was able to purchase one of the apartments.

She died on February 11, 1977 at 94.