Verdun Then and Now

I came across these photos on a Facebook page called Verdun Citoyen/Verdun Citizen. They are not dated but the horse and buggy in the first one would suggest they are from at least a century ago. On a sunny day I decided to take a bike ride and try to reproduce these Verdun scenes as they appear today.

I was standing at the corner of Claude and De l’Eglise (the address indicated on the historical picture) but I’m not sure I’ve got the right spot.

The picture above was taken on Wellington street from the block between Gordon and Galt, looking “east”* towards Notre-Dame des-Sept-Douleurs church.

Remember when we figured out that the Chinese Laundry shown in an old Verdun photo would have been across the street from Verdun Methodist church on Gordon? And a couple of people said there had been a Chinese restaurant next to the laundry with its front door facing Wellington? If we could pull this picture back just half a block we might just see that restaurant. That corner is occupied by the Friperie Renaissance now. I’m not sure but I think the part of the Renaissance building that you can see in my photo below is the same building housing Lafleur Furniture in the historical picture. Do you suppose any of that nice detailing is still there underneath the siding?  
- Amy

Babes in Toyland?

Charlie Jardine in the 1957 Verdun United YAG Revue.

I spoke this week with June Jardine because her surname had come up recently and I hoped she could give me the skinny on a couple of things. I wanted to know if she was related to this Charlie Jardine who shows up in a few pictures from the Verdun United shows of the 50s and 60s. These were elaborate musical revues put together by the church’s Young Adult Group of the time. As some of you surely know, Charlie was June’s husband. They were already young marrieds when this photo was taken in 1957. The “fashion show” was a popular portion of these revues, and June recalls Harvey Mercer and others combing the bazaars and rummage sales for period dresses that the men – Charlie, Ed Chaffey, Don Peddar -- might fit into.

I think Charles Jardine looks like a million bucks in this outfit, don’t you?

The late Ed Chaffey collected and labeled many pictures from those years. I was confused at first when he indicated that Charlie was in the one below… until I realized he must have been in the horse costume! I won’t speculate as to which (ahem) half of the horse he was.

June Jardine is in this one as well. She’s one of the “soldiers” in white hats and boots in what seems to be a Nutcracker-inspired number.

I hope you won’t find my comments irreverent. I love looking back at these photos. It’s so obvious what a good time everyone was having! From what I’ve heard about Charlie Jardine, who sadly passed away in 2010, he was a good sport with a terrific sense of humour.

Verdun in the 1920s

UPDATE: Linda Potts writes: “I grew up in Verdun and lived on Galt ave at the corner of Bannantyne. My Mother and grandmother would often send my older brother and me to the Chinese laundry on Gordon and I also remember my mother and aunt taking me to a restaurant at the corner of Gordon and Wellington in the late 1950's and early 60's and I believe it also might have been owned by a Chinese person.”

This doesn’t prove that there was a laundry at Galt above Wellington way back in the 1920s, but a photograph sent by Katherine Black adds strong evidence. She points out that in the group photo, you can see what certainly looks like the roof of the nave of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs just above the two men in felt hats. Katherine walks by that corner often and she stopped to take a picture looking through the lane toward De l’Eglise avenue. As mentioned in the original post, the wooden building that housed the laundry has been replaced by the Renaissance building, but the triplex on the left, although somewhat changed, could very well be the same structure. And there is the identical roof and chimney at the end of the lane!

Thank you, Linda and Katherine, for the feedback! - Amy

P.S.: I really wanted to call this Blog post, Cloche Hats and Laundromats, but a laundromat is where you wash your own clothes, whereas a laundry is where you take your clothes to have someone else clean them. Oh well.

ORIGINAL POST:

“Verdun Methodist” is all it says on the original of this photo. This tells me one thing: that although the hats suggest the 1920s, this was most probably taken before 1925, when Verdun Methodist Church became Verdun United. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this is a choir group, and that maybe they are heading out to do some Christmas caroling on this snowy day.

So where was this shot taken? I hoped the laundry in the background could provide the answer. A search for “Wong Sing Laundry in Verdun” didn’t turn up anything, but on a no-longer active website called “Growing Up in Verdun” people recalled two Chinese laundries in Verdun, one on “the even side of 2nd avenue near Verdun ave.” and the other on “Gordon avenue, next to the lane above Wellington”.

That spot is currently occupied by the Friperie Renaissance building (the door where they receive donations faces Gordon and is next to the laneway). The person who mentioned the laundry in this location also recalled that there had been a restaurant next to it (would be off the right side of this picture) facing Wellington avenue. These memories were of Verdun in the 1940s, but it seems possible to me that the laundry was in that location twenty years earlier. What makes this location seem to fit is that the old church was located on the “even” side of Gordon, just a little above Wellington. It has since been torn down and there are condos in the spot now. But if the laundry in this photo is the one that was on Gordon, the people in this photo would be facing Verdun Methodist Church!

Let’s not stop there. A second photo in our collection is labeled “Verdun United Church Choir 1928”. Although the name had changed by this time, the building was still on Gordon, as the church on Woodland wasn’t built until 1930. I think that’s a corner of the church building we see on the left of this shot, and that if we could swing around and look across the street, the Wong Sing laundry might still be there!

Two Verdun Methodist churches were built on Gordon avenue, the first in 1902, and the second in 1908 as the congregation grew by leaps and bounds. The picture below is of the 1908 building, which served the congregation until they moved into an even larger church at 650 Woodland in 1931.

Remember That Men's Choir from the 50s?

I shared this photo in a post about music back in October 2019. I had found it in our archives (a fancy name for the unlabeled boxes of papers and photos that had been lugged back to the church when the Mission closed earlier that year). The picture was identified as “Men’s Club Choir, 1954” but the individuals’ names were not given. At the time I obtained a few names by posting the photo on the Crawford Park Kids Facebook page, and I shared what I learned with you.

Then last spring, a member of the Crawford Park Kids group, Andrew Smith, posted a copy of the same photo that he had found while engaging in a popular lockdown activity: going through stuff in one’s closets. His copy had all the names! My favorite discovery is that the sweet-faced young man kneeling at left is Harold Grace, who appears approximately a quarter century later in another post on this blog.

There’s a good chance Len Storey was the photographer.

Back row: Rev. A.E. Jones, Bill Metherell, Eric Humphrey, Arnold MacInnis, Marvin Smith, Randy West, Herb Fleet, Murray Beesley, Jim Hutchinson.
Front row: Harold Grace, George Gray, Bill Morgan, Alan Boyle, Bill Bryce.

Thanksgiving is celebrated by all of Canada’s founding nations

[Originally published last year in the Manitoulin Expositor (Northern Ontario's oldest newspaper), this editorial reminds us how our Thanksgiving differs from the American version and that it has its origins in Indigenous peoples' gratitude for the harvest.]

By Expositor Staff - October 16, 2019

The power of US cultural dominance often leaks through into other countries, often to the confusion, and sometimes detriment, of those countries’ own cultures and experiences—particularly when it comes to historical interpretation of celebrations.

As we dig into the leftovers from this past Monday’s holiday meal, we might do well to reflect on a few Canadian thoughts.

The first Thanksgiving celebrations in North America took place when most of the people living in our region referred to this continent as Turtle Island. The Indigenous inhabitants gave thanks to the harvest season long before any Europeans even dreamed of this vast and bountiful land.

The first Europeans to celebrate a day of thanksgiving were not the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock who figure so prominently in the American foundation mythology. That particular historical marker goes to Sir Martin Frobisher, as he and his crew are credited as the first Europeans to celebrate a Thanksgiving ceremony in North America in 1578. 

The next group of Europeans to bow their heads in prayer to the Creator were the inhabitants of New France under Samuel de Champlain in 1606. The Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving in what they termed the New World didn’t take place until 1621. Not only were those icons of (white) American cultural identity literally thousands of years behind the first peoples of this land in offering thanks for the bounty of the growing season, they were also pretty much Johnny-come-latelies when it comes to the settler celebrations. So why do we let that image define our Thanksgiving?

This is a time, as leaves turn from various shades of green to a multifarious riot of colours, to remind us to look around at all that for which we should be thankful. Thanksgiving is not a celebration of colonial dominance. In truth, thanksgiving has been a component of many cultures and, as a celebration, it far predates the arrival of Christianity to Turtle Island, even for those who follow the Book of Mormon.

So, no matter however, whatever and to whomever one decides to give thanks for the bounties that enrich our lives, the Canadian Thanksgiving should be a time we come together to realize that, in the grand scheme of the global division of resources, we as Canadians all have much reason to give thanks.

Certainly there are many who have less than others, and the gap between the rich and the poor is steadily growing in this nation, but we still enjoy a much smaller gap than those who count the Pilgrims among their forebears. Those pilgrims were refugees, fleeing the intolerance and discrimination they faced in their English homeland and they were welcomed (and by all accounts aided and supported) by the peoples who inhabited this land before them.

Perhaps in our own national narrative, especially in these times of a seeming growing intolerance, Canadians old and new should reflect on how much we and our ancestors owe to those who now share their land with us. Then, following that reflection, we should as a nation give thanks to our hosts because it is the polite thing for a guest to do.

Read original

Boys of Summers Past

UPDATE: I received a message from a Mark Daniel on Christmas Eve in which he confirms that the Life Boys became the Boys Brigade sometime after the war. They met in Verdun United Church where, Mark says, there was a room that used to be a walk-in safe! Does anyone else remember this? Also I feel certain the uniform changed when they became the Boys Brigade. I would love to see a photo from the 50s or 60s. I’m still very curious to know where this shot was taken.

FURTHER UPDATE: I shared the photo in the January 8th paper newsletter and received a response from Vernon Turner. He appears to have solved the mystery of the location of the photo, and don’t I look silly? Vernon says it was taken on Desmarchais Boulevard near Verdun Ave., across the street from Verdun Elementary School (formerly Woodland School). You may recall that I worked in that school building for six years when we had the Mission there! I even remember when this photo first came to light, showing it to Shirley Mitchell and both of us saying the spot looked familiar! In our defense, the corner has changed a great deal since the 40s, but I believe the building shown in the photo is still there. An ugly storefront has been added for the laundromat that is now housed on the ground floor; one of the windows was bricked over at some point; overhangs have been added to the closed-in balconies off the back of the building. Still, I believe Vernon is absolutely right and I am slapping myself in the forehead. - Amy

Grabbed from Google maps.

ORIGINAL POST:
I shared the photo below on a Verdun history page on Facebook trying to identify the group these young lads belonged to. It dates from about 1945. Someone had told me they might be Sea Cadets, but respondents on the site said either Boys Brigade or Life Boys. The second picture, circa 1942, is from one of the glass slides in our collection that Dennis Brown scanned to digital format. It looks to me like it says Life Boys on their caps. Is it possible the Life Boys became the Boys Brigade at a certain point? I’d love to hear more about these organizations that were closely associated with our churches (in this case it would have been Verdun United) and any first-hand accounts from “boys” who participated. Also, can anyone identify where in Verdun these photos were taken?

Blast From the Past

Did anybody here attend Crawford Park United in the 50s or 60s? For that matter, other churches probably used these bible story comic books to catch the attention of children and teens as well. Diane Norwood found these and more in her attic on Fayolle and shared them with local historian Ro Ghandhi, who shared them with us.

Often, these comic books also included activity pages inside. I found this one to be fairly challenging. Were kids smarter back in the day??

Let me know how you do.

Amy

Memory Lane

We received a donation this week in memory of Joan Potvin. The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. I asked Dennis Brown and he supplied the following reminiscence and photo:

“Joan Potvin was a friend of ours. She died of a brain tumor that took over 2 years from diagnosis to the end. In her youth she was a national level swimmer and in later years a golfer and curler. In fact Joan Potvin was the first female president of the Lachine curling club. I was asked by Doug her husband , a professor of mathematics at Loyola, to say a few words at her viewing. The room was filled with Lachine curling members. I followed a prayer by the Archbishop of Montreal with a reading from  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 . I spent the next several months being referred to as "The Rev." on the ice.
Joan was a lovely lady.

PS. The picture is Joan at Lachine Curling Club where she and a team catered my daughter Carolyn's wedding reception.”

Joan Potvin passed away in June 2005. Rev. David married Joan’s son Allan to Dawn Svoronos in 2012.

Amy

Ladies in hats

UPDATE: Dennis Brown writes: “We had a tradition for several years to have a men's choir on Mother's day and then a ladies choir on Father's day. The hats were just a prop. This was a Sunday morning rehearsal.” Also, I would add Ann T. to the list of names below. She is the third lady from the right. The lady in the red blouse is Betty W. I still can’t place the lady behind Myrtle and in front of Rev. David, or the lady on the very right next to David L. Anyone?
An additional note: very soon after this was taken, David L left his post as music director. That August, Sarah F. was asked to “fill in” for six weeks. I guess she didn’t mind the gig because she’s still with us!

ORIGINAL POST:

These photos are dated 2006. I recognize a lot of faces but wonder exactly what the occasion is. David Lyttle is there and people seem to be holding music books, but I don’t think this is the choir because there are no men! Is it the UCW? I see Shirley, Linda, Phyllis, Betty, Iris, Myrtle, Lil, Sandra, Shirley, Dorothy, Shirley, Donna, and a few more I don’t recognize. What, only three Shirleys??

Great hats, everyone!

UK Celebrates 75th Anniversary of VE Day

May 8th marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, and Britons were not about to let it go by unacknowledged. Originally, all sorts of parades and live concerts and events had been planned but of course, these had to be cancelled or adapted as the UK battles the coronavirus. Below you’ll find a link to a video that aired on the BBC of people all over the UK singing along to Vera Lynn’s wartime standard, We’ll Meet Again, led by Welsh mezzo Katherine Jenkins and some old footage of Vera Lynn herself.

Dame Vera Lynn, who turned 103 in March, doesn’t sing in public anymore, but apparently “raised a glass” and watched the TV special with family from her home in East Sussex as several neighbours gathered - at safe distances - outside to sing along.

Here’s a link to a story from the Newham Recorder: Dame Vera Lynn thanks people marking historic anniversary under ‘difficult circumstances’

And here’s that video. Warning: get your tissues ready.