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The Point
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Last updated July 27/10
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#1 Nov 2008 #2 Jan 2009 #3 May 2009 #4 July 2009 #5 Jan 2010
Glimpses of Family History
- #1
My great-grandmother, a very savvy businesswoman, made sure the house was built to be a rooming house so she could make a profit with her home. My grandfather, Louis, was their only child. He spent his childhood here in North Point Douglas and went to Norquay School. He eventually married my grandmother, Anastasia, a Ukrainian gypsy from Austria who had immigrated to Canada in 1909. As a wedding present my great-grandparents bought the newlyweds a farm in Broad Valley in the Arborg area where they lived for the next 15 years. Anastasia’s most vivid memory of that time was going back and forth from Broad Valley to Point Douglas, helping her in-laws with their boarding house and other business ventures in the city. She made this journey on her own by horse and wagon. The trip took two entire days, and she slept under the wagon at night. Fifteen years and 10 births later, the farm was sold and Anastasia and Louis moved back to Point Douglas to take over the family business which was buying and selling real estate. After her husband died in 1942, grandma carried on as an extremely independent woman and was highly successful in business ventures. To me she was like no other grandmothers. She wore men’s clothing and a tam, while the other women wore skirts and babushkas. My grandma, known to everyone as Nellie, was my personal hero and a strong link in the chain binding my family to this neighbourhood.
Glimpses of Family History
- #2 Recently I walked to Kung Po Restaurant on Euclid Avenue and thought back 40 years to when I walked this path every day on my way to Norquay School. Euclid had a very different streetscape in those years. There were five grocery stores, giving me lots of choices of where to spend my allowance money. Every second or third day, I would stop at Golden Wheat Bakery and buy a piece of unforgettable vanilla cake. Also on my Euclid route were a barber shop and a Chinese laundry. Two restaurants, Dorothy’s and Nettie’s Quick Lunch, were neighbourhood landmarks. I remember sitting at Dorothy’s at the counter on little red vinyl stools and having lunch with my father. North Point Douglas in the 1960s had quite a few recreational activities for kids. I attended the Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) group at Sutherland Mission. Like Girl Scouts, we played games, did arts and crafts, and even had sleepovers up on the third floor. We skated at Norquay Park in the winter. Frank the Park Man always had a fire going in the shack where us kids could put on our skates and warm up. Frank’s buddy Rex was a mutt who lived on Lusted and met Frank each morning as he came to work. They spent the whole day together. Summers were spent on the playground enjoying swings, jungle gym, and even an old fashioned merry-go-round. Once a month I enjoyed neighbourhood walks with my grandmother when she checked on her rental properties. We visited all the older ladies working in their gardens on the river road and sometimes savoured a lunch of fresh vegetables. Now that I am an adult, when I see my childhood friends during the holiday season, some of them seem amazed that I’m still living in Point Douglas instead of the suburbs. Those who know me well, though, realize I am very happy here in our little corner of the world. I want to wish everyone in “the Point” a healthy and happy new year.
Glimpses of Family History -
#3 This year most of my long-term friends and I turned 50. As we gathered together to celebrate birthdays and contact out-of-town friends via Facebook, we discovered that our fondest memories were of our teen years spent in Point Douglas. Here are some of the landmarks in our trip down memory lane. Most of us received our first brand new two-wheel bike from the North End Bicycle Shop which was located in the present day parking lot of California Fruit. My friends and I attended Aberdeen Junior High on Flora, and that was pretty much the first time we routinely crossed Main Street. We ate Chinese food at Seven Seas and chips and burgers at the North End Chip Shop. We shopped for clothes at Bargain World and picked up groceries at the Florida Fruit Market and Oasis Deli. In the summer we could even shop at an open air market at the corner of Main and Stella, where the CIBC bank (now Mount Carmel Clinic annex) stood. Talk about changes! How many people remember attending activities at the old Norquay Community Centre on Beaconsfield? Friday night dances and arcade games in the basement were favourites. In summer we could even rent canoes from Pritchard Boat Docks and leisurely paddle down the river. Many of us dropped by the old Mount Carmel Clinic on east Selkirk Avenue for our first lessons in family life education. On the edge of Point Douglas were the cinemas known to us as the Main Street Shows. In my memory, a dollar would purchase admission, popcorn, and a drink. So many changes have occurred in the past 35 years. Most of these buildings are long gone and those that still stand, like the Bargain World building, are unrecognizable. Generations within families were tied together by these local landmarks. My mother did many of the same activities and hung out in many of the places that I have described. These experiences, all within walking distance of our little community, are lost to present and future generations.
Glimpses of Family History -
#4 I love history, but just reading about it can be boring! That’s why it’s so important to acknowledge and preserve the history that surrounds us. To see, touch, and hear stories brings history to life, especially to children. Three stories that my mother told over and over have stuck with me through the years. My mother said that most people in Point Douglas bought their booze from a bootlegger on Barber Street. She remembered going there with an empty pickle jar and taking a full jar away for her father, who hid his drinking habit from his wife, my grandma. According to my mother, during this same era there was a coal yard at the site of Barber Park. Under cover of darkness people would take a pail and fill it with coal for their household use. Here’s her final story—all the kids in the area would go after school to the Sherwin Williams Paint Company building on Sutherland. The workers would pass honeycomb out the window as a treat. Apparently a honey product or the comb was used in the manufacturing of their products. Both my mom and my grandma told me many, many stories when we sat around on Saturday morning during the laundry for the residents of the rooming house. Unfortunately as I’ve gotten older, I’ve forgotten much of what they shared with me. I wish I had taken time to write these family stories down while they were fresh in my mind because now they are gone forever. It would be wonderful to hear from readers of The Point who can corroborate these stories or add their own glimpses of family history. Glimpses of Family History - #5 By Valerie Himkowski This issue’s focus on housing brings back many memories of my childhood home in North Point Douglas.
The house I grew up in consisted of one-bedroom suites, single rooms for boarders, and the two-bedroom suite I lived in with my extended family. All shared a front and back door with some large common areas including the central hallway, bathing facilities and a large room in the basement with a wood burning stove. This basement provided another housing model. The space was divided by walls that were about six feet high to create small curtained-off cubicles with enough room for a bed and a side table, with clothes hanging from pegs on the wall. This provided accommodations for six men, most of whom had jobs which took them out of town regularly. Including my family, this house on Barber Street was home for up to 20 people at a time. My grandmother even did all the laundry. Every two weeks, come laundry day, we would gather up all the bedding and replace it with fresh sheets and pillow cases, then have to wash and dry the used ones. Just imagine the large cupboards that held all those sheets and blankets, and the time it took to get all that work done. This kind of housing was normal for me when I was young. The people who shared my home sometimes stayed but mostly came and went. Life, death, babies, and family problems all took place under one roof to people I knew but were not related to. ♦
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