Town and School

  Of course, we spent most of the year in Montreal.

My earleist memories there are listening to the rain and the klip-klop of the horses' hooves on the cobbles of the street below our bedroom window, and of playing in the huge snow-banks that got piled up between the sidewalk and the road. (There is a picture in the ``Sunny Memories'' Album of Alma in her Red River suit standing beside one of those snow banks. It is Mountain St. and in the background --- across the road --- is the Hampton Court Apartment Building.) The game was to tunnel the length of the snowbanks --- a most absorbing occupation offering endless challenges until the Spring thaws made equally enchanting rivulets to deal with. And then, of course, when the streets dried up we had our ``Jacks'' and skipping ropes and all sorts of street games to play.

A very vivid memory is of the evening that Uncle Fred (Peverley) (with all his uncle-like friends: Donnie Bailie, Flin Flanagan, ``Hanny'' Hannington, Doug Ambridge, etc.) came back from the War. I think it was in the Spring of 1919 because Fred had been recruited into the Ruhr Valley Operation which kept him overseas for an extra six months. It was raining. We drove down to the Windsor Station in a cab (horse-drawn, of course) and as we girls raced down the concourse to greet our heros one of the men with a burst of laughter shouted: ``Here comes Fred's barrage of blue nieces!'' and that is how we were remembered for a long time after.

As we grew older, there were lots of other diversions. We all had bicycles and as the City then was relatively small we were allowed excursions out to Montreal West. Sherbrooke Street continued all the way out but there were a lot of fields on the way. Loyola College was a landmark. Montreal West was a compact community. We rode through it to Westminster Avenue, had an ice cream at Otter's General Store and then on up and over the humped bridge (R. R. underneath) and there were the Elmhurst Dairies and the country!

On Saturday afternoons during the Autumn months Daddy used to take his daughters for walks in the ``old'' part of Montreal: we explored Notre Dame Church and the Court House, Bonsecours Market and the Chateau de Ramesay, Youville Square (a fire station there) and the Harbour. And then we would have tea in the Montreal Club on St James Street. Perhaps we did the Club tea-bit only once but I vividly remember sitting in front of an open fire and the steward serving us hot buttered toast out of silver dishes! We were still living in the Hampton Court apartment when we went to Dominion Park --- our first adventure into whirling rides and dark watery tunnels, some of which Evelyn and I felt were just a bit too exciting!

Jane's birthday was in February --- the month of snows --- and it was celebrated with a sleigh ride on Mount Royal. As I remember it, Uncle Grover always came East for the occasion and was hugely popular because he kept throwing us into the snow banks and then we had to race to catch up with the sleigh again. It was dark and we were famished when we got home where there were hot choclate and scones and the birthday cake.

All of this (and many other things like hatching chickens in the basement playroom to be driven by car --- four hours -- to Magog and the Farm) took place while we lived on Mountain Street. It was a marvellous street on which to live. At the top of it was the Mountain --- so easy to reach and a fantastic playground. And easy to reach too was Cedar Avenue. Fire Station No. 25 was on Cedar Avenue and for two or three years it was the center of our Saturday morning attention. Captain Livingston must have been one of the most wonderful people ever. He allowed us every privilege. We slid down the pole in his arms; we even went out on the wagon with him when he was exercising the three grey horses. I can still remember the pull on my arms as I sat up on the high seat driving the horses galloping up Côte des Neiges. It was only Captain Livingston standing behind me with his strong arms around my waist that kept me on the seat at all! And, then, just along Sherbrooke Street there was skating on the McGill Campus rink. I learned the rudiments of fancy skating there and really thought I was something! I loved it!

What would we have done without that campus? In fact, how could we have grown up without it? I don't know but I'm glad we didn't have to. In those days once ``Blue Bottles'' let them past his gatehouse on Sherbrooke Street all the nannies gathered there with their prams and, later, all the children learned to ride their tricycles and, still later, their bicycles. ``Blue Bottles'' is what we called the gatekeeper because he wore very thick dark spectacles, and we were allowed into the grounds because Daddy was both on staff and a member of the Corporation of the university. I have a lot of memories of those days such as the time I was 7 or 8 --- and ran right into a portly unsuspecting gentleman from behind. I couldn't stop. I couldn't even fall off or shout before I hit him. He wasn't at all pleased and I was mortified.

By the autumn of 1927 when I went to McGill we had moved to 655 Grosvenor Avenue and there were beaux around as well as the trauma of studying at university level and dealing with a whole new kind of world.

The Twin's first school was a kindergarten in a private house in a street nearby, probably Crescent Street. This was just after Alma was born. We were four years old and I expect two too many to have around all the time. I can't remember anything about that bit of our life, and I remember very little more about Miss Gascoigne's school (later ``The Study'') where we went with Jane for a couple of years. Daddy was Miss Gascoigne's lawyer who advised her about setting up the school and we were among her first pupils. It was sad that Jane was made so unhappy there by a vast amount of teasing that our parents decided she must be moved. So we all went to Trafalgar including Alma when she was old enough.

All four of us were happy at Traf. Miss Cumming, the Headmistress, was a Scot from Inverness who looked upon her students as ``lifters'' or ``leaners'' and it was well to be a ``lifter'' because if you were a ``leaner'' you almost inevitably disliked school. The Howard girls, I guess were ``lifters'' because I remember no time when we weren't eager after holidays to return and, as we became seniors and prefects and took on more responsibilities, I, at any rate, couldn't get to school early enough in the morning. I tore along Sherbrooke Street with my books held in front of me balanced on my tummy (as were everyone else's --- no one would use a school bag --- ); raced up Simpson Street; arrived breathless in the cloakroom to jabber with friends (no talking in the corridors!) until the bell rang for the whole school (my memory is that there were at that time 125 students) to line up on the stairs ready to march into the gym for morning prayers (``Let the hills resound with song/ As we proudly march along/ For as of old our sires were bold/ Stout hearts have we.'') Most of the time it was Dorothy Ward --- my class --- who was playing the piano.

I was a mediocre student but lessons didn't bore me and almost always I had done my homework which lessened my frightening tendency to be nervous in class. (Homework was done because the breaking of my father's rule that that was what one did between 4 and 6 every week-day afternoon and after supper until the work was finished was unthinkable). I loved gym work and would have liked to take dancing lessons but Daddy frowned on them. Actually I wasn't very good at gym. The things I did best were riding and sailing, but nevertheless I did collect ``stripes'' which we wore star-like on our tunics. They were given out one each year for good gym work, or basket ball, etc. so that in ten years one could create quite a display. There was a Girl Guide Company at Traf. and Evelyn and I and Alma all belonged. Evelyn got to be a patrol leader. I don't think I did better than being second --- perhaps I did. I can't remember. But I do remember that mine was the Barn Swallow Patrol. However, the best thing about being even a second was that I too was eligible to go by special train with bunches of Guides from across Canada to attend the Jubilee (Canada's) Jamboree in Victoria. We spent the month of July (1927) doing this. It was all a marvellous adventure and it started with a bang. Daddy tooks us (Evelyn and me) to lunch at the University Club before putting us on the train at Windsor Station.

In the Spring of 1927 Evelyn had taken her school leaving exams, and I the matriculation exams into McGill --- which I managed to get through. And, indeed, I couldn't possibly have done less having spent a second year in the Sixth at Traf., boarding for the last term. One of my unorthodox acts as a Boarder was never forgotten by the family: the morning Hazel disappeard from the ``crocodile'' as it walked sedately along Sherbrooke Street. It was all quite simple. Uncle Fred, driving by in his sporty little car, saw me, beckoned and, of course, I hopped in beside him. By the time I got back to School, consternation reigned; parents being called, a question of police, etc., and the poor mistress in charge in tears. In her book, Hazel had been kidnapped!

In the meantime Jane, who had missed a year between school and university sufferning from mastoids which put her in hospital for a series of operations, was doing rather brilliantly at McGill. In her second year she won the Charles Alexander Scholarship of $150 and in her third year a prize of $100. She was taking an Honors course in English. In her final year she just missed winning a Moyse Travelling Scholarship which would have paid her way to Oxford but, as Oxford accepted her on her first class standing at McGill, Daddy felt she should go. So in September 1929 she sailed for England and Somerville College.

Perhaps it was because of the Girls Guide trip that I was keen to do other things than spend the whole summer at the Farm. I know I tried very hard to persuade the CNR to let me work at Jasper Lodge. I even wangled an interview with Mr. Hungerford, the President, but to no avail. Young girls were not employed anyplace doing anything in those days (A sentiment, I may add, that my father agreed with completely, so that I did all my searchings without his knowledge.) So when I read an ad, in Vogue magazine that Quanset, a sailing camp for girls at Chatham on Cape Cod, needed a sailing instructress I applied --- and got the job (unpaid, of course) This was where I had to apply to Daddy because Mrs Hammit of New Orleans who owned the Camp was coming to Boston in March to interview her new staff and I had to be there. Daddy (bless him!) hating the very thought of my not being at the Farm supplied me with the necessary funds. Camp opened at the end of June and ran for eight weeks but I was there for ten: two weeks before it opened getting boats into the water; learning to sail those boats and what to teach; riding the horses from the station at Orleans to Camp and helping to exercise them until the kids were there to do it. I taught the rudiments of sailing to the Nimicuts (the youngest of the campers) in flat-bottomed boats with a single sail. We did this on Pleasant Bay on which the camp was situated. But as a Sailing Instructress I was expected to be able to handle the Bay Birds (sloops aout 18 ' long with a keel) and in these I spent lots of my spare time practising. Every week-end there were races out beyond the barrier in the real ocean and Quanset sent several boats to compete. They were serious races --- boats had to be hauled up and scraped, etc., etc., in advance and towed down through the narrows. Twice I skippered, and didn't dump or get hung up on a buoy (pronounced ``boo-ey'') Great! I also was in charge of a cabinfull (probably 12) of 14 year olds. I was called ``Canada'' and I don't think many of the camp kids knew that I had any other name --- certainly the cooking staff, who were all black from the South, didn't. A lot of it I remember as being wonderful: the first weeks of riding and gorging on asparagus and strawberries and Southern cooking; the ocean sailing, and sailing down to the ``outside'' beach in the Pirate Ship to dig and steam clams with the trip home after dark, but it was the first time I had been away from home alone and I was abysmally homesick. There was no one with whom I had any comfortable contact --- from the kids, who mostly came from wealthy but broken homes and were spoiled and/or deeply unhappy, to the very sophisticated and older counsellors. I ran myself lean and never really caught up. Daddy when he met me at Burroughs Falls on the Boston train was obviously upset by the sunburned (he didn't like sunburned women!), ``skinny'' daughter who got off it at 6AM!

So the next summer I stayed at home wearing long sleeves and a shady hat in the hope that my intensely disappointed-in-his daughter-for-seeking-other-interests father would forgive me. And, of course, he did. But when in 1931 Alick Edmison (Law '32) asked me if I would like to teach riding at Wapameo (Taylor Statten Camps) that summer I immediately said ``yes''. David Lewis (who was in my year in Arts and whom I knew only slightly) was among those of us who went up by train to Canoe Lake together. I remember that David impressed me considerably because he took with him a complete set of Bernard Shaw. Apart from other things he said he needed to know about Fabianism. Needless to say I read my Shaw from then on with different eyes!

That summer (it turned out to be only a month) was a high point and also in a way a turning point in my life. I wasn't paid anything --- except for a free ride home because I was chaperoning the July contingent of campers --- but a lot of things came into focus for me. The learning aspect of the kindly controlled camper's life; the sharing of responsibilities so that never did an Instructor have to be a councillor in charge of campers, all this appealed to me as did the high country of the Algonquin Park where, in our week-ends off, we, the Ahmek and Wap personnel together, went for 2 and 3 day camping trips. I really hated cutting the summer short but my Aunt Hazel (Mother's sister) died and Mother wanted me home. Also Margaret Murray was marrying Bob Wonham and Evelyn and I were to be bridesmaids.

There was another reason too that made me feel that perhaps it was good to cut my holiday short. I felt that I should somehow find a way to earn my living now that I had a degree from McGill. I'm not quite certain how I became aware that the family finances were becoming strained but I think that the first inkling was when Daddy turned me down when I suggested he let me have a ``year'' in France or Switzerland to learn French. A lot of my friends were doing this and I was envious. After that I began to notice things: little things like why did it take three years to build the front steps for the New House, etc., etc. We always knew that we weren't rich like the Howard Murrays: no fleetwood cadillacs or Chris Crafts, or gardeners or grooms or long trips to Europe for us. But it didn't bother us. We had lots of scope. I suppose that the extra things, like the Farm, Daddy had paid for by playing the Market and after the Crash in 1929 his salary had to cover everything --- and ``everything'' by that date was quite a lot!

And, so, in 1931 it was up to me to support myself and I felt the best (and probably, considering my lack of qualifications, the only) move I could make was to take a secretarial course --- money for which I had to borrow from Daddy!

But I am ahead of myself. There are no photos for the four years (1927--31) I was at McGill --- just as there are none for the time at Trafalgar or for the summer at Quanset or the month at Wapomeo --- nevertheless I must say something about them.