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62 Ontario Ave. 1911--1922

  After my appearance on the scene, Dad's next major achievement was building the Merretts' new house on Ontario Avenue. gif It still stands at the north-west corner of Ave. de la Musée and Blvd. Docteur Penfield gif (which latter did not then exist east of Simpson St. where it was called McGregor St.) It was built of buff brick, stone trimmed, with a slight nod to the Tudor: the fron door had a suggestion of tracery in the side lights, and the dining room was panelled in oak linen-fold! It was a large house and quite luxurious in keeping with most of its neighbours, though out-shone by some (in particular those belonging to a Molson, a McLennan, a French senator and at the top of the street a Forget). To run it, Mother maintained a staff consisting of a cook, two maids (Scottish girls named Margaret and Daisy) and, for a little while, a nanny for me; and there was also an itinerant furnace-man-cum-gardener (though there was no garden other than a few tulips, only grass to cut).

I occupied a large bed-playroom, filled with built-in drawers for my clothes and a vast toy cupboard. Off this room was a verandah; the door to it had brass weatherstrip which in certain winds would howl like a banshee, often in the middle of the night, evoking echoing howls of terror from me. When not being taken for ``walks'' in my carriage or sleigh I was aired on this verandah. I well remember the white bunny fur coar and hat and its hanging to dry out on the radiator close to my bed. During the first few years I spend most of my time, in that household of grown-ups, in the company and care of Dorothy my nurse whom I liked, and then I became one of the gang of kids living on our street, or nearby.

Being a cul-de-sac (were we ``dead-end kids''?) there was not much traffic on Ontario Avenue and we played more or less unrestricted up and down it and in and out of our neighbours' houses and back yards (few of us had gardens as such). In winter we kids would swish all the way down to Sherbrooke Street on our sleighs and wait for a horse-drawn delivery cart from Dionne's the grocers, or Morgan's or Godwin's gif, to hitch a ride up again. We dug houses and tunnels in the huge snowbanks between the ploughed road & sidewalks. We helped spring along by cutting channels in the street ice to guide the water run-off and dammed them up again. All these activities caused our mothers worry that we would be smothered by cave-ins or squashed under the wheels or runners of what little traffic there was.

One of the few restrictions imposed on me, and only me, was never to ride my bicycle lower down the hill than our own house and I have a vivid memory of ignoring it---to my grief. We all had ``tickers'' on our bicycles---cards clipped to the front wheel fork with clthes-pegs, which we would flick on with a toe to engage the card in the spokes and make a fine clatter. A bunch of us started down the hill and I, intent on switching on my ``cut-out'' at a given signal, swept past the imposed limit, flicked the clothes-peg engaging my ticker and also my toe in the spokes. I went over the andlebars at high speed to be picked up all bloody and helped limping home to a very upset Mother. I think my injuries were considered sufficient punishment, and it was a lesson remembered. gif

At one stage of my upbringing while on Ontario Avenue, doubtless pre- or early school, I was subjected to a governess---as far as I knew the only one of my pals thus afflicted, and I suppose it was, again, because my family was relatively so much older. In memory, Miss Fairbanks was a bit of an ogre: she had a visible mustache and beard, and I visualize her now as resembling The Ugly Duchess. She was very churchy and got on well with Mother whom she must have matched in age. When I was later confirmed at Ashbury she gave me a prayer book, and all in all she was probably very good to me, and just possibly for me. She would arrive after lunch and take me in charge until supper time. When weather permitted---that is, no actual cloudburst or blizzard---we would walk, and those long walks served me well in later years gif. A favourite route was up the steps to Pine, west via Cedar (and the No. 25 Fire Station with its white horses and brass pole to slide down) Côte des Neiges, The Boulevard, Mount Pleasant & Wood Ave., Sherbrooke and home, having watched tiny men finishing the dome of the Mother House at Atwater. Sherbrooke Street had wooden board walks with several steps at each of the street intersections, particularly Drummond where one stopped to watch the Ritz Carleton being built, on an alternate walk eastward to McGill.

Come summer we would have our ride on the ``Round the Mountain Car'', also known as the ``Flying bedstead'', predecessor of the sightseeing bus. All gilded wrot iron and electric lights, it was a stirring sight. (Anachronism above---neither the Cross nor the Shrine existed at the time---they appear only for orientation!)

Other Ontario Avenue memories include water shut-offs heralded by a man ringing a handbell, and once involving buying new ashcans to be filled from a water cart. And once a gas leak caused all the manhole lids to blow off, in sheets of green flame, all up and down the street.

In 1922 the Bank Merger (see gif) caused a drop in Dad's income and he had to sell the house. I recall being very upset and suddenly very aware of what a lovely house it was. It was the year I was sent to boarding school: I left from that house and returned at Thanksgiving to a terrace house on Crescent Street which Dad rented for a year before buying another on Westmount Boulevard, where Mother and Dad lived until Father died in 1958. gif



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Prof. T.H. MERRETT
Fri Oct 17 16:05:04 EDT 1997