Family Home
On January 29, 1987 we sold the house
171 McDougall Street. I have such mixed
feelings. I know with my intelligence
that it was the right move to make. It
is too big. Three floors. Twelve rooms.
Two bathrooms and a cavernous basement that acknowledges that it was
built in 1903.
We put it on the market in October so
I have become used to the idea of selling.
The fact of selling is an altogether different feeling. I still feel guilty passing the sad old maple
tree on the front lawn. It has been part
of my existence. The evergreen between
the houses was once small enough for me to reach out (not up) and touch the
top. It now towers higher than the
house. The hedge was once a couple of
bushes, but, divided and replanted over the years, it has become a hedge. There is a tiny cedar tree, dwarf, never did
grow, that originated in a swampy place near Eddy’s cottage in Batchewana. The old lilacs that bend low across the lawn
between the houses, Mother brought with her from Pim St house, to Church Street
house to here. The children gave me the
flowering crab-apple trees for Mother’s Day gifts. The snowball bush from the corner of the
house grew from a sprig that Lili Luoma’s mother found wilting on the sidewalk
near her house. She rooted it, and gave it to me.
The peegee hydrangea at the steps was a Dominion store special one
spring long ago.
I will miss the old garden. I know personally every piece of sandstone
that outlines the beds. But last year,
it was too much for me. The weather was
bad, and I had difficulty. I could not
keep it, as I would have liked it – and once down on my hands and knees, I had
to crawl to the fence to get up. So I
say goodbye to the Scottish pine that Norm Henderson gave to us as a seedling,
and to the chokecherry tree and its many, many shoots that I have battled with
over the years. I cut it down once, but
the roots kept sending up so many shoots that I made a bargain with it. I let one of them grow to a tree again, and
cut the others – but I never did completely win the battle. The raspberries went wild last year, and the
rhubarb was neglected. There are five
pickets missing in the white fence, so it is time to go. I hope the new lady will take care of the
roses, and enjoy the 120 tulips and daffodils and jonquils I planted last fall.
I am happy with the people who have
bought the house. They are a
family. The neighborhood has been
creeping commercial for a number of years.
There is an engineer’s office in the big old Robertson house at the top
of the street, and an architect in the McLurg house at the bottom of the
block. Desing’s house is owned by the
funeral parlour on the next street, and is rented to a series of tenants. Across the road Alton’s has been made into
four apartments, again with a fluctuating population. Mrs. Locke next-door north is long gone – a
nice family living there. To the south
next door Mrs. Boileau’s big old house was duplexed by the McLurgs. Marjorie lived in the lower apartment after
Karl died, and we had a good old friendship.
She was confined to the house in the past few years (cancer) and I used
to hang a bird bell in the flowering crab so she could watch the birds. And I planted bulbs along the fence, for her
to watch for in the spring, and shared my roses with her. Marjorie died last September – so it really
is time.
I have suffered a couple of sleepless
nights since selling. The first one, I
was so overwrought that I swear I could feel the walls vibrating, and me with
them. Thoughts like, “What will I do
with the large picture of the Sacred Heart, that Grandmother Tynan brought over
from Ireland to New York circa 1906?”
And Saint Anthony. (Suzanne and I saw
them displayed (identical ones) in a little cabin on a historic property at
Bunratty, in Ireland.)
So I took myself in hand, and am no
longer losing sleep.
We must be out by April 24. We do not have a place to live. Were thinking apartments but I think that is
too drastic a change. So we are looking
for a small house – one floor that will cater to my aging aching legs. I must begin to pack. But where to start?
This is only a house, I keep telling
myself. But not really. It is a lifetime of memories.
We moved in here in the fall of
1942. Mother, Mary, Wilf and I. Mother bought the house, wisely a big one, so
we would have room – It never entered my head, that things would be different,
that maybe we would be on our own – Never for an instant – it was a foregone
conclusion that we would live in the house with her. Mary was at school in Toronto. Mother bought her a bedroom suite, and the
house was redecorated.
I remember Ede Rheaume standing in the
upstairs hall and looking around at the four rooms and saying, “ It is like a
flower garden”. That was the fall of
1942.
Spring 1943, Wilf joined the Auxiliary
Services of the K of C, and went off to war.
For some reason that escapes me now, Mother rented the house and we
moved to one on Kohler Street owned by Mrs. R. B. Johnson. A duplex really. We had the lower floor. Instead of leaving some furniture in the
house we sold much of it. Mom sold her
solid walnut dining room suite, buffet, chairs, etcetera for $25.00 to Mrs.
DeCourcey. Why we did that move, - I
cannot justify now –
We returned to the house when Wilf
came home, after Mary Jane and Suzanne were born. Suz was tiny.
She was born October 27, 1947. I
think it was late November – but I can’t remember exactly when we moved.
I remember packing at Kohler Street
and putting her with a pile of blankets on the bed. Jim McIntyre sat on the bed unknowing, and
got quite a shock to feel the blankets move.
He was practically sitting on Suzanne.
When we brought our evening dresses into the house on McDougall St.
there was a line up of little girls, watching, The Plewes children.
The safety engineer who rented from
Mother had insulated windows and some of the basement with newspapers. There is still a 1946 Toronto Star tacked to
the rafters in the basement.
Mother sold our house on Church Street
and renovated the attic on McDougall Street into two rooms and a small
kitchenette, so she would have an income.
We rented it to a teacher (there was a shared bathroom) until Mary got married. Then she and Jim lived there for almost a
year. Mary suffered a miscarriage in the
first year of her marriage. The stairs
were cited as a contributory factor. One
memory is of her in the southeast bedroom, with the end of the bed propped up
on blocks to help control the bleeding.
But she lost the baby – a little boy – Timothy. I forget at what time in her pregnancy – four
or five months. The doctors felt there
was probably life. When they moved to
their apartment, Mary Faragher, a pharmacist from the Isle of Man, rented. A nice person. Part of the family. Then there was Sergeant Mulhern, stationed
with the army here, who had a drinking problem.
Mother forgave him much because he had been in the seminary, and had not
made it. He was married. His wife was a lovely, delicate young woman
who visited but would not come here to live because of his drinking.
Mother was out on the back porch one
morning and came running in calling, “
Katherine, Katherine. The police have
got Mulhern. Get him.”
So I ran next door into Boileau’s yard
and rescued Mulhern. He had made the
wrong turn the night before and was sleeping in Boileau’s yard. Mrs. B. called the police. I supported him home and got him up the
stairs.
Mother would not have put up with such
antics from Wilf or her sons – but Mulhern was a “spoiled priest” and needed
special care. Many, Many years after
Mulhern left the Sault, he came back to see Mother, to thank her for all her
kindness to him.
Two high school teachers lived there
in the years when the girls were in Grade IX and X. One of them coached Suzanne and she won the
speech category at the Music Festival. That
poem, “I lift the Lord on high under the murmuring hemlock boughs and see “ –
Brebeuf .
After they left it was rented to
another teacher. She was English and had
come out to teach in the public schools.
Actually she was following an American Soldier (stationed in Mich.
Sault) who had been stationed in England.
We wondered about him. He
escorted her to the bottom of the street and left her. The story finally; She was pregnant. She didn’t know he was already married.
She took a fellow teacher as a
roommate with her and one day she was gone.
Some months later we had an enquiry from her family in England who were
trying to trace her. But we never knew
what happened to her.
The next tenant took in another
roommate. We came to the conclusion that
they were running a business on the side.
Climax: Wilf and me standing in the hall at the foot
of the stairs one 3 AM threatening to come up, if the “guests” didn’t
leave. An angry male customer clattered
down the stairs – and that was the end of renting the third floor.
We needed it anyway. Jim and Michael moved upstairs. We converted it back to two bedrooms. They had their own pad. Jim in his bigger temper phase – or was it
Michael. Anyway when I moved a calendar
there was a hole in the wall.
Michael hooked up his guitar and
amplifier and practiced so vehemently that Mrs. Locke said that she was going to
complain about the loud music coming from Central Church over on the next
street. I didn’t tell her it was Michael
but then Ian McLurg was practicing the drums on his third floor down the
street.
The third floor was converted back
into living room, bedroom and kitchenette after the boys left. Jim and Sue lived there in the summer when he
was attending Algoma College, working on his BA.
Mary Jane and John lived there when
they moved back from Toronto until they themselves established and moved to an
apartment on Pine Street.
Michael and Donna lived there after
they were married until they got a down payment together and bought a house.
Suzanne came home after she and Joel
split up after nine years of marriage and lived there with three children until
the finances were settled and she bought her own home.
Steven was asked, by his teacher where
they were living and he told her they were living in an attic with a very thin
roof. The teacher, at the next PTA
meeting was offering her sympathy, until Suzanne explained where they
were. She said during a particularly
heavy rainstorm, she had told Steven it was loud because they were right under
the roof. Hence Steven’s interpretation.
Then the third floor hosted the
Vietnamese. The first refugees to come
to Sault Ste Marie during the exodus of the Boat People from Vietnam. We donated it to our church group as our part
of their effort.
So we had Phi and Wang and small Hong
Vo. About 7 months)
Quite an experience. Phi, a personable young man, slightly on the
Con Man style. Wang, totally confused,
rejecting help. I think stunned by their
flight (Phi was the navigator and had supplied the boat) they were robbed by
pirates, spent several months in an internment camp, and then, arriving in the
Sault in November, was too much for Wang.
She was also pregnant. We had
them from November until, I forget how long – Thuan Do was born during that
time – and then they got their own place.
Wang never did take to western housekeeping. Very dirty by our standards.
One
Memory:
They had two young Vietnamese men for
guests for dinner. Of course everything
was boiled. So the steam set the smoke
alarm off. We had forgotten to explain
the smoke alarm.
We heard the frantic running thump as
the five adults and one child evacuated the haunted third floor. NOISE!
Wilf stopped them in the front hall and convinced them that western
demons weren’t after them.
After the Vietnamese the third floor
returned to “normal”. At family dinners
it became a playroom. There have been
plays and fashion shows, and move the chesterfield out and you have a puppet
stage. Steven first made it into a
jewelry store with all my old jewelry.
Once it was a department store, with notices pinned and counters and
bargains galore. Clothes were there,
saved to dress up in. Mother’s old
thirties hats, Wilf’s immigration cap, long dresses, old shoes –
It changed back into sleeping quarters
when Jim came home with his family to visit.
When Mary Gallivan came with Luke – I didn’t know until years later that
she had been terrified up there and had one night come down and slept on the
floor beside my bed.
The third floor. I guess I will now have to clean out the
storage area under the eaves. There is
the skeleton of an old parasol there and a babies’ crib and mattress and a
collectors item bedpan and lord knows what else.
The second floor rooms: We played musical rooms as the children grew
and our family increased. The girls and
Mother at one time had the two rooms at the front. Wilf and I the northwest room (cold in
winter) and the babies had the southwest room.
I remember the northeast room, Mother
was bed ridden off and on during the winter with phlebitis. So I just parked small Suzanne with her and
did my chores around Mary Jane. Mary
Jane would not sleep the way small children were supposed to do. I remember one day Mom and I decided to
enforce the afternoon nap. We sat on the
bottom step of the stairs and listened to Mary Jane’s loud, loud, loud wails
for a good hour or more. She won. She, I guess, did not need the sleep. Suzanne slept a lot. Just plop her anywhere. Jim needed a normal amount but not
Michael. The rocking chair worked
overtime when he was a baby. I remember
spending many hours rocking. He could
not relax into sleep. When he was past
the crib stage and walking he would wander the halls, pillow tucked under his
arm, ending up in Mother’s bed in Mother’s room. He took the wrong turn one night and went
down the stairs to the landing, pillow and all.
Then Wilf took to meeting him in the hall and ushering him back to bed.
The girls in their teens had the walls
of the northeast room plastered with faded corsages and pictures and
posters.
I remember Mother was in the northwest
room when she was very, very ill. We did
not know what was wrong. She had been
treating with Dr. Greco but could not be diagnosed.
One Saturday I could see that she was
getting much worse. Suzanne would be
eight or nine. The only one home, I
could not locate the doctor by phone. I
put Suzanne beside Mother in the bed and told her not to leave her. I would have to go find Dr. Greco. Mother started to teach Suzanne how to say
the rosary of the Blessed Sacrament. I
finally located Greco in the hospital and I can still see him rounding the end
of Mom’s bed flinging off his coat and saying, “My God – send for the
ambulance.”
Suzanne and Leslie McCullough (who was
staying with us at the time. They were both in training as nurses.) Redecorated the southwest bedroom.
Wilf built in a chest of drawers in
the old closet and built a new closet leaving room for bunk beds along the
wall. When the boys and their bunks
moved to the third floor Wilf built in a trundle bed system. The trundle was pulled out at night and
pushed in during the day. Useful and
innovative. But I foolishly gave Suzanne
and Leslie Carte blanche for the decorating.
They chose a blatant royal blue for the trundle and the trim. They selected very expensive English
wallpaper – a special order, so I couldn’t return it – that was not pre pasted
and had to be trimmed by hand. They did
a nice job. The paper is still on the
room – but the trim has been converted, after many coats, to white.
Jim was helping me put the storm
windows on one fall, in that room. He
was on the extension ladder, a second story man, with the huge, heavy old oak
storm window, laboring up the ladder. I
reached for the window – he teetered backwards – I shall never forget the look
on his face.
“ Heave it, Jimmy, “ I screamed. He
did. Tossed it over his head and grabbed
the ladder to save himself. The window
smashed to the ground – but, thank God, Jim was still clinging to the ladder.
The southeast room became Mother’s
room after she fell and was unable to negotiate the stairs – round about
1970. We had made a room on the first
floor with bathroom for this eventuality, but she would not consider it. When she decided to stay upstairs we removed
the trundle beds, and put a couch and made it into a little sitting room. She sat in it for one sitting, admired it,
but never used it.
She took up her position in a corner
of the southeast room and all the family came to her. We have many, many pictures to prove it. Family life revolved around her room from
then until her death in 1976. She used
to look down at the old maple tree from her window. “Don’t let anything happen to that tree,
Katherine. It is like a big green umbrella.’ So I apologize to the tree for selling its
house.
My memories of her last while are
written elsewhere, in her book – but it will always be Granny’s Room.
Brendon and Christina used to love to
climb over the end of her four-poster and land with a bounce on the bed while
she prayed loudly for their safety. I sleep
in that room now, but the Sacred Heart and St Anthony are still there – her
pictures. The plate the McIntyre's gave
her – the Irish reed cross from Louise and Frank. St Francis’ prayer for peace that so
symbolized her life.
Wilf has the northeast room – his desk
– his papers - HIS room.
I sleep in Mother’s room – the four-poster
scarred from her lifting of her tray, to maintain the last shred of her
independence. When I brought her meals
up to her on her four legged TV tray, she would not wait until I came up to
remove it. With a struggle she would
carry it to the door of her room – scratching the bed as she passed.
The “blue room” (Suzanne’s old room)
so christened by the grandchildren because of the colour of rug and wallpaper;
has been the spare room for some time. A
single bed where the trundle used to be –
Oh – a trundle story :
Mary Gail and Don Myers and her
children were visiting. Lisa and Gretchen
in the trundle bed – Gretchen was tucked in and then began to wail loudly. She thought she was going to be shoved in for
the night under the other bed.
I have the northwest room for my
“den”. Old oak bookshelves from the old
library, loaded with my local history collection, my western collection, my
Indian collection, my Canadian collection.
I have the old green desk that Mrs. Bethel gave me. I admired it on her sun porch one day in
Forest Hill and when she broke up her home, she gave it to me. Oak under green paint, the glass footings are
stamped “Berlin” – so it is before world war one. If I have a place for it I am going to be
extravagant and have it refinished. It
has “secret drawers” and cubbyholes and one drawer is full of stuff for the
children – papers, pictures, drawing things.
Rachel and Angela set up their office in this room. Brendon, Christina and Steven used to play
school here. So I have here, my books,
my magazines, my photography stuff, my clipping files, my projector, my
typewriter, an old oak desk from the west end library (purchased during a move)
full of pictures and family papers.
There are now three empty cartons in
the corner, reminding me of my task.
This is the room Vincent and Marion
were sleeping in when Vince took so sick.
He had driven from Pontiac against his doctor’s orders, but he wanted to
visit mother. He had been very ill, but
that evening, we had a great visit, lots of laughs as always, with Vincent
present, and then he came up to bed. He
went into the bathroom and there was a crash.
We couldn’t easily get to him because he was on the floor against the
door. We called Ed. He managed, with Marion, to get him back to
the bed – but he was irrational. Marion
wouldn’t hear of us calling our doctor – she just wanted to get him home. So Ed and Kay offered to drive him home. I shall never forget Mother and Vincent’s
farewell. She came with her walker
across the hall, and sat on the side of the bed. Vince was calm and rational, and they both
knew it was the last good-bye.
Ed and Marion had to carry – almost
drag – him down the stairs – but they managed.
He fought them. Holding to the
banister. Clinging to the front doorknob
– but no pleading would make Marion change her mind. They had a terrible drive, but they got him
home.
I will miss this room, wherever I may
go.
Now the stairs. Such memories of goings up and down. One of the many furniture movings when, I
think it was Jim McIntyre, who was pinned to the sill and nearly went out
it. All the small seats that bumpety
bumped down the steps. The many small
ones who were taught how to tackle stair steps up and down its first flight.
The time shortly after we moved in
when we thought we heard a prowler downstairs and Wilf went first. I followed in his shadow and stubbed my toe,
landing on his back and we both fell against the far wall into the pipes. I scared Wilf, he thought he was being
attacked from behind.
The old oak paneling and the oak posts
and bannister that gave the front hall an “air”. Michael Y. and Kyle P. got ropes and used the
posts and pretended they were mountain climbing. I have pictures of Paul and Pat McIntyre as
toddlers hanging their Christmas stockings over the bannister. I have fallen down the stairs several
times. Last year I took off in my
stocking feet from the upstairs hall and landed on my tailbone on the bottom
step before the landing. Right. Fractured tailbone.
One early morning, when Jim and Susan
and children were here over Thanksgiving I was sneaking downstairs, not wanting
to waken anyone, and I slipped (again slippers with no traction) and thumped
part way down. Sarah’s voice from one of
the rooms, “Did you fall down the stairs, Grandma?” – and when I staggered down
and into the kitchen, small Angela, rubbing her eyes, “ What was that big
thump?”
So the stairs. Decorated at Christmas with garlands – I took
a lot of pictures last Christmas.
The front hall. One vivid memory is Jimmy’s grade eight
graduation party. It was before we had wall-to-wall
rugs – hardwood floors and rugs. Jimmy
rolled up the rug and tossed it out on the front porch – and they danced. The mothers set up a bar between the kitchen
and the dining room in the archway and we served from there. Jim’s birthday party – at about ten years old
– his last party – he and friends set up a bowling alley – starting in the
front hall, through the kitchen into the back room.
How could I forget Michael on the
front stairs landing. He hated Halloween
as a youngster. When the doorbell with
the Trick or Treaters would start to ring, he would take refuge on the landing,
and peer at them through the railing – or disappear upstairs if too
spooky. I remember standing at the front
door watching Jimmy take off on his Trick or Treating (he loved Halloween) a
particular memory is when he was Zorro, in his black hat and my black evening
cape, and his sword. He was Zorro.
I remember the seething mass of
teenagers in the front hall, and up the stairs the Saturday Mary Jane and
Suzanne invited everyone back to our house
after a victorious football game and one hundred of them came. That was the night I put one of them out
because he was tootling a bugle. He then
went outside and blew it, and the neighbours complained, and the police came.
The many Christmas dinners and
Thanksgivings and birthdays and buffets in the downstairs. Christmas gifts – the arguments about size of
Christmas trees. The waiting on the
stairs until Wilf went down to check on Santa Claus. Jimmy was always up and rarin’ to go and it
seemed to take hours for Wilf to rise reluctantly and go through the ritual of
turning the lights on, and saying, “Yes, He came.”
Mary Jane coming home to be married,
and she and John in the living room opening gifts. Dr. Greco sitting in the living room on one
of his many house calls. Jim giving Mary
her engagement ring – on the stairs.
The many times we sanded the old
hardwood floors until we finally rugged them.
The present dining room was once an extension of the living room – the
present kitchen was a small “breakfast room” – and the kitchen and pantry where
the family room and kitchen now are. We
had the pantry made into a second bathroom during a remodeling many years
ago. The old kitchen and pantry had
about four-foot high, narrow tongue and groove wainscoting. Before the carpenters came to remodel, Wilf
undertook to remove the wainscoting. He
was called to the phone, Michael, about eight years old took the crowbar and
had it down before he returned from the phone.
The old kitchen, when we moved in, had
a bare sink in the northwest corner. Our
stove was a high one with legs and the oven at the side, shoulder height. We always had pets and I can see Suzanne
sitting under the stove, eating the dog biscuits. Remember the day Suzanne fell against the
iron rad and split her head open (blood made it look terrible) and at almost
the same instant there were wails from outside, where Mary Jane had fallen face
forward against the lattice fence – scraped from forehead to chin. I remember Jimmy standing on the back steps a
look of intense concentration on his face.
“ Mom, if I could only get to the
clothesline pole, I know I could fly over the church.”
The swings on the side lawn and the
sandbox – and the times I put Suzanne in the playpen, before she could walk,
and kept Mary Jane on the outside to protect Suzanne from her wild hugs and
kisses.
But I’m out of the house. We used the back room for a dining room, after
we had it remodeled. I can see the
stunned look on Wilf’s face as our current cleaning lady walked past the table
with his suit coat on. It was a cool
noon hour, and it was Ethel, the character of all the characters who worked for
us. She was about 5 ft. 3 and Wilf’s 6 ft.
1 coat was a sight on her. She was going
out to hang up the laundry.
How could I have forgotten Peter and
Mary Giles who lived on the third floor?
She was an Irish teacher, imported by the R.C. School Board, during the
teacher shortage, when she arrived she had her husband with her. Peter – a delightful leprechaun of a
man. Peter loved Canada. Got himself a good job. Then they had a baby (quite a number of
people for the third floor!) Francis Joseph – and they had sitters for him while
Mary went back to work.
Peter under took to teach Michael
Gaelic. Michael always hated to go to
bed and wailed his way up the stairs.
“Michael”, said Peter, No matter where
I go in this world, at (he looked at his watch) 7:30 pm I will think of you.”
Mary got word from home that her
mother was ill and if she didn’t go back her uncle would sell the little farm
and it would be lost. Peter didn’t want
to go back, but they up and left. Peter
died of cancer. Mary and Jim visited
them once – the “farm” was a poor one.
No inside plumbing – earthen floor – and when Suz and I to Ireland I
called Mary, she came to visit us but did not invite us to her home. She was again in danger of losing “the farm”
because neither of her sons wanted to work it and it would then revert to the
state.
Where am I, in the house? I have been writing for four hours. It is my therapy. I have said most of my adieus. I will miss the stylized stags heads on the
ends of the hot water rads (original 1903), and the garden, and the oak
paneling and the space and the privacy.
But everything changes. There is no sense hanging onto the past.
Michael Yorke says, “Nothing will ever
be the same again.” True. But that doesn’t mean the future will not be
good.
I will be happy when I know where we
are going – so I can choose what we must take and what we must leave.
Michael has put his name on the back
of Norval Morriseau’s Michu Pichu – the four thousand years of medicine. Kyle has his name in the Ithica Calendar
clock to bug Jimmy, because Jimmy is the clock freak.
The stairs again: Jim McIntyre sitting
on the landing calculating his error when he ran out of the concoction
“McPunchintyre’s Leprechaun Juice” at Suzanne’s wedding reception.
There are many memories. I could keep on – and perhaps I will add to
it – But I have written myself out. This
is my salute to 171 and my farewell. I
feel much better.
I forgot the basement. The old coal furnace and the coal bin. - I
haven’t mentioned the pets. “Doorbell”
the black cat who knew Wilf didn’t like him, and who used to sit on top of the
furnace and hiss at him. Michael was
afraid of the basement. Sure that
monsters dwelt in the black coal hole.
Jimmy ALWAYS banged his head on the beam at the foot of the basement
stairs. I hung a cloth on it, to try to
remind him.
What will I do with Mother’s wardrobe
trunk that travelled the seas with her – or my old 1930’s skis that are stored
on the beams?
Enough! Enough! On to the packing.
