We have more details about the Church of the Good Shepherd, across from Cartierville School
When I recently read a mention of the Church of the Good Shepherd, in Cartierville, I recalled a passage in Memory Fitness (2004), in which it is noted that sometimes when we hear a particular name, then many memories, that otherwise are inaccessible to us, come back to us at once.
I am keen to find out, from Bob Carswell and others, more details about the church.
The one thing I remember is the name, “Church of the Good Shepherd,” and I remember some building across the street from Cartierville School.
Donald Duck
I’m interested to get a word picture of what the church looked like, on the inside and the outside. When Clarence Nash, who did the voice for Donald Duck for many decades, visited the school to give a talk, would his talk have been given at that building? I vaguely remember that it may have been across the street. I recall that a whole line of Nash Ramblers were lined up on the street, and drove away after Mr. Nash made his presentation.
Also, I am interested in finding photos that I can borrow, to convert into jpeg files, of the school, the church, or anything else related to Cartierville School and Malcolm Campbell High, and the neighbourhoods where students lived.
So far, I’m pleased to say I have received one response, from a former Cartierville School student, to my inquiries:
“When I was in grades 3 and 4 we were over in the church while they were adding onto the far side of Carterville School. I too belonged to the youth group with Colin Webb, Brian King, (his parents were our leaders), Bob Whyte, Marianne Kerr, Diane Lumby, Doreen Vincent to name a few – The church was still going in the late 80’s early 90’s with an extremely small group and later it was closed. My parents were members until its closure with Bob Whyte one of the elders. Must go over and check it out next time I am in Montreal…..”
Comment
It took me a while to figure out the correct spelling for the church. Often, after a day or two, a second look at a word tells me that I need to fix the spelling. This is one of the small details of life that is different now, as compared to high school. In high school, I was always reading, and as a result, I was always super accurate with my spelling. In recent years, 50 years later, the spelling occasionally slips. But usually I note the mistake, the next time I read the words.
Hi Jaan,
I have read a lot of your recent texts (2013-2014) and wanted to add that the MCHS is now known in French as Ecole Armenienne Sourp Hagop which when translated from Armenian to French turns out to actually be the equivalent of “Armenian School of Saint-Jacques.” Having not seen you since 2001 at the Toronto reunion meeting someone proposed back then, I am guessing you are getting older too. I will be 70 in November and a grandfather for the 2nd time in about 3 weeks from now.
The original 40th Anniversary of MCHS back in 2000 was an idea which I came up with originally as a solution for class reunions that the organizer could not get off the ground. I suggested a school-wide reunion which I proposed back in 1996 or 97 would be easier to get together and be a bigger event than getting one particular graduating class to meet which seem to be a problem for this fellow. He finally took my idea and made it work. It needed someone living in Montreal to organize it.
My physical condition at the time was causing me lots of problems back then and I was in no condition to be otherwise involved. He set up the team of organizers in Montreal took my proposal and went with it so I guess you could say I really got the ball rolling. Not bad for an MCHS dropout, eh?
People came from Canada, the USA and several countries in Europe to be there. If you want it to be a big affair, you need to try and get the old lists that developed back in the late 90s when it all began. A lot of Montrealers might want to come to the Toronto event at the old mill. I have had some good times and great meals there over the years. The word just has to get out to more of the original bunch. We are now talking 15 years later and I would suspect that a number of those who attended the last event have probably died along the way. We don’t all last forever…..except for me, that is, the proverbial optimist.
They have been cutting pieces out of me going right back to when I was a young child living in Cartierville and I am still here. Must have been my total ignorance or my win-win attitude. I wonder which? LOL
If you wanted to hear a perfect Donald Duck you should have asked me ten years ago before I had most of my teeth out. I can still do it a bit but the mouth shape has changed I guess after several operations to my jaw bones. I have entertained kids for years with that one and I was always told I sounded like the original. One fellow who knew the people at Disney back in the 70s was going to call the originator and get me to get on the phone with him but that did not finally happen for one reason or another.
Of the original lads of Saraguay that I knew who went to MCHS, Jeffery Habberfield died at age 61, his next brother Brian died about the same age or earlier. Harry Boshouwers died in a train-taxi accident while at SGWU. Bob Pare always felt responsible for that accident because they had been out for a few beers while at University and although Harry offered to take him down the next street to the old farm house they lived in by the river, Bob said never mind, he was fine and could walk it. Harry died a few minutes later that night with the taxi driver on a CNR train crossing that no longer exists. An earlier train, truck crash at the same crossing had killed six workmen, part of a group putting together the power grid up that road.
To this day, I remember Harry and the summer of our friendship in 1961 when I would go over to his place and he would play Spanish Harlem by Ben E. King over and over again. It was his prize possession. I came to call it “Harry’s song” after he died and I always remembered our family connection to his family, close friends resulting from when his father was living alone and my father had befriended him during a walk up that way. At the time he was building their future home and living in a shack he had built on the property when he first arrived. He worked on the house when he wasn’t at work at Canadair. At one point he needed to recover from a necessary operation to remove his appendix that had suddenly flared up and so he came to live with us for a few weeks while his body mended.
He, his wife and daughter were living in the Netherlands after WWII ended and Harry was born there probably in 1947 or 48. His father came to Canada at some point in the 1950s, went to work for Canadair and lived in a shack he built for himself. That shack was his home for a number of years while he built his family a new home to eventually move into in the late 1950s. I presume Harry was about ten when the family arrived in Canada.
Harry’s older sister was born before the war in Java but lived her youth with her mother in a Japanese prisoner camp for foreigners found in Dutch Indonesia of a bygone era. When Harry died he was about 20. It was a sad event. I was living in Calgary at that point but I heard about it. Twenty years later I ran into Bob Pare who had married his childhood neighbour Heather Giles and moved to Pickering, Ontario where I lived at the time.
He was another friend in my youth and I was invited to his older sister’s wedding on the day when my kidney problems began at their wedding reception, It was August 12th, 1961. I got back to school after further complications on December 1st and lost that year too. Another in a long road of learning for a guy who suffered from unidentified dyslexia. Today, I hold four bachelor degrees and a lifetime of learning.
The three old family homes “across the tracks” as we used to say of them have also gone from that area after the crossing was closed for good. It had killed eight people and destroyed as many families at the same time. With the extension of the Canadair runway which ate up Bois Franc farm land, the road was rerouted around the end of it. It became part of the industrial area of St. Laurent eventually and the old houses were torn down and replaced by factories.
That same extended Canadair runway sent 340 screaming brand new CF-104s at a takeoff level directly in line with our house between May 1961 and 1965 as they were being tested again and again. Our only peace during that period came when we were at school and on the weekends when the jets did not fly.
My mother got the worst of it and had to listen to them on a daily basis. To this day the sound of them still rings in my ears (or maybe that is ongoing tinnitus). I never heard them when I went to air cadets at Canadair because they did not fly at night. That was my mother’s only break. Good thing they travelled so fast that the sound quickly dissipated.
All this stuff happened after my going to Quebec City to receive my Queen Scout badge at age 15 from the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. After graduating from Scouts, we then went on to Sea Rovers in Cartierville but that was not as interesting to me because someone else owned the sailboat that was docked in Point Claire.
I preferred the wooden ski flea I raced on the Back River and the summers spent on the river with the trusty 16-foot Vercheres Boat which Dad bought for the family, We used to swim from the rocks at the end of Cat’s island or across the river at the beach. I do remember going to Point Claire once with my brother to see the boat while the Budden boys were working on it but as I did not drive at that point, I never got too involved. My brother went off to Royal Roads Military College when he was 17 and so my ride ended.
I got my license at age 19 (even though I had been driving old cars for years in the Bois Franc farm fields with the Martin kids). My dad had purchased a building lot from old Farmer Martin in 1949 or 50 on the Saraguay side of the tracks right beside Lynn Hennebury Legge, the tomboy back then living next door who could swing a good baseball bat. When the political situation of the 60s and early 70s in Quebec forced the issue and many corporations moved out of the province turning Montreal into a virtual ghost town, the only way dad could get any value out of his land was to get permission to push the road through to the next block.
That allowed him to sever his property into 4 lots, one with the house on it. Selling the “arpon” of land that way. It also meant trading a diamond of land with Frank Hennebury for a smaller piece he needed to straighten the road properly. That accomplished he left the city with twice the previous property value before dividing the land into lots and lived for a year in a trailer 25 miles north of Kingston, Ontario while his retirement home was being built on the same property beside the lake. It was their retirement home for the next 30+ years.
I have rambled on here for quite a bit but as I am a book author of a dozen e-books, I tend to do that. So, last but not least, you talked about those living near Lake Ontario. I live about 35 blocks from you in New Toronto in a small bachelor apartment in a block of eighteen apartments backing on to Lake Ontario. I hang my pants here so I like to call the place “My Panthouse by the Lake.” I am old and fat and had both of my hip joints replaced in the last five years due to arthritis. I have also inherited the family diabetes problem thanks to my mother’s genetics and I have been trying to lose weight for most of my life without much luck. It is now 3 a.m. and I think I will call it a night…or whatever. No rush to go anywhere when you are retired and enjoying it. Writing is what I love to do. I hope I have not duplicated anything here that I have said before.
Cheers,
Bob Carswell
Good to read your message, Bob.
You’ve covered a lot of ground and have added to my knowledge about Cartierville and Saraguay. I much appreciate knowing these many interesting details.
Our Oct. 17, 2015 Reunion will include a way to have a remembrance of those among our MCHS classmates who have passed away.
I’m working today on getting reports ready regarding the MCHS 60s Reunion planning process.
Here’s an overview of the topics I’m working on:
The previous week the MCHS 60s Reunion organizing committee has held meetings in Toronto and in Kitchener.
On Sept. 22, 2014 Scott Munro and Jaan Pill visited Old Mill Toronto, the venue for the Oct. 17, 2015 – that is, a year from now – Malcolm Campbell High School 60s Reunion.
On Sept. 24, 2014 Lynn Legge, Scott Munro, and Jaan Pill met in Kitchener, Ontario. We’ve also had some key phone and email discussions concerning our communications strategy and the registration procedure.