Our neighbours on Oxford Avenue

Here we are in the lane behind the Oxford Avenue flats. That's Ica Shainblum on the far left, Audrey Keyes in the middle, and myself on the right. Photo courtesy of Bobby Keyes.


Here is my brother feeding a squirrel in the back lane.


And here's Bob Keyes that same day. These photographs were taken around 1957.

Here's Audrey Keyes (now Veeto) and myself years later at the St. Viateur Bagel Restaurant on Monkland Avenue, just down the street from our old home on Oxford. It's 2005 now and we're meeting each other for the first time in forty-two years. Veeto has lived for many years in Australia where she has a son, a daughter, a son-in-law, a grand daughter, and a soon to be born second grand child. It was like no time had intervened since we last met!

There I am on the front steps of 4614 Oxford Avenue, and Veeto is on the steps of her old home. How often I would go over and say to Mrs. Keyes, "Can Audrey come out to play?"

Here is Veeto with her late mother, what a lovely woman she was. Mrs. Keyes was 98 years old when she died and had been a resident at the Manoir Westmount for about ten years. The Manoir is run by the Rotary Club, and what a wonderful place it is. Mrs. Keyes grew up on Landsdowne in Westmount, only a few hundred feet from the Manoir Westmount.

These photographs and my poem, "Oxford Avenue, Hoolahan's Flat" can be found at http://www.coraclepress.com/, as well as a short essay on meeting Veeto again after so many years.

Here is an email, full of memories vividly recalled, from Colin Paterson, who used to live on Harvard (the next street from Oxford); I look forward to reading more of Colin's memories:

I grew up in N.D.G. in the 1950s on the block next to Oxford at 4590 Harvard Avenue. My name is Colin Paterson and I have been doing research with the expectation of writing either a rather long essay or a book on the times back then. I went to both Willingdon School and West High and odd as it may seem also spent 2 years at Weredale House, also known as The Boy's Home of Montreal. My brother David and I both knew Bob Morrisey, your cousin. Bob was a friend of Peter Tellier who lived downstairs from us. I also remember Bobby Keyes. For some odd reason I have always been able to remember certain things like small details as far as my personal history goes. Thought you might be interested in a few of those details as follows. Across the street from you lived Shelly Dorfman, Neil Stein, Peter Litwin and the Wenger brothers, Marty and Harold. The Wengers were pretty decent atheletes and Marty played fullback for the NDG Maple Leafs football team in the mid 1960s. At the corner of Oxford and Summerled lived a family who bought the NDG Food Market on the corner of Wilson and Summerled. (The pharmacy next door was called Lackman's.) This family had two brothers who were only a year or two apart, I once auditioned for a band they had called Jenifer's Gentlemen. Behind the house you lived in, directly across the alley lived a guy named Albert who was spastic. I remember him contructing a cross bow that eventually put an arrow through one of your neighbour's garage door. The Robinson's lived in the next house towards Somerled on Harvard. (Houses? They were all four plexes.) Next to that house lived the Durells, Nancy and Jimmy, downstairs, and the the Kramers upstairs, Louise, Ruthy, and Norman. Jimmy Durell later became the mayor of Ottawa and was one of founders of the Ottawa Senators hockey club. His sister, Nancy, was Miss Grey Cup in 1970 and was escorted out onto to the field in Toronto by none other than a fur coated Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I remember Harry's where the fireworks and Christmas displays in the window lingered long after their time of year had passed. Harry's has a pinball machine, a jukebox and a lunch counter. I seemed to recall he did a lot of screaming and had what he thought was a wayward daughter. There was also another corner type of store almost next to Harry's that had a gum machine out front. I once swiped the steering wheel off the jeep at the B.A. gas station but my brother made me give it back. John Feguson, who played for the Montreal Canadiens gave me the finger once when I was standing on that corner hitch hiking. Cote St. Luc and Summerled. We used to play hockey for hours between the houses on Oxford. I remember coal being delivered and sometimes stacked before it went down a chute to the basement. I also recall the wooden back porches that had dark passagways leading to the backdoors of houses like the one you lived in. Funny the little "pieces" we remember. I know Bob Morrissey was a sports reporter. Something tells me also played some guitar and spent some summers in Maine, perhaps Hampton Beach or Old Orchard Beach. Well that was load of random thoughts of years past. Really enjoyed your "Hoolahan Flats"!

Cheers,

Colin Paterson
Nanaimo, BC.