Remembering Veeto (2)

A few years ago, after the death of her mother, Veeto sent me this photograph of the family dining room table where we used to play "space command" when we were children. We lived in the same fourplex, one of Hoolahan's flats on Oxford Avenue, we were at 4614 Oxford and Veeto (Audrey Keyes) was three doors north in the same building. When I was four to maybe ten years old I used to go to her front door and Mrs. Keyes would answer, "Can Audrey come out to play?" I would ask, or we would stay indoors and play in their flat, either in the living room or dining room under this table, or Audrey's bedroom. It was all "let's pretend", it was all the imagination, it was a wonderful innocent time of life. I guess Veeto inherited the table and had it shipped to Australia where she lived. 

My cousin, Linda Morrissey, who lived a few doors from us, walked Veeto to the Villa Maria School where both were students. I wonder what Linda remembers of Veeto, Veeto was Audrey Keyes in those days. I was walked to school, to Willingdon School, by another girl, Mimi, who lived on Oxford but a few doors in the opposite direction to Linda. I was not the greatest student and I would play hooky from school, either feigning illness and then I might stay at my grandmother's home on Girouard Avenue, or hiding out in my bedroom, one day hiding under the bed. Other people have fond memories of school, I don't have those memories. But I have fond memories of Veeto. 

Below the dining room table

Sitting outside of our respective homes

Audrey and her lovely mother, Mrs. Keyes; in 2006 at the residence
corner of Sherbrooke St. West and Landsdowne Avenue

It’s pretty sad losing an old and dear friend. Veeto was so full of life, to walk down the street with her was to have the street transformed by her presence. She sang and gave everything new life, new meaning, a new presence. What a special friend she was, what a special person to share one’s childhood with. I was blessed by her presence as was everyone who knew her.

Remembering Veeto

When I was growing up on Oxford Avenue, in the mid-1950s, Veeto was the little girl next door who was my first friend in life. We moved from Oxford in 1963 and while I heard a few things about Veeto, that she had moved to Australia, it wasn’t until around 2006 that we met again. She was an extraordinary person, one of the important people in my life. I will never forget dear Veeto.

    Photos of Veeto (Audrey Keyes) taken on 30 June 2009 at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, Montreal. Veeto's mother died in February 2008 and the funeral was a few months later; these photos were taken probably the following summer, in 2010. Both of Veeto's parents died on February 28th, her mother in 2008, her father years before.

 

Farewell, Veeto

Here is Veeto and me at the St. Viateur Bagel Restaurant, our first meeting in many years, July 2005

Audrey Keyes, also known as "Veeto" and "Veeto Wendy" on Facebook, died on October 23, 2019; she was sixty-nine years old. I met Audrey in 1954 when we moved from my grandmother's flat on Girouard Avenue to Oxford Avenue; we were neighbours, both four years old, and we became friends. I'd go to her front door and ask Mrs. Keyes, "Can Audrey come out to play?" As children we had years of playing together, in her home, riding our bikes, always imagining things, always playing, always making up imaginary worlds, always "let's pretend"... I think I am a poet partly because of those years of imagination and play with Veeto. My older brother played with Veeto's older brother, Bobby. Both Veeto and Bobby were adopted, we all knew this and never thought anything of it.

                            

                                        Here we are outside of our respective front doors on Oxford Avenue, 
                                                                      where we lived in the 1950s

Veeto moved to Australia around 1968 and performed in the stage production of Hair; she loved music and she loved those years in Hair and the life-long friends she made at that time  My mother remarried and in 1963 we moved to Montclair Avenue, about a mile from Oxford, and Veeto and I lost touch until the summer of 2005. She had seen my poem "Hoolahan's Flats" in which she is mentioned and she emailed me in July 2005 about this; a few weeks later we met outside of the St. Viateur Restaurant on Monkland Avenue, I recognized her right away.

Veeto and her mom, around 2006, at Manoir Westmount

                                                                              

Veeto came to Montreal fairly regularly to visit her mother who lived at the Manoir Westmount on the corner of Landsdowne and Sherbrooke. Her mom was living a half block from where she grew up on Landsdowne; my dentist's office was located across the street from the Manoir and, had I known, I could have visited both of them when Veeto was in Montreal. Every time I visited my dentist I parked at the top of Landsdowne walked down the street passing where Mrs. Keyes grew up. Her mom was a lovely person, and when she died in 2008 I was at the funeral and met some of the other members of Veeto`s family, some visiting from Australia for this occasion. Veeto's mother, Edith Smith, died on February 28, 2008; Veeto's father, Richard J. Keyes, died on the same day, February 28, but in 1980. They are buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery. Veeto spoke of walking along the hall of the Oxford Avenue flat and seeing her father praying beside the bed in the master bedroom. She said that her mother spoke of always living within sight of St. Joseph`s Oratory, even when she died in her mid-90s, at St. Mary`s Hospital, the Oratory was in sight outside of her hospital room window. I know the fifth floor on which she was a patient very well.

                                Veeto at her family monument at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, summer 2008

Veeto made a life for herself in Australia but here, in Montreal, Veeto also had a life, she had been a student at private schools, first at the Villa Maria, at the top of Monkland Avenue, a former home of three Governors General of Lower Canada; it became the home of a private girls' school in 1854. My cousin, Linda, also a student at the Villa, and who was also a neighbour and lived on Oxford Avenue, used to walk a very young Veeto to the Villa. Later, Veeto was a student at The Study, her parents spared no expense on Veeto.

Veeto visiting the Keyes' family monument at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

Veeto was born on January 15, 1950, the same day as another friend, Artie Gold, and while she never met Artie she knew Mary Brown, Artie's friend and companion for many years, who she met at a summer camp where Mary was working. Where we lived on Montclair Avenue was a half block from a residence for unwed mothers and across the street was the Salvation Army's Catherine Booth Hospital, this is where Veeto`s biological mother gave birth to Veeto. By the way, Veeto's name was given to her by her spiritual teacher, Osho, when Veeto was living in India; "Wendy" is the name Veeto's biological mother gave to her. Veeto was attached to both names.

A few years ago Veeto tried to get in touch with her biological mother; she also wanted to meet her biological mother and possibly her half-siblings and, she said, to see if any of them also sang, like her, as they walked along the street. But this lady, now elderly and living in Toronto, turned Veeto down and wouldn't meet her; it must have felt like a second rejection for Veeto. After that the discussion of finding her birth family ended.

One time, when Veeto was visiting, I took her for a long walk, through Montreal West, down the steep hill to Ville St. Pierre, and along Norman Avenue where we used to ride our bikes; it was all country back then, we both wanted to find some country in the city. We also used to buy fireworks on the main street of Ville St.Pierre; I remember blowing up Mr. and Mrs. Nuttall's tulips with fire crackers, they lived upstairs from us. Veeto remembered the names of all of our neighbours, I have forgotten most of them. We used to ride our bikes everywhere, even to the East End of the city to visit her grandmother; we were ten or eleven years old and it never occurred to us to tell anyone about these bike rides, why would anyone be interested? Truly, Veeto was the sister I always wanted but never had. But I did have Veeto.

Veeto also remembered my father's funeral in November 1956; that day she asked her mother if she could play with me and Mrs. Keyes, always loving to her daughter, said "Not today, not today." She remembered my father waiting for my mother to drive him to work at Windsor Station in downtown Montreal, he would sit on the balcony railing beside our front door; I remember him sitting there and I remember horse drawn milk wagons making their way along the street; I also remember looking up at the clouds and seeing faces that were frightening. Now, no one remembers any of this except for me, and that is why remembering is so important to me; to forget is to lose part of our inner being, part of our lives, part of our soul.

                                                                                                            The statue of Jesus behind Souvlaki George Restaurant

                                                                                corner of Coronation Avenue and Monkland Avenue

A few years ago Veeto and I were walking by Souvlaki George Restaurant and behind the restaurant is a life size statue of Jesus; we entered the backyard to get a closer look and there was a man there with whom Veeto began to talk. This man had worked in construction and so had Veeto, she had driven a large truck and worked on construction sites and even driven a taxi for ten years in Sidney, Australia; class barriers meant nothing to Veeto. This man liked Veeto right away. She treated him with respect and as an equal, even though he was a bit down-at-the-heels. That may have been the day we walked to Norman Avenue. Veeto was always an original, fearless, loving, one who celebrated life and accepted everyone she met.She had married in Australia and had two children, she had several grandchildren, she made her life in Australia; she loved people and music and people responded to her. Veeto loved life; and I ask, why is it the truly exceptional people go first?  

There is so much to say about Veeto but not enough time to say it. She was a strong woman used to hard work, but she was also well-read and knowledgeable about the world; she was highly intelligent and yet she lived, for the most part, a life of physical labour; she was adopted and embraced wholeheartedly the ancestry of her adopted Keyes family; she was named Wendy (I think of Wendy in Peter Pan), then she was named Audrey, and then she incarnated as Veeto. She was born in Canada and yet ended up making her home thousands of miles away in Australia. And this is Veeto, a completely original, caring, and loving person. The worst thing about all of this is that someone as loving and as full of life as Veeto should have left us so soon, and I know that many of us are devastated by her passing.

I send my deepest condolences to Veeto's family, to her daughter, her son, her granddaughter and other grandchildren, to her great grandchildren, and to her friends. She often spoke of her family in Australia of whom she was proud and loving. There is no turning the clock back, no recovering the torn off pages of the calendar, we've been blessed with her presence and now we must be the light in our own lives and the lives of others, just as Veeto was a light in our lives.

Scarey doll...

Back in the day, when we were children, I remember visiting Audrey Keyes (Veeto) who lived next door to us on Oxford Avenue. She had this huge doll she received for Christmas and I remember swinging around this doll, pretending to be a fake wrestler, and then finding the head had come off... Anyhow, years later, around 2005, Audrey and I met again; I also met her mother, Mrs. Keyes, a really lovely person. Mrs. Keyes laughed at some of the things in my poem "Hoolahan's Flat", it was not the reaction I expected!  And the doll's head? I wonder what happened about that episode...

Dream Journeys: The Journey Home

3) Oxford Avenue

I arrive at Oxford Avenue
where I grew up;
at the front door
a man’s corpse
sits in an upright position,
as though he had died
in the midst of pausing
to think or remember something.

We come and go all day
and I worry about a neighbour
discovering the corpse,
there are already flies
circling around his head
and I need to do other things
than worry about his being discovered.

Later, a sheet is placed
over the corpse, as one would cover a sofa
or armchair for the summer months
when away in the country,
or how I remember
the furniture in Grandmother’s
living room, a white sheet
on the maroon couch.

We come and go all day
but he remains at the door,
a sentinel or sleeping guard
to remind me of something I’ve forgotten.
I worry about the smell,
the flies, the signs of decomposition,
and the police arriving.

When I return that evening
he is gone and I am relieved:
but who was this corpse?
Could he have been Father,
or someone I have forgotten
or never knew, the white sheet
a shroud, like a body
found in the frozen north,
preserved by the cold,
lips pulled back, grinning
yellow wolf’s teeth.

Photos of 4614 Oxford Avenue

It's around 1954; photo taken outside of our flat at 4614 Oxford Avenue.

Here I am with my friend Ica Shainblum, on Oxford.

Graham Nichols and our dog Buddy, living room at 4614 Oxford Avenue. My mother married Graham in May 1963 at St. Matthew's Anglican Church; later in 1963 we moved to 4350 Montclair Avenue, in western Notre Dame de Grace.

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.

Oxford Avenue, 1950s

Here is our home at 4614 Oxford Avenue, our flat is the lower far left unit. We lived here from around 1954 to 1962.




Buddy, our dog, and Simey on the back porch at 4614 Oxford Avenue.




My brother on Oxford Avenue.

SM, around 1957; our flat can be seen behind me.

My brother on the back porch with our dog Buddy.

SM with our cat, Simey.

Here's SM and the cat again, on Oxford. We loved that cat as family.

My brother with Buddy, me, and our mother. Living room facing the street.

On Oxford Avenue, my brother and I in the living room. Taken around 1957.

Oxford Avenue, my brother in the living room by our first television (purchased around 1954 - 1955). I spent many enjoyable hours lying on the floor just feet away from this television...