After RR's mother passed away

                           

Could the young man, standing beside the coffin of Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner, 

be her son, RR Skinner? If you read newspaper reports of Mrs. Skinner's funeral (see previous

post), one describes the frenzied crowds outside the church, banging on the doors to gain entrance,

and just as RR described, when the funeral was over people entered and stripped the church for souvenirs. During the funeral two elderly, grey-haired, women guarded the doors (possibly the women above), and during the funeral the crowd forced the doors open, The Prophetess's husband, Mr. Arthur Skinner, and her sons left the side of the coffin to keep the crowd outside, mass hysteria was rampant! 

-o-

Here are my edited notes of what RR Skinner recalled of his mother, Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner (30 Aug. 1875 - 24 Nov. 1929):

His mother was a tall and imposing woman; possibly six feet tall. She would take a push cart and collect toys in the wealthy west end of London and then distribute them in the poor east end; no wonder there was such a large turnout for her funeral, people loved her as did her family. She started a church and took on the name of The Paracleta. Reg would be present at the church meetings and from this he began to learn about people's psychology; he learned how to "read" people and how to do psychic readings. RR's mother intended him to be her successor and to be a world teacher, she held this belief about him before his birth. Part of her church service was delivering the sacraments. The spirit she communicated with, or was a medium for, or who she channelled, was a North American Indian who was called Idvill. The Paracleta prophesied the coming of World War One and prepared for food shortages by filling large metal trunks with dried fruit. During her last ten years she lived in her church where she had a bedroom. When she died her followers stripped the church of its decorations and ornaments. 

. . . . .

The night RR’s mother died: RR went to his mother when he heard her laboured breathing, this was caused by asthma; Reg said, “No one dies of asthma”, but his mother died of asthma. She had asked for ice cream and RR, noticing it was by the fire, told her it had melted, it had been spoiled by the heat. He felt she was dying; later that night his sister, who was caring for their mother, called their father and RR. While the father put on his spats, moving slowly about his library, RR rushed to his mother's room. They were very close -- she had written to his future godmother, before RR was born, that he was to be the future avatar or world teacher and she trained RR on how to give psychic readings. Reaching her bedroom RR found her body in her bed, her head hanging to one side and mouth open. RR took a towel and tied it around her head closing her mouth; he remarked to me how detached he was when doing this. 

RR wonders why he developed throat cancer two years after his mother's passing. It was years later that he realized, and believed, that it may have been caused by his emotional repression of his mother's death; he believed because he did not speak of her passing, or of how close he had been to her, that this repression caused his throat cancer. A well-known Scottish doctor, whose specialty was cancer, removed the cancerous growth in his neck. He had a long convalescence and was not expected to survive the surgery. Fifty years later, sitting with Reg as he discussed this time in his life, he opened the collar of his shirt and showed me the scar where the doctor had operated. 

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Welby Arthur Skinner (13 Nov. 1896 - 06 Dec. 1984) became the family head after their mother died. In the early years of the 20th Century he was invited to visit Czarist Russia to lecture on the new radio technology. The radio licence that the BBC holds was issued after Welby received his license. Welby was also a visual artist and a member of the Royal Academy of Artists; RR would deliver Welby's paintings to the Royal Academy's exhibitions. Finally, Welby was a dental surgeon with his office at 44 Harley Street West in London (this is still a dental office; as an aside, years ago when I was writing this narrative about RR Skinner I contacted the dentist who bought Welby's dental practise; what he said was that Welby arrived sitting in the back seat of his Rolls Royce, the Rolls will be mentioned again). When Welby went to fight in World War One, sending home watercolour post cards that he had painted, their mother temporarily took over his medical practise, performing extractions, fillings, and other dental operations. RR is missing several teeth because he allowed Welby to extract them for practise. (I have omitted RR's memories of his sister Joan and his brother Ronald). He remembered with fondness his two elderly sisters, Girlie and Doris. 

 ... Within six months of RR's mother's passing, his father (Arthur John Skinner, 11 June 1867 - 25 March 1953) was looking for a new wife. This was something of which Welby disapproved; Welby called a family meeting and had his father put out of the family home. RR had a photograph of his father sitting in a tiny London garden located behind the house of his father's second wife, he was a tiny lonely old man; RR's father had a daughter with his second wife.  When Flossie (Florence Skinner, 4 Oct. 1891 - 18 Feb. 1960), Welby's first wife, suffered a stroke in the late 1950s, RR went to visit them in London. Flossie sat in a chair by a window and Welby spoke of her condition in front of her, he said, "All she can do is shit and piss." RR was upset by Welby's crude comment; he visited Flossie afterwards and attempted to communicate with her. It was Welby's insensitivity that alienated RR from Welby. And then, after Flossie died, Welby remarried but RR never visited them and never met Welby's new wife and her son. 

During the 1930s RR worked for Nestle, possibly as a manager, and he spoke of firing numerous people; the other employees hated him so much that one day a hostile group of them waited for him at the entrance to the Nestle factory, but he seems to have intimidated them and the gang dispersed.

RR said that he had two adopted brothers, Eric and Victor. He had a sister, Ruthie, who failed to return home from school one day, it was believed she was kidnapped for she was never seen again; they adopted Victor to replace Ruthie. While RR and Welby went to public schools, to Aleyn's, Dulwich, where their father taught geography, another brother, Cyril, went to a council school because the family couldn’t afford a better school; Cyril had a working class accent and later worked for Welby as a helper. 

During the war RR said he worked as an air traffic controller. He mentioned that some British fighter planes, returning to the UK, would be shot down, these British planes were confused with enemy airplanes entering British airspace. RR was demobbed in 1945 and returned to civilian life to open a fix-it shop. He had married before the war and returned to married life, but he said the marriage was unhappy, they were constantly arguing. He and his wife had two children, both girls, but he seems to have had little contact with his ex-wife or his daughters. He left the marriage and re-enlisted and served for another five years; I think what he did during this period, 1945 - 1950, is that he visited German towns to root out remaining Nazi sympathizers. In 1950, without money, but with an allowance to retrain for civilian life, he took a short course in chiropody. He described living upstairs over a green grocer for six months, living on oat meal. Around this time he met Joan, his future common-law wife. In 1967 she discovered that she had cancer; five years later, when they were about to celebrate her fifth year of being cancer free, a new tumour was discovered. RR often spoke about Joan and how happy they were together. 

-o-

RR said that he was a healer; he kept file cards on his patients, his notation on each card was some kind of short hand or notation that only he could understand. And people came to see him, to talk, to have him put them in deep relaxation and try to locate the source of their ill health. A few times people came to the front door and just meeting RR seemed to help them and they left. RR felt that people needed to enter the stream of life but how was this to be done? RR is not alone when he says that destroying the old allows something new to be born, in this sense being destructive is allowing for what is new to exist. Once, I asked him to summarize his teaching. He said there were two things he had observed, these would help people enter the stream of life: the first was that the other person came first and, the second is that one's thoughts were always wrong, if you thought you knew something then you were wrong in your thinking. I could understand the first of these but the second somewhat eluded me except that, sometimes, the more I am firmly committed to a point of view, that I am convinced of something, the greater the possibility that I am wrong. I remember repeating these two points to RR and he said he didn't remember saying these things, although they were interesting ideas and they seemed like something he would say. He said that he would add something else to the list, that we must give what we have, freely and without thought for ourselves or for the future. He said that ideas and thoughts will get you nowhere, the stream of life has to come to you, life has to come to you for "you" are just an idea with no reality, but an accumulation of thoughts and memories. Life is constantly moving and changing and we cannot make permanent that which is impermanent. The stream of life is constantly changing and new.

-o-

I remember the following episode very clearly. It was towards the end of my last visit with RR. 

...Now RR referred to himself as being old and what a comfort this was for him. One morning, before Peggy arrived, we walked through a housing estate and gotr lost. A very old woman, bent and thin with age, was walking her equally old dog. RR went up to the dog and affectionately, "I think you're naughty, I think you're a naughty girl." The old woman laughed and said, "Yes, aren't all of us women naughty." RR and she smiled and chattered, old age was a blessing. 

-o-

A few years later (around 1987 - 1988) when I was back in Canada, I had a phone call from Reg; I had some difficulty understanding what he was saying because, as he informed me, he had had a stroke. He said that the stroke was a blessing. A few years later he moved into a nursing home. I had the address at the time, but RR was no longer able to correspond, he said that writing letters had ended for him. I looked up the residence on Google Street View to see what it looked like, it seemed to be someone's home. Sue, RR's companion for a number of years, said that Reg stayed in his upstairs bedroom, he wasn’t interested in socializing with the other residents.  

-o- 

I’ve just found these photographs in a box of old photos; they might be of interest.

Sue Fairless (?) and RR

Reg and Czar

Beach huts; walking to Bognor Regis

In Felpham, William Blake’s home from 1800 to 1803; my finger on lense

Walking from Felpham to Bognor Regis

Reg’s dog, Czar

Here is Ley Road; unrelated to this road`s name,
ley lines cross and crisscross the UK

 

Visiting 

St. Mary's, Felpham

View from St. Mary’s, Felpham, Felpham Road

St. Mary's, Felpham

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Peggy Lake and Reg Skinner with pendulum for dowsing

Miniature painting (3 1/2" X 3 1/2"), a present to me from Peggy Lake
who lived near RR after he moved to Felpham, Peggy was RR's sister-in-law; 
inscription on verso: "To Steven, A small memento of your visit Aug/Sept 84
with good wishes to you and your family. Peggy"

One day, RR and I visited Joan's sister, Peggy Lake, who lives near Felpham, in Yapton. Peggy has a small row house in a fairly new development. Peggy said, "When Joan was dying I held her hand. Joan said that she saw birds at her feet and she was talking to them, then she said ‘have I harmed anyone?’” and died. Sitting in Peggy`s living or reception room, one is surrounded by knick knacks, her paintings, books, and family photos. There is one photograph of RR and Joan together; they are sitting beneath a tree, Joan with no expression, looking very tired, while RR is smiling. Peggy said, "Ìt's not a good photograph of Joan; it was taken the summer before she died." RR, when speaking with Peggy, was nervous, he spoke quickly and he was not at ease; while he spoke of the same things he discussed with me -- "things appertaining", auras, evolution, and dowsing, Krishnamurti, for instance -- he was not at ease. He assumed a formality that Peggy accepted as RR's way. They have known each other for almost thirty-five years but RR said they have never been especially close. Peggy thinks of RR as an eccentric; she does not approve of everything he says or does, but she keeps her judgements to herself. 

-o-

… And in the End: I met Reg Skinner in August 1974. At the end of that month I returned to Montreal and spent two years at McGill University earning my Master of Arts degree; upon graduating I was hired to teach English at Champlain Regional College, I taught there for thirty-five years. I corresponded with RR for about fifteen years. I married in August 1976, the marriage ended in 1989; I have one son. In April 1978 I spent a month with Pat McCarty and we drove from Oakland, California, to Baja California; we attended Krishnamurti's Talks in Ojai, California, that April 1978. I first met Pat in Switzerland for Krishnamurti's Talks in 1974; Pat also met RR Skinner at the same time as I did. Pat McCarty died, in Florida in 2008, he was only 60 years old; Pat McCarty was born on 21 January 1947, the same birthdate as Carolyn Zonailo, my second wife; Carolyn and I have been together since the end of May 1991. I heard Krishnamurti speak at the Felt Forum, MSG, in New York City around 1984. After about twelve years since we met at Saanen for Krishnamurti’s talks, I met Sally (Lake) McKenzie at RR's home in Felpham in 1986. I published books of poetry and criticism. I retired from teaching in 2012; now, I consider myself retired from most things. All those years ago...

Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner, who was she?

It is only within the last few years that I discovered the identity of RR Skinner’s mother, of whom he spoke only with affection. The Skinner family is represented on the Find a Grave website and without this resource I would not have found Mrs. Skinner, who was a well-known spiritualist in Bethnal Green in London in the 1920s. Spiritualism was very popular in the 19th Century, it affirmed that communicating with the dead was possible, and, for instance, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among others, were spiritualists. "The Mother", as Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner was referred to, had a North American indigenous spirit guide, that is, the "person" whose messages were communicated by her was a native American; however, she was not the only medium with a North American native guide, there are others. We have an Indigenous People's television network here in Canada and one of their programmes is Spirit Talker which features a medium, a First Nations' spiritualist, who sits with other natives, average people, and communicates what their deceased relatives want to say to them; some of these episodes are highly moving; I expect that this was the type of thing done by Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner, it is to "deliver a message of hope, healing, and closure."

I suspect that Mrs. Skinner may have borrowed from several occult traditions, including the Rosicrucians and the Theosophists. She doesn't seem to have written any books or articles on this subject, subsequently there is little evidence for what she said or did in life. RR Skinner was both her son and pupil in the art or practise of psychic reading. Here is something of what we know:

Elizabeth Mary Ann Eagle Skinner 

Mrs Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner
of The Universal Brotherhood,
the Mystical Church of the Comforter

Mrs Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner of The Universal Brotherhood, the Mystical Church of the Comforter with headquarters in a church (a disused waiting room ) at Denmark Hill Station; “The leader and founder of the church was Mrs. Elizabeth Skinner, whose official title was The Messenger…” (1 January 1927)

                         

Excerpt for Wikipedia entry on the location of Mrs. Skinner’s church at the Denmark Hill railway station:

The station was built between 1864 and 1866. Its design by Charles Henry Driver is in the Italianate style, with an extremely decorative frontage and French pavilion roofs.^[4]

... In 1920 the waiting room was used by The Mystical Church of the Comforter, founded by Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner, who was known as "The Messenger". The waiting room was transformed by an altar, painted white and surrounded by the seven colours of the rainbow.^[5] The Nottingham Evening Post for 17 June 1926 reported that babies were baptised, funeral services were read and even a marriage was solemnised. The porters and clerks of the railway company often worked to the accompaniment of hymns sung by the congregation. The church is believed to have ceased to function after the death of Skinner in November 1929. . .  By the late 1970s, the structure had fallen into disrepair...

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1920 saw the station’s waiting room commence use by The Mystical Church of the Comforter, founded by Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner who was affectionately known as ‘The Messenger’. This arrangement lasted until Skinner’s death in November 1929.

                        --https://blog.lessavine.co.uk/denmark-hill-station-dmk/

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The following is from https://loughborough-junction.org/2016/12/01/the-mystical-church-of-the-comforter-in-denmark-hill-railway-station/

Mrs Skinner passed away on November 24, 1929 and this report from the Lancashire Evening Post, 27 November 1929, describes the scene. She is buried in Camberwell Old Cemetery.


The Mystical Church of the Comforter … in Denmark Hill Railway Station

A disused waiting room in Denmark Hill Railway Station hosted the Mystical Church of the Comforter. It’s founder was Elizabeth Mary Ann Eagle Skinner nee Roberts. She was born August 30-31, 1875 in Bethnal Green. She married Arthur John Skinner, who was a teacher at Alleyn’s Dulwich.

She founded the Church in 1901 and it moved into the disused waiting room next to the ticket office at Denmark Hill around 1920.

The church in the station: http://jot101.com/2019/10/the-church-in-the-station/

If you were catching a train to or from Denmark Hill railway station in Camberwell, London, any time between 1920 and 1929 you might be surprised to find that one of the waiting rooms there had been converted to a place of worship. But not any place of worship. Around 1920 a disused waiting room on the first floor was let to one Mary Elizabeth Eagle Skinner for use as a temple dedicated to her Mystical Church of the Comforter, a religious foundation, which she claimed had ancient foundations, but which she had re-established in 1901.

Little is known about Mary Skinner (1875 – 1929) apart from the fact that she was a Rosicrucian of the Ymir Temple, was married to a schoolteacher, called herself ‘The Messenger', but was popularly known as 'mother'. Her full-page advert in the April 1926 issue of The Occult Review which we found at Jot HQ recently, tells us a little more about the teachings of her Church, which were no doubt laid down by herself, she being to all intents and purposes a one-woman band.

 One curious newspaper reporter in 1926 described the Temple thus:

One end of the room had been transformed into an altar, painted white and surrounded by the seven colours of the rainbow. Seven steps lead up to the altar, and at the side are two pillars representing Beauty and Strength. Everything is done by symbols, and the badge worn by members is a dove standing in the circle with a seven-leaved branch in its beak.

Skinner was not the first religious figure to proclaim the importance of ‘Universal Brotherhood’, but unlike most established religions around the world, she supported the idea that men and women are equally qualified to act as ministers. The chief teachings had aspects in common with orthodox Christianity, although the emphasis was much more on the unity of all ‘men, of all creeds, seeing the one Eternal LIGHT of LOVE shining through all ‘. There is also an emphasis on the importance of personal moral responsibility:

‘Thou art thy own judge; thy conscience tells thee. There is no such thing as a bad conscience : it is thy good conscience that reproves thee. Thy conscience is the EYE of the soul. It is the Angle with the Flaming Sword !

Such teachings recall those of the Ba’hai movement, which was founded in the 1840s, and which claims to be the youngest major religion in the world. Skinner may have been influenced by the teachings of the Ba’hai leader, who toured England in the early years of the twentieth century.

 Services at the Mystical Church were held on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings (presumably when the station was less busy). Healing took place on Saturday evenings and ‘deeper‘  sessions were available to enrolled members only on Monday and Friday evenings.

 It would be interesting to know what sort of people attended Skinner’s services, but whoever they were, most seem to have flocked to the Temple to see her body laid out following her death in November 1929 at the early age of 54. Indeed there was such a crush in the passage outside the former waiting room, that there were fears for the safety of all concerned. One admirer of ‘mother‘ Skinner summed up the feelings of all who knew her:

‘She was a great and loving soul, a prophetess and a seer…’

                                                                    --R.M.Healey

                                  

One end of the room has been transformed by an altar, painted white and surrounded by the seven colours of the rainbow. Seven steps lead up to the altar, and at the side are two pillars representing beauty and strength. Everything is done by symbols, and the badge worn by the members is a dove, standing in a circle with a seven-leafed branch in its beak.  

                --A description from the Lincolnshire Echo, 21 August 1926

 

“The leader and founder of the church is Mrs Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner. Her official title is “The Messenger” but most of the members call her Mother. When conducting a service, Mrs Skinner wears white robes ornamented with mystical signs. She is a Rosicrucian and the signs used refer to some of the inner orders of that society.”

-o-

The church was mentioned in an advertisement published in a periodical “Review, THE PROBLEM OF ATLANTIS”; note: this periodical seems to have published only advertisements.

Messenger (YMIR TEMPLE) Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner. 'Phone Brixton 2426. A BOOK OF GREAT INTEREST. The Problem of Atlantis. By LEWIS SPENCE. Demy 8vo, cloth Source: http://www.iapsop.com › materials › occult_review

-o-

"Peace and Love be Thine"

                         

-o-

Several of the following images are taken from https://loughborough-junction.org/2016/12/01/the-mystical-church-of-the-comforter-in-denmark-hill-railway-station/

Mrs. Skinner at the altar of her temple

The symbolism of Mendelssohn's Wedding March
played at a funeral... now wed to eternity.

Statement by Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner

Newspaper report of Elizabeth Mary Eagle Skinner funeral

-o-

Other links: 

https://jot101.com/2019/10/the-church-in-the-station/

https://harveymorris.uk/2020/10/29/covid-nights-a-storm-over-haunted-camberwell/

With music in the background

 

July 1974; Sally McKenzie and Pat McCarty walking to
the tent where Krishnamurti gave his talks in Saanen, Switzerland

From left: Pat McCarty, Sally McKenzie,
and Stephen Morrissey: our last day at Saanen, 5 August 1974

Just after arriving in Saanen, Switzerland, where Krishnamurti gave yearly talks, I met Patrick McCarty and Sally McKenzie; it was July 1974. That first evening at the hostel we walked to the Saanen Church to hear a concert; only recently I learned that we had attended an event of the Yehudi Menuhin Festival. Pat McCarty became a good friend. Two years later, in April 1976, we drove from Eureka, where he lived, to Baha California in Mexico; I met his brother and his wife and stayed with them in Oakland; I also met his parents, in Bakersfield. We visited San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles, we stayed at Yosemite National Park; we attended Krishnamurti's Talks at Ojai. Pat visited me in Montreal several times, including when I married in August 1976.  Then life intervened and we lost touch and then, just a few years ago, I learned Pat had died in 2008. 

As well, recently, I learned that Pat's birthday was January 21, 1947, the same birthday as my second wife. I have a theory regarding dates, probably not original to me, it is the synchronicity of dates, the meaningful coincidence of dates, especially births and deaths; dates can be a recognition of the importance of certain events or people important to us. When I met my second wife at Dorval Airport, in 1991, I felt that I had always known her and, looking back, I felt the same way about Pat McCarty; both born on January 21. The meaningful coincidence is their birthdate and that both of these people have helped fulfill my life; these are people who give more than they take.

Lucy Worsley is one of my favourite television personalities, she recently presented the life of  Agatha Christie over three evenings. I've read all of Agatha Christie's novels, out loud to my wife, this was a daily time of togetherness made even more enjoyable by what we were reading; unfortunately, when our basement was flooded last summer all of our Agatha Christie novels were destroyed and had to be thrown out, they were all water damaged. Lucy Worsley mentioned that in her old age, when Christie was planning her funeral, she considered having Edward Elgar's Nimrod performed. Nimrod is a deeply moving memorial for Elgar's friend Augustus Jaegar, you can feel Elgar’s grief in this music and feeling his grief we feel our own grief; this music is a deepening of the soul. As well, Nimrod, a city of antiquity in Iraq, was excavated by Christie's husband, the archaeologist Max Malloran, so this music would have a deeper meaning for Christie, she accompanied her husband on this archaeological dig. Nimrod is also a biblical character and it is possible that Nimrod is another name for Gilgamesh, the central character in The Epic of Gilgamesh. I like to tie things together, to see what is significant and what gives meaning to life; The Epic of Gilgamesh deals specifically with the grief of losing a close friend, as Gilgamesh lost Enkidu, as Elgar lost Jaegar, as Max would lose Agatha upon her death, as Agatha would lose Max.

Finally, in addition to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes, one of my favourite detective characters is Colin Dexter's Morse; all of the episodes of this television series with John Thaw are excellent, and the subsequent shows, after Thaws's death, Lewis and Endeavour, are also excellent.  An episode of Morse entitled "Dead on Time" features Schubert's String Quintet in C major; like Elgar's Nimrod this is a deeply moving piece of music, it is an entrance way to the soul, to memory and the past, to the ancestors, and to our very existence and history. In the long run it is the soul that concerns us, for we are visitors to this life and our work is the soul’s work, which is to become conscious human beings.

At the Medical Arts Building

The Medical Arts Building

23 August 2023

Old photo of Medical Arts Building, corner of Sherbrooke Street West
and where Guy becomes Cote des Neiges Road; photo from the 1920s.

Located on the corner of Guy Street and Sherbrooke Street West, the Medical Arts Building is still a location for doctors and other professionals. Many years ago I went to a meeting of the Theosophical Society of Montreal in this building; it was a small office with many shelved books wrapped in brown paper dust jackets. I was there to hear a lecture on the teachings of J. Krishnamurti; you might know that when Krishnamurti was a child he was discovered by Leadbetter, a friend of Annie Besant and a prominent member of the Theosophical Society in the early 1900s. The discovery was prescient and Krishnamurti went on the become one of the most important spiritual teachers of the 20th Century. 

    Recently, I was on the tenth floor of the Medical Arts building and looking out of the window, looking west along Sherbrooke Street, I noticed buildings that are important to my family. There was the Grand Seminaire (the College de Montreal), formerly run by the Sulpician Order that still owns this and other properties, for instance, Cote des Neiges Cemetery, on the Island of Montreal. My two great great uncles, Fr. Martin Callaghan and Fr. James Callaghan were educated at le College de Montreal and they both went on to prominent roles in the city; for instance, Fr. Martin was the first Montreal-born pastor at St. Patrick's Church; Fr. James was pastor at St. Ann’s Church in Griffintown. Fr. Martin and Fr. James are buried at the crypt below the church at the Grand Seminaire de Montreal. A third brother, Fr. Luke Callaghan, was the man who saved  St. Mary's Hospital when its survival was in doubt. Fr. James and Fr. Martin are buried in the crypt under the large chapel at the Grand Seminaire de Montreal; Fr. Luke is buried at Cote des Neiges Cemetery.

Above photos 23 August 2023

    Across the street from the Grand Seminaire is the Masonic Temple, where my grandfather and uncle were both Masons.  It is a magnificent building and I haven't caught that magnificence and size in these photos.

Above photos 23 August 2023

    Near here, almost next door to the Masonic Temple, is the Heffel Art Gallery with its Joe Fafard statue of "Emily Carr and her friends" outside. Very nice! We are all Emily Carr fans.

 

    Then, a few blocks west, still on Sherbrooke Street West, I could see the Mother House where my mother attended secretarial school. She completed her diploma at the High School of Montreal, it is still located on University Street but is now dedicated to art education, and then attended the Mother House. This was a popular secretarial school in the past and the girls got good jobs upon completion of their studies. My mother worked for a jeweler located in the Hermes Building; the family that owned the business invited her to their summer cottage, which my mother's protective father did not allow, and they asked her to stay working for them when she announced she was leaving to get married in 1940; she always spoke with fondness about this family and her years of working for them.

    And finally, across the street from the Mother House is where my son lived while he attended Dawson College (which now occupies the buildings of the Mother House). During the 1997 Ice Storm, my mother stayed with my son at his apartment in this building; I was in Vancouver during this time. When I returned home at the end of the Ice Storm the grounds of Dawson College were strewn with broken branches and broken trees. 

 

  

    This is what I mean by living in a community and the community giving back to you a sense of belonging, of history and remembering the ancestors and listening as they speak to you, of having a place in society that began with your ancestors and history and respecting the ancestors by remembering them and honouring what they did for society and for you in particular. I say "God bless them all!"

 

Night view of the twin towers, College de Montreal; around 2011

Just to conclude, this stretch of Sherbrooke Street West, from Atwater to Guy Street, is one of the places where I've always parked when downtown; usually I can find a parking space here; but it is also a street that I like to walk along, a street of apartment buildings and offices and historical buildings and people out walking to work or walking their dogs. Here is something of what it looks like.

Note: everything is years ago now, but years ago I visited an acupuncturist with a friend and when the Asian doctor heard that we were poets he said that one of his patients was Artie Gold; that must have been mid to late 1990s. Located in the Grosvenor Building, 1610 Sherbrooke West, north-west corner of the street.