Avonmore Apartment, some old photographs

5515 Avonmore Avenue

5514 Avonmore Avenue

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas, around 1949

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas 1949

My brother at Avonmore apartment, Christmas, around 1949

Gerry and Kitty Heffernan (Gerry Heffernan played for the Montreal Canadiens
hockey team) were good friends of my parents and visited
them often at the Avonmore apartment

Here is a photograph taken by one of my parents, it is the 1939
construction of the Avonmore apartments; according to the City of Montreal's
website, the building was constructed in 1943, this must be an error.

 

Visiting Avonmore Avenue on 22 July 2015

In July of 2015 I visited Avonmore Avenue and took these photographs; it is where my parents lived after they married in 1940.

 

This is the apartment building where my parents lived

They lived at 5515 Avonmore Avenue

Photographs are posted of the apartment that is for rent at 5515 Avonmore

The lane at the bottom of Avonmore with old streetcar tracks still present

Streetcars ran at the bottom of the street; you can still see the streetcar tracks

Here are some photographs posted at the entrance of the building, they show the  interior of the apartments 

 

Avonmore Avenue in January 2015

“Can you take me back where I came from, brother can you take me back?”

Avonmore Avenue. This was my parents' first home after they married in 1940, they lived at Apartment #4, at 5515 Avonmore Avenue; it was their home for the next ten years. During this time they lived only a few blocks from my paternal grandmother's home at 2226 Girouard Avenue. That's how things worked in the old days, you didn't move far from where your parents and siblings lived, your parents didn’t live far from where their parents lived. You stuck together as a family but this isn't possible anymore. My parents lived on Avonmore; it is a short street, it is a crescent and easy to miss as you walk in this area. This whole area, including Avonmore and Clanranald, always felt like it was in the past, to walk there was to walk in the past, it a neighborhood of apartments built in the 1930s and 1940s and, for me, it always had a quality of those years; it was also Avon which is a Celtic word for “river”, and it always suggested to me a place of dreams and mystery, a place where the days and nights were long. And then, in 1950 when I was born, my father was told by his doctor “you can’t live in a 3 1/2 room apartment with two small children” and so we moved a few blocks and lived with my maternal grandmother on Girouard Avenue, and that’s where we lived until around 1953. It was after the war and places to rent were still difficult to find, and if you did find an apartment or a flat to rent you had to pay the landlord for the key, it was a way the landlord could make some money on the side. Then, around 1953, we moved to one of Hoolahan’s flats on Oxford Avenue where my father’s brother, my Uncle Herb, already lived and he helped get us a place at 4614 Oxford, just a few doors from where Uncle Herb and his family lived. The new place was spacious, hard wood floors, a fireplace, living room, dining room, three bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, an unheated enclosed back porch, front and rear balconies, basement and garage. My God, it was (and still is) luxury living compared to the 3 1/2 room apartment on Avonmore that had a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a single bedroom. 

These photographs were taken on the afternoon of 06 January 2015.

5515 Avonmore Avenue is on the right

5515 Avonmore Avenue

June 2024 visit to Urgel Bourgie Cemetery, Montreal

This cemetery used to be called the Montreal Memorial Gardens, now it is owned and run by Urgel Bourgie Cimetiere Jardin & Complexe Funeraire and is located adjacent to Montreal in Ville St-Laurent. It is not hard to find but there is a lot of traffic, especially just before entering the cemetery. Planes landing at Trudeau International Airport can be seen overhead. All of the headstones lie flat on the ground; for assistance enter the main complexe building and the workers there are very hospitable and helpful. 

The grave of my great grandmother, my mother's grandmother, Bessie Richards Parker; 
born in the UK she died in Montreal in 1948

The grave of my mother's father, John Parker, born in Blackburn, England, died in Montreal; and his wife, Bessie Chew Parker, also born in Blackburn and died in Montreal

I think some people have their ashes left around or under a large rock, as this person has done;
a bit of humour, he writes "I crawled back under the rock I came from from"

June 2024 visit to Cote des Neiges Cemetery, Montreal

Cote des Neiges Cemetery is still overgrown with weeds, grass, etc., 
because of a prolonged strike in 2024

On the right is Thomas D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum, he was one
of the Fathers of Canadian Confederation

This is where many members of my family are buried 

Note: Cote des Neiges Cemetery is located on Mount Royal; CDN Cemetery is adjacent to Mount Royal Cemetery. They are the largest cemeteries in Canada. Mount Royal Park is a huge park in downtown Montreal, it was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted who designed other famous parks in North America.