L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the church that Darrell Morrisey painted

L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, this is  approximately where Darrell
Morrisey painted the church almost a century ago.

L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is located on the corner of avenue Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Boulevard Decarie in Montreal. This is the church that Darrell Morrisey painted in the 1920s; the painting, discovered about a year ago, is on the reverse of another of her paintings, one of a hay cart in Quebec. Seeing this painting, right away, I thought there was something familiar about this church, I Googled the image of the church and found L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and recognized it; I used to live at 4100 Av Northcliffe just a block from the church, I used to wait for a bus across the street from the church and then proceed to work on Montreal’s South Shore. That was from 1976 to 1979. 

Written above the church entrance:
"Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum" is Latin for
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." 

Darrell Morrisey's painting of L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (1927-1930)

The bell tower, on the far right, was constructed in 1927; 
this helps us date Darrell Morrisey's painting of the
church, it is between 1927 and 1930, the year in which she died.

The entrance to the offices of St. Augustine Catholic Church
on the east side of the church, the bell tower was added in 1927.

The offices of L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
are on the west side of the church.

                  

                                                                    Note the Sulpician logo on front of church


The Sulpicians have a long history in Montreal. This interests me because two of my great great uncles were educated at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal by the Sulpicians; the Sulpicians admitted into the seminary these two working class boys, Martin Callaghan, who became the first Montreal born pastor at St. Patrick's Church, and James Callaghan, a future pastor at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Griffintown; sons of immigrant Irish parents, the Sulpicians opened the doors of education, religion, and society to them. They were educated in Rome and Paris, and they were celebrated at home where they were respected and well known. While I am not deeply religious, I am interested in the churches of Montreal, churches of all faiths, and I am interested in my family history which is closely associated with the history of Montreal. The architect of L'église Notre-Dame-de-Grâce was John Ostell, interior stained glass windows are by Guido Nincheri, and the church is a part of the Sulpician history of Montreal. 

Note: Montreal and Saint Sulpice

NEWS

 

 11 JANUARY 2018

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A Long History Celebrated

 

Last year, during the celebration of the 375th anniversary of the founding of the city of Montreal, a group of faithful Québecois devoted to the early founders came to France to trace the French heritage that first arrived in Canada in 1642.

The Sulpicians became intimately tied to the city of Montreal—then named Ville-Marie—when the Sulpician founder, M. Jean-Jacques OLIER, who was part of the founding Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal interested in establishing firm Christian roots in New France, joined in sending a contingent of French missionaries to Montreal in 1657, the year of his own death. Arriving in August 1657, the Sulpicians found the city on the verge of collapse. They immediately set about plans to stabilize and restore the city. They organized the streets, gave them names that endure to the present (such as, rue Note-Dame, rue Saint-Mathieu, rue Saint-Paul, etc.), and basically saved the city, which now survives as a thriving multicultural metropolis in Canada.

The Sulpicians consequently became known as the “lords of Montreal,” having been granted a “seigneury” by the King of France. Olier thus entered Montreal’s history, along with Paul de Chomedey de MAISONNEUVE, Jeanne MANCE and Jérôme Le Royer de la DAUVERSIÈRE, as a heroic figure of the past whose influence endures today. Only a few years ago, during renovations at the first Grand Séminaire Saint-Sulpice in Old Montreal, vestiges of the original city walls were discovered and have now been preserved for future generations.

During the summer of 2017, the Superior General, M. Ronald D. WITHERUP, PSS, welcomed a small group of pilgrims from Quebec at the Generalate in downtown Paris, where he was interviewed to comment on Olier’s incredible missionary vision and his desire to participate in the sending of missionaries to Montreal and New France. The group included Sylvie TRUDELLE, Clément FORTIN, Pierrette ROY, and Roger BÉDARD. Upon their return to Canada, they created a 36-minute video available on Facebook, which includes two short segments of the interview with Father Witherup.

Source: https://www.generalsaintsulpice.org/en/news/64-montreal-and-saint-sulpice

Remembering my grandfather

My grandfather, John R. Parker, with his dog Dean in his backyard on Hampton Avenue 

Considering how seldom I saw my grandfather I seem to have more memories of him than of other family members. One day he told me that when he was growing up in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, he had killed a chicken and roasted it on a fire in a lane; I took this to refer to his growing up in poverty. One day he told me that if you wrap a box and use string, tie it on one of the edges of the box and it will hold better. He was trying to teach me something and now, so many years later, I appreciate his effort. Who tries to teach anyone anything anymore? My mother had many memories of her father, one recurring theme was him fighting, who does this anymore? There were only two incidents of this fighting that I know of; for instance, when he arrived in New York City around 1912 and lived with his Uncle William Parker, he drove a streetcar and one day someone tried to rob his streetcar, he chased the man down the street and beat him up; my grandfather was also a boxer in New York City but I know nothing about this. One day I was driving my mother to Central Train Station in Montreal, I remember exactly where this happened, she said "that corner is where a man was harassing a woman" and my grandfather had seen this and chased after the man, again fighting with him. In the 1920s my grandfather worked at the Central Fire Station in Old Montreal, that was after being fired from another job on the railway, something about having a gun. As a child or young person my mother would walk down the street to the fire station, from Mountain Street where they lived in an apartment and where my grandfather was also the janitor, and she would bring him his lunch or supper. One of the few stories I remember my grandfather telling me is that when he began working at the Central Fire Station they still had horses and the captain told him to polish the metal buttons on the harness; later he was told that he hadn't done a good job, there were buttons to polish even though they couldn't be seen on the underbelly of the horse. He remembered this and told me this story; was there a moral to the story or was it just a story from when he came to Canada.

In 1913 my grandparents' first born child, Willie, died of some illness; it was always said that the doctor never showed up, that the doctor had been drunk. We still have photographs of Willie, he was a beautiful child with longish blonde hair and he was much loved. Was this when my grandmother's depression became more evident? There are very few photographs of her and, at some point, she cut herself out of most of the photographs. Then, in 1916, my mother was born and her parents were very protective of her. When still a child a man followed my mother home, she had gone on an errand to the local dairy, and he followed her to where she lived on Richmond Street, hearing of this my grandmother ran out into the street with a milk bottom and chased the man ready to hit him with the bottle. 

It is only now that I am old that I truly appreciate my grandfather. He had married my grandmother in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. She was two years his senior, she was a Chew and there was a whole family of people behind her, none of them wealthy, but they were people who had accomplished something in life. They were builders, landlords, plasterers, plumbers, or they worked in the mills, that's how they made their living. My grandfather was a Parker, he had three brothers and the brothers, and their mother, moved to Montreal to join my grandfather and grandmother; one brother was also a fireman in Montreal. There was another brother about whom I know very little; he had a girlfriend but his mother broke up their relationship, and the woman he married was worse in some way than the original girlfriend. My grandfather was the only son who had children. My grandfather also had a younger brother, Victor, who had some kind of mental illness and was not able to hold a job. One day in 1969 my mother said to me that her Uncle Victor had died, this was the first I had heard of Victor; he had been living at the Douglas Mental Hospital in Verdun, adjacent to Montreal, and he'd been there since his mother died in 1949. Victor's mother wanted her other three sons to look after Victor after she died but that didn't happen and he ended up in an institution. My mother and I went to William Wray, undertakers, on University Street and spoke to someone there; the casket was kept closed, they said he was in no shape to be seen. My Uncle John, my mother's younger brother, had avoided the whole situation of Victor's death because he was afraid someone would try to make him pay Victor's expenses. That's how things worked.

After my grandparents married my grandfather moved, by himself, to New York City, my grandmother would follow. In New York City my grandfather lived with his paternal uncle, William Parker, who worked a few blocks from where he lived, at the Bronx Zoo. When I was a child I would drive somewhere with my mother and if someone tried to cut her off she would say "I'd like to punch him in the nose", and then recount that this is what her father would say. I guess road rage has existed since people first started to drive. My mother would always recount how her father jacked up and levelled the floors in their flat, or how he built the front porch on their property; she, too, was handy, she could reupholster furniture, paint walls, pay bills, do her own banking and invest in the stock market; she had only contempt for women who were helpless and had always let their husbands do everything, women who can't even look after money so they were helpless when they were widowed. I am not sure my mother even liked other women. She rarely spoke of her mother but she had many memories of her father. One day she said to me, "Did you ever get the better of someone, get a good deal, break them down?" She was gleeful when she said this and it was the only time I heard her say something like this. She was excited and happy at getting a good deal. It was rough being a woman in the old days, a woman couldn't even have a bank account without her husband's approval and my mother was contemptuous of any rules or laws that held women back. 

And now, these many years after my grandfather died, I, who never liked my grandfather, have come to appreciate him and what he did in life. He was not weak, he was strong, he looked after his family, they came first; his first child died and his wife was a depressive, but he got on with life. One day I was meeting my mother, maybe it was in the early 2000s just before she moved to Toronto. Seeing me standing on the street she called me, only this one time, "Dad", maybe I was beginning to look like her father or maybe her mind slipped for a second, slipped into the past.

These are some of the memories that I wanted to remember and have remembered about my grandfather, otherwise they will disappear into the ether of nothingness.

Note: maybe one day I'll edit this, rewrite parts of it, or delete it. 

Rear view of 2217 Hampton Avenue

His upstairs tenant, Mrs. Erskine

After my grandmother died in 1957, my grandfather visited
one of his wife's sisters (pictured) in Bercy, Saskatchewan

I believe this was also taken in Bercy, Sask., and my grandfather is with his niece

 

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