St. Augustine Catholic Church, 11 April 2011

I remember when I attended St, Augustine Catholic Church, it was for my grandmother's funeral. I can remember the approximate date, it was 26 April 1965, the day before my fifteenth birthday. But I don't remember going to the cemetery for the burial, one forgets so many things and wonders "where was I?" "what was I doing?" “ why didn't I go?" "who was I with?" There must have been other funerals that day, my grandmother's casket was one of several and I remember the priest who officiated. This was the church of my Auntie Mabel; she died in 1960. My grandmother was Protestant and never went to church, she could marry my Catholic grandfather on the condition that she raise the children as Catholics, but on Sunday mornings she said her boys needed their sleep and most of her children were nominal Catholics and married Protestants. 

It was an Irish Catholic church.

 

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

Pictures of my grandmother’s home

On this day in 2009, it was 14 May 2009, I visited my grandmother's home at 2226 Girouard Avenue for the first time since 1969. My grandmother died in 1965, just a few days before my fifteenth birthday, she was one month short of her 90th birthday as my Auntie Ivy told my mother that morning when she phoned to tell her that my grandmother had died. For years, when driving passed the Girouard Avenue flat on my way to work, I would look up at her living room window remembering the many memories of my grandmother. It wasn't until 2009 that the flat was being sold and I had the opportunity to take these photographies. It was the last time I would visit my grandmother's home, where she had lived since the mid-1920s. 

Walking up the stairs to the flat

In the living room facing the Girouard Avenue

Entrance to the flat from the stairs.

In the living room.

The bathroom with the original
claw foot bathtub.

This was my Great Aunt Essie's bedroom,
she was my grandmother's sister.

The back porch facing the lane.

The kitchen.

This room off the kitchen, at the 
rear of the flat, was where my grandmother's
father slept after he moved to Girouard Avenue.

To the left was my Auntie Mable's bedroom,
to the right was the living room.

The living room, facing Girouard Avenue.

Entrance to the foyer from the living 
room; in this room, to the right was a maroon 
couch covered with a white sheet, the springs
touching the floor; to the left in this room
is where an upright piano stood.

The stairs and front door.

The upstairs is 2226 Girouard Avenue.

Cards from my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt Essie, around 1963

Postmarked 1966

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Memories of both our Irish heritage and family on this St. Patrick's Day, 2023. In the following newspaper article, all of the references to Callaghans are to my great great uncles, Fr. Martin, Fr. James, and Fr. Luke Callaghan. The three priests were brothers of my great grandmother, Mary Callaghan; she was born on my mother's birthday in 1845 and died on my birthday in 1906. 

Chronological History of the Irish in Montreal,
from The Gazette, 23 May 1942
(click to enlarge)

And thinking of my grandmother Edith Sweeney Morrissey. I took these photographs at my grandmother's home, where she lived until her passing in 1965, located at 2226 Girouard Avenue. I was driving home one day in May 2009 and I saw that the place was for sale and they were having an open house; I rushed home, got my camera, and returned to take these last photographs of where she had lived from around 1925. Those of us who are still alive and knew her, we all loved her and still miss her. 

Front entrance to 2226 Girouard Avenue

Looking out living room window at
2226 Girouard Avenue

Living room, 2226 Girouard

May 2009, 2226 Girouard Avenue

From left, my mother, my Auntie Ivy, my grandmother;
outside Parliament, Ottawa, 1962

My grandmother at our home on Montclair
Avenue, 1963

My grandmother, back porch of Girouard Avenue 
flat, around April 1938, holding her grandson,
Herb Morrissey