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...

Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, October - November 1956

Our father's room at the hospital.

Gallery at the hospital.

My brother took these two photographs of Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, where our father was a patient in October - November 1956.

Two class photos from the late 1920s, early 1930s

Grade seven at Victoria School on present-day Blvd. de Maisonneuve near Guy Street in Montreal. My mother is front row, first person on the far left. Around 1929.

A second school class photo, from the High School for Girls, later the High School of Montreal on University just above Sherbrooke Street West, east side of the street. My mother is in the second row from the bottom, third from the right.

ERM, portrait and music

Edgar Raymond Morrissey

Above: A portrait of my father, then a photograph taken on a country road. Both mid-1940s?

Above: ERM, he looks quite young here, so maybe the late 1920s or very early 1930s.

ERM at the beach

I don't know whose sail boat this was or who the lady is on the far right; that's my parents on the left.

My parents, around 1939 - 1940. What a lovely photograph this is... they are young, attractive, well dressed, his arm around her shoulder.

Portraits, ERM, 1940s (two)

Portraits, ERM, 1940s (one)

ERM on a business trip, late 1930s-early 1940s

This final photograph shows George and Freddy D'Alfonso, who was the chef on the train.

My mother in the late 1920s, early 1930s

At Rondeau Beach, 1932

Back in the 1930s.

2226 Girouard Avenue, Montreal (three)

It's around 1997 and I'm making my first visit back to 2226 Girouard Avenue, the first visit since 1968 or 1969.

SM in front of 2226 Girouard Avenue.

Lovell's Montreal City Directory, 1844-45

First appearance of Laurence Morrissey in Lovell's Directory.

ERM in Miami, 1920s

In the late 1920s or early 1930s my father went on a holiday, by himself, to Miami. Here are some photographs from that trip.

I am always impressed by how well dressed many people were in old photographs. Always well turned out, always a tie and suit, always very dapper...

A day at Westmount Park, around 1953

Here I am, around 1953, all dressed up. I believe that's Academy Road (running parallel to Ste. Catherine Street) behind me, which is the most southern boundary of Westmount Park, between Melville on the east and Landsdowne on the west (I could be wrong about these names). This is a truly lovely park with foot paths, hills, an artificial lake, and an excellent library and green house--both on the park grounds--that are both open to the public. Our old Hillman, bought second hand from the Meldrums, of the moving company family, can be seen in the background. I remember lying down length-wise on the back seat of this car, it was that small. They don't make cars like that anymore, pity.

There's the Hillman behind me, and a public school. I wonder where this outfit came from...

That's the corner of Academy Road and Melville behind me... This is actually a great location in which to live, although I always found the stretch of Ste. Cathrine Street, parallel to Academy Road and running through Westmount just a block south of here, particularly bleak and depressing. So, avoid Ste. Catherine Street until you get to Atwater. Louis Dudek lived for many years just a few blocks from here on Ingleside.

My brother and I.

On Avonmore, 1948 - 1949

Here's my brother around 1948 - 1949.



Here's my brother, before I was born, in the Avonmore apartment, our parents' first home after they married in 1940. This is around 1948 - 1949; it's Christmas and the cards are on the book shelf in front of the living room window. I think those chintz drapes were recycled to our home on Oxford Avenue. Entertainment back then was the radio and reading--no TV, no internet--I think I still have some of the books that are on the shelves beside and under the radio, or I've given them to my son.

Here is what Avonmore looks like today. Photo taken around 2004. One day my mother was followed home by a strange man; she phoned her father who was a fireman for the City of Montreal, and he sent around a police officer to check out the problem. Her parents were very protective of their daughter. Another time, she received a phone call from a neighbour, someone had been killed by a streetcar that ran on the far left (between two streets) of the above photo. Maybe it was a suicide. Streetcar service in Montreal ended in 1959, I remember the tracks on Decarie Blvd. being removed from the road, but you can still see some tracks embedded in asphalt, for instance the corner of Sherbrooke and Elmhurst; as well, where the tracks ran perpendicular to Avonmore, behind someone's fence, you can find the old tracks, maybe ten feet are left.

Here is what Avonmore looked like in 1940, just a single street then, now it's a crescent and the front door of the apartment opens directly onto the street. My parents lived here from 1940 to 1952 or 1953, after I was born. Back then a lot of the old neighbourhood was still country.