St. Matthew's Church, then and now

Here are a few, final, photographs of St. Matthew's Church taken two or three years ago. I suggest matching them with previous photographs of St. Matthews for a "that was then and this is now" comparison.

The Royal Tour, May 1939, Montreal

World War Two had been declared, the Royal Family visited Canada and were in Montreal in May 1939, that's 70 years ago.... These photos were probably taken by my father.

Note: Just recently I realized that bill bissett's poem, "The Canadian", refers to what is probably the same Royal Tour as shown in these photographs, the difference is that he was watching the Royals from his home in Halifax and these pictures were taken in Montreal. I read "The Canadian" when I was a student at university and it is still one of my favourite poems by bissett, it's a terrific evocation of the class system in Canada.
SM; 26 July 2009

4350 Montclair Avenue

My mother (holding our cat Simey) and Graham Nichols (my stepfather), whom she married in May 1963. The playroom at 4350 Montclair Avenue.

Annie Holden, my mother's cousin from Woodstock, Ontario visiting us, probably in 1967 for Expo 67. Photo taken in the backyard at Montclair.

My brother, my mother, and me (holding Simey, our cat), in the living room at Montclair. Around 1967.

Hampton Avenue

Here is my mother's father, my grandfather, John Richards Parker, who came to Canada from Blackburn, England, and worked until his retirement around 1946 as a fire man for the City of Montreal. Above: my grandfather's house at 2217 Hampton (below Sherbrooke Street West). A few years ago the flats next to this, identical to my grandfather's, were for sale and I walked around in them. They had been made into a single home with the upper unit for bedrooms and the lower for a kitchen and living room, dining room. I was most struck by how small they were, perhaps 900 square feet each. I have no memories at all of my maternal grandmother, she had bad health and didn't like to have her photograph taken; I believe she died around 1957. This photo (above) is from the mid-1960s.

My grandfather in his back yard.

My grandfather owned the two units; the lady who rented upstairs (in above photo) and her daughter were my grandfather's last tenants.

My brother and I, on the front stairs outside the Hampton Avenue flats. Around 1954 - 1955. I remember putting lit matches in my Uncle John's mailbox (he lived upstairs from my grandfather) and setting the curtains on fire, and I remember my Aunt Muriel completing a jig saw puzzle which either my brother or I pulled apart, perhaps testing how strong the pieces really were... I've always loved a fire, perhaps appropriate since my grandfather was a fireman.

Vacations, mid-1950s

That's my brother with his dog Buddy, on the road to Alburg or wherever in Vermont it was that we were going for a few weeks vacation. That must be Lake Champlain on the left.

Here is my brother and I posing, I think this must be at Fort Ticonderoga (spelling?) in Vermont. Is this the summer of 1957? It might be.

(Note: I've been informed that this isn't Fort Ticonderoga but Fort Chambly in Quebec on the way to Vermont. This seems accurate and I stand corrected.)

The road to North Hero, Vermont.

Maybe we went for a long drive one day, or down to Old Orchard Beach in Maine (I think that's where we got those American Civil War hats, one of which I am wearing in this photograph). That's my grandmother on the left and Auntie Mable on the right, and I'm standing between them.

It looks like a cool fall or spring day beside Lake Champlain.


(Below) This must have been taken on the same day as photo two above, my grandmother is wearing the same dress in it. That's my mother standing beside me.

Woodstock, Ontario, December 1956

We often visited my mother's cousins who lived in Woodstock, Ontario. They had emigrated here from England in the late teens or early 1920s. This is a photograph of their family home. When most of the daughters, and one son, had married and moved away, and the elderly parents (Alice and Bill Holden) had died, there was only the one daughter left at home, that was Annie Holden, and she never married, so it became her home. Annie died the year she retired, I believe in her lawyer's office, of a stroke. My mother was with her at the time. Annie was always very nice to us, a truly kind person who attended a Baptist church, sang in the choir, and worked much of her life at Harvey Woods in Woodstock.



This is December 1956, just after our father died. Two boys, age ten and six, who have lost their father.

Here is my brother, my mother, and I, at Annie's.

Woodstock, December 1956.

The two photos above and the photo below, probably taken at Bud Karn's farm. Bud's wife was Bertha Karn, one of Annie's sisters, their daughters Katherine and Patty. That's my brother, Bertha's daughter Kathryn Karn (KK), myself in the hood, and Michael or Billy Davis (the sons of Jennie and Arnold Davis, another sister of Annie's).

Here is Annie's house, in Woodstock, perhaps spring 1957.

A few years pass and we're still visiting Woodstock, now it's 1962-1963.

Woodstock, Ontario

Here is my brother with our mother's uncle, Bill Holden; Uncle Bill is the father of Annie Holden, Gertie Brown, Bertha Karn, Hartley Holden, and Jennie Davis (all are now deceased). Bill Holden married Alice Chew who was Bertha Chew's (my maternal grandmother's) sister. In the late teens or early 1920s Uncle Bill came to Canada, accompanied (I believe) by his daughter Gertie to find a new home for the family; they were moving from Blackburn, Lancashire, England to Canada. I think all Alice and Bill Holden's children were born by then and Gertie was possibly already married to Fred Brown, who had served in World War One and then, in Canada, he worked for the post office. They decided to settle in Woodstock, Ontario, perhaps because it had factories, like Harvey Woods, which cobined both a small town setting and factory work they were used to doing. When I was young, to my early twenties, we visited them in Woodstock quite often during the different holidays. When the Holdens all arrived in Montreal, en route to Woodstock, they stayed at my mother's parents' home on, I believe, Irene Avenue in Montreal's St. Henry neighbourhood. However, later, when they arrived in Woodstock, I believe they learned that the factory where they had planed to work had closed. I don't think Uncle Bill worked again, but he gardened, he was a property owner (they must have had eight acres of land) and he did things like grafting different types of apples onto the same tree. I also remember a big pear tree near their house that he probably planted. My mother was very close to her cousins who were like sisters and a brother to her. This photo was taken around 1947. It is one of the earliest photographs of my brother.

St. Eustache summer cottage, mid-1950s

Above: One of the only photographs of the children we knew in St. Eustache. In fact, I can't really identify any of them but Nicky Coppens, front row, first on the far left and myself standing to our right beside him. If, in fact, this is a photograph of what I think it is, and I think it is... taken maybe around 1958 or 1959? Curiously, I met Nicky again around 1981 at the founding convention of Alliance Quebec, held at the Loyola Campus of Concordia University. I was the Chateauguay Valley English-Speaking Persons Association (CVESPA) representative; I suppose they asked me to go because they couldn't find anyone; I am the last person anyone should ask to do committee work and I am not, for the most part, a team player. And there, by chance, was my old friend from the summers in St. Eustache, Nicky Coppens. At the time he was living part-time (?) in Holland and making movies and his older sister was teaching at the University of Sherbrooke. This is what I remember him saying, but I don't really know how accurate any of it is.

Below: One of the few photographs of St. Eustache taken in the winter. Here is my brother and Buddy, around 1957. My father bought Buddy for my brother; I remember driving to Howick where he was bought . I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong about any of this:


Here I am at the cottage my mother rented across the street from my grandmother's on 11th Avenue. I remember getting those new glasses I'm wearing. I wanted horned-rim glasses just like my Uncle Alex's...

My mother and I.

Buddy and me.

My mother and Buddy.

We rented a cottage from the Goodyear's, which was located directly behind their home, and which was across the street from my grandmother's cottage on 11th Avenue. I think this is where we got our Siamese cat, Simey, who I believe jumped out of someone's car, and somehow we knew they were from Baltimore. Anyhow, we kept the cat and loved him, he was a part of the family. I was with him in the late seventies when he died, he was around eighteen.Back in the country in the late 50s and early 60s, when my mother was at work, my brother and I were looked after by our grandmother and Auntie Ivy.

Here I am in someone's rowboat, left anchored at the bottom of 11th Avenue where we went for the summers to around 1962.

Frank Morrissey and family

This is Frank Morrissey, one of my father's older brothers. See the Morrissey Family History website for more information on Frank.

This is Eva Dubois who married Frank Morrissey; they had one daughter, Patty Morrissey.

Photo of Frank and Eva's daughter, Patty Morrissey Robb, she was like a sister to my father, Edgar Morrissey, and in this photograph, with Patty, is her second husband, Sid. Patty was born in 1920; my father was born in 1912. 

Here is a 1979 photograph of Patty Morrissey Robb's children, Frank and Eva's grandchildren; also in the photo is Patty's first husband, Peter Robb, on the far right. From left to right we see Patty's sons Don, David, Chris, and her daughter Patty (Ferrari).

Just think, we (and others) have all of these relatives we've never met, and they've never met us. People move away and stop communicating with the family and the family loses track of these people. Or the people who would keep in touch with family die or forget to keep in touch and the connection is lost. And then, one day, even the names of some family members is forgotten and new family members take over and start the whole thing over again. 

Frank and Eva, at one point, lived at the Corona Hotel near Guy Street in downtown Montreal (this was back in the 1930s); I believe they also used to live on Decarie Blvd. near the corner of Cote St. Antoine Road, and I pass their old home fairly often. Their only child, Patty, often stayed at our grandmother's flat at Girouard, and she and my father were very close; my impression is that her home life was not good. The family in Montreal lost touch with Patty when she and her family moved away. Patty's daughter, Patty Ferrari, sent me these photographs. 

Update: I have the address on Decarie where Frank and Eva (Eve) lived; they sent their daughter, Patty Morrissey, to the Villa Maria, a private girl's school about two blocks from their home. Frank and Eva lived on Decarie Blvd. not far from 2226 Girouard Avenue where Frank's mother and some of his siblings lived. 

Alburgh, Vermont, around 1957

Why do kids have to pull faces when they're getting their picture taken? Maybe they don't any longer...

Here is my brother (seated) and I, with our dog Buddy, outside of the cottage we rented in Alburgh, Vermont. I assume this was the cottage we rented...

Here I am with our dog, Buddy. I remember taking him for a walk that summer and being dragged along the dirt road holding onto his leash as he ran after something; then I let go and he escaped, but we must have found him or he returned by himself. Now I think of it, cats and dogs running away and the effort to find them, driving across the city, advertising in the newspaper, announcements on CJAD radio, phone calls from total strangers saying they'd found our cat or dog, all of that was a part of growing up. Alburgh, Vermont is located on Lake Champlain, which is one of the largest in-land lakes in North America. Alburgh is about sixty miles from Montreal. Of course, we all love Vermont, one of the most beautiful states. I think a typical Canadian experience is living within a hundred miles of the Canadian-American border and driving across the border to the States to buy cotton goods, blue jeans, cotton sheets, and back in the fifties to buy chocolate bars you couldn't buy here, and to smuggle back alcohol and cigarettes. I remember returning from Vermont with my grandmother in the back seat with packages of cigarettes in her purse for my Uncle Alex. Or the various ways Canadians used to smuggle back bottles of whiskey, in thermoses, or hidden elsewhere. Or taking the kid down to the the States in his old clothes which were discarded down there, and returning wearing three shirts, new blue jeans, running shoes, and other clothes hidden away in the car. Now, with free trade, that's pretty much a thing of the past. But it was a Canadian experience back then, whether in Montreal driving down to Burlington or Plattsburgh, or in Vancouver driving down to Bellingham, or (I guess) in Toronto...