Great Aunt Essie's bedroom

How much smaller this room seemed to me when visiting in April than when I was there forty years ago... There was a bed, head against the wall on the left, and a bureau, but not really much else. For many years Essie worked at Tooke's factory which would have been several miles to walk, so she probably took a streetcar or bus to get there. In the mid-fifties, Tooke's pensioned her off saying that she hadn't carried her weight for years; that was when Tooke's was relocating in rural Quebec where wages could be reduced.

Bathroom

The first room on the left as you walk along the hall to the back of the flat. Not much has changed here. Some superficial painting, but the old claw-foot bathtub, the sink and medicine cabinet the same as I remember them. All pretty much as they were forty years ago, and forty years before that.

Hallway to kitchen

I remember this hallway, from the dining room to the kitchen, as being longer than it really is. The first room on the left is the bathroom, litle changed since I last visited in 1969. The next room is where my grandmother's sister, my great aunt Essie slept. I may have entered the room once, if ever, in all the years I visited Girouard, and I remember her giving me some money as a present, only once, it was a ten cent piece, a dime. Even then that wasn't much. I received a birthday card from her, addressed to Master Stephen Morrissey, the formal way of addressing a letter to an underage person. Essie was deaf and wore a hearing aid, she also had respiratory problems, at least I assume she did as she wore a mustard pack on her chest when she was ill. She moved to Girouard, I guess, when her father moved there in the late 1930s. In a way, she must have been quite a character in her own way or I wouldn't remember her as well as I do. The gesture of "zipping" up her lips and throwing away an imaginary key, indicating that she wouldn't tell something, and drinking her tea by pouring it in a suacer and sipping it, or drinking tea from a cup with her little finger protruding away from the cup, all were affectations that are memorable to this day. I don't remember her ever visiting or staying at my grandmothers's St. Eustache country cottage, I guess living at Girouard was as far as my grandmother was willing to go, as well as the country cottage was fairly small and there was no room for her. She worked at Tooke's factory most of her life, until they pensioned her off in the mid-1950s, they had been "carrying her" for many years they said. No pension, no severance pay, which is why in the old days being old without a pension and without family to support you meant poverty for many old people. I remember around 1968 seeing her sitting outside the former Steinberg's Grocery Store, corner of Melrose and Sherbrooke, next to the big post office, as I passed by on my way home on a city bus. I guess that's what she did with her days, go for a walk and sit in a public place. Essie died while still living at Girouard. God bless her.

Grandma's bedroom

Cupboard in the bedroom; the woodwork (now
painted over) is quite nice, elegant

That open door in the adjoining room
is the entrance from the stairs

Looking from the bedroom to the dining room

Window in my grandmother`s bedroom

These are all photographs of my grandmother's bedroom. Above, looking at the bedroom from the dining room. The others are of the cupboard in the room and the room in general.

There was an open house that I visited and took photographs of my grandmother`s last home, photos and visit took place in spring 2009. She lived here, on Girouard Avenue, from around 1924-25 to her passing in April 1965, and then her two sisters stayed on in the flat until 1968-69. I don`t think I had ever been in her bedroom, the door was open during the day and the foot of her bed was visible at the entrance to the room. During the day she often sat just to the right of the bedroom door, in the dining room, and the radio was playing. It was kind of an open-concept room, at the top of the stairs you entered to a foyer and the foyer opened to the dining room, other rooms were off this part of the flat. The flat was built in the early 1900s. (updated 15 September 2023)

In Grandma's bedroom

Looking from the bedroom into the dining room.

View from her bedroom window.

There was her bed with the foot of the bed at the entrance to the room. A bureau. A radio on the bureau on the right hand side of the room, near the window. Moulding around the door and windows is more ornate than I remembered. The room opened into the dining area.

Auntie Mable's Room

This was my Auntie Mable's bedroom, where my parents slept when we lived here from 1952 to 1954. The room is in the front of the flat, facing onto Girouard Avenue. She seemed to have "modern" furniture, compared to the rest of the flat, but maybe it wasn't all that "modern"... I remember sitting in this room on my father's lap, spelling "c.a.t." and "d.o.g." and looking at cartoons cut from the Saturday Evening Post.

Dining Room, facing entrance

In the dining room, facing the foyer: stairs to the street on left, Mable's room directly ahead, and living room opposite the stairs to street.

(Above) In the dining room facing the foyer and skylight above.

(Above) In the foyer, looking at the stairs to the street.

Between Chaston and Green

Spring visit.

Living room & dining room

Now we're in the dining room looking out the window at the space between the buildings (above).

Below we're still in the living room.

And, in the bottom photograph, we're standing in the dining room looking towards the entrance to the flat on the left, my Aunt Mable's bedroom directly ahead, and the living room is on the right.

In dining room & view

There used to be a tea wagon in front of this window and to the left of it a small table for a black rotary telephone. I remember playing there and, as well, that the phone was a party line, shared with several neighbours. This window was at the far end of the dining room, so after you entered the flat you'd be in a foyer and then, directly ahead, was the dining room in which there was a large dining room table in the center of the room with a white lace tablecloth on it. Then, against the wall to the right of the window was a china cabinet. As you stood at the entrance, in the foyer, and faced this window, there was a sideboard against the wall on the right in which were dishes and the top drawer on the far right was where my grandmother kept her eyeglasses in a beaded blue case.

Here's the view from the window in the first photograph. It's a courtyard between the two buildings where there used to be a tree, and then just a bit farther away from the building you have the lane between Girouard and the street to the west. Many of the properties on Girouard have been renovated... alas, 2226 Girouard is not one of them; it's present state gives some idea of what it was like back in the fifties, without furniture.

Views from windows, living room

Now we're standing in the living room looking out the front windows towards Sherbrooke Street West, just at the top of the street.

Living Room, front windows

In the living room, the front windows.

Girouard Avenue: The Living Room

To the right of these two doors is the living room at Girouard Avenue. There was a maroon couch, springs to the floor, and covered with white sheets on the left as you entered the room. To the right was an old upright piano. The room to the left was my Auntie Mable's bedroom.

You realize that this used to be a really nice flat. The word "flat" is British, so it is ironic in largely French-speaking Quebec that we use this word. I don't believe that these units are referred to as "flats" elsewhere in North America. A flat is a self-contained unit with its own front door to the street, unlike an apartment that has a front door leading to a hallway of other people's front doors, and a lobby and door to the street. My grandmother's flat was surprisingly large, around 1000 square feet, and has a very nicely laid out floor plan. Living room in the front, large eat-in kitchen in the rear, large dining room in the middle, and a foyer and door to where stairs lead to her second floor flat. It is a very liveable living space.

Here we are in the living room, the windows facing Girouard Avenue. On the left, against the wall, was the maroon couch and just to the right of he couch was an old cabinet containing sheet music from the 1920s and 30s.

If you face the living room windows, and then turn to the right, there is this "pretend" fireplace." To the right was a television set, black and white, for hockey on Saturday night. The fireplace was across from the maroon couch.

Another view of the living room entrance from the foyer. You know, I remember my grandmother's cleaning lady, Bella, on her hands and knees, nylons rolled down to her ankles, maybe chewing Dentine gum and the smell of floor wax in a can, that you applied with a rag, waxing these floors. The work that was put into this place! Or, my aunt or grandmother running a carpet swiper across the carpets, or picking up bits of lint or paper from the carpets. There wasn't a lot of furniture in the flat, but I remember it always being clean and nicely furnished, although (appropriately) old fashioned. In this photograph the floors seem to still have some shine to them.

Living Room, windows

Here we are inside the flat, in fact we're in the living room at the front of the building, looking out at Girouard Avenue.