Linda MacDonald
AUDIO INTERVIEW
SUMMARY
April 22, 2015
00:34 PERSONAL INFORMATION: 1950-64 lived at 116 Hope St. Moved in when she was five.
01:12 HOUSE OF WORSHIP: Linda went to St. Clare’s her whole life - located at St. Clair and Northcliffe.
01:35 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREETLIFE/LIFE OF A CHILD: Description of house and street, how the kids played on street on Boon Ave - it was “absolute heaven”, kids in every house, a child’s life was spent on the block.
02:20 RECREATION: Hide and seek, hopscotch and skipping.
02:25 LIFE OF A CHILD: Worm-picking.
02:45 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Lots of children, in every house, and neighbours knew each other”. Like the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, that’s what the street was like.
03:10 The mothers were all at home.
03:30 Descriptions of the “block” and how when you were little you stayed on your block, you didn’t leave it.
04:10 TRANSIT: Memories of using the streetcar with her parents and how it used to have a stove in the centre and a conductor that took the fare – this must have been around 1950.
05:20 Linda remembers her parents used to smoke on streetcar.
06:12 LIFE OF A CHILD: Memories of her childhood when life was so free in the summertime when parents used to send their kids out and say “don’t come back until lunch” and “don’t come back until dinner.” Kids were left to their own devices.
06:35 LIBRARIES: Going to the library and other places in the neighbourhood were things kids did when they were a little older. Her mother’s love of books fostered her love as well.
07:30 SCHOOLS: Linda attended St. Clare’s until grade 8, then she went to St. Joe’s.
08:00 SCHOOLS/WORK: It was a given that Catholic girls went to Catholic school. Girls were expected to help pay for schooling and so many of them worked at Dominion (now No Frills) to help pay for tuition. Most of their pay went towards tuition.
08:55 WORK/SHOPS Linda notes that the store hasn’t changed much. She worked at the snack stand making hamburgers, hotdogs, and coffee. The Dominion was there since the 1960s, at least since 1962.
10:00 ENTERTAINMENT/LIFE OF A CHILD: The St. Clair Theatre where the Uptown Fitness Centre is now was at St. Clair and Dufferin, the Oakwood Theatre, where the tall high-rise is, and the Vaughan Theatre at St. Clair and Vaughan, it was large - where Tim Horton’s is now.
11:00 Linda was 8 or 9 years old she was taken by her mother and aunt to see her first evening movie at Oakwood. They saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with Jane Powell and Howard Keel. Kids would go to St. Clair Theatre every single Saturday, to see a double feature with cartoons and news. They’d all get a quarter, 15 cents to get in and 10 cents for popcorn.
12:20 LANEWAYS: The kids would use the laneways all the time. The guys would ride bikes, they’d play hide and seek, and chase each other with guns in holsters.
12:40 They’d go roller skating because no one was there during the day. “Laneways were fantastic!”
12:45 On their street, every family had a car.
13:20 HOUSE OF WORSHIP/YOUTH GROUPS: St. Clare’s church - lives rotated around church, social, Brownies and Guides.
13:50 HOUSE OF WORSHIP/YOUTH GROUPS/IMMIGRATION: Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), social lives revolved around St. Clare’s
14:20 Vice President of CYO at 15 years old, put on dances, fundraisers, organized picnics in High Park for the whole parish. Every pew was filled at every mass; immigration waves caused Church to grow.
15:32 Hungarian refugee priest, skin and bones when he arrived.
15:50 IMMIGRATION: Italian immigration wave, the pews packed. Easter then became the most important day of the year. British more subdued, Italians more open and joyful with their way of celebrating.
16:30 IMMIGRATION: St. Clair and Dufferin, “Italian explosion”.
17:00 Italians brought wonderful food, fantastic for her watching the joyfulness. Food was different, when baby teething ease pain giving them bread dipped in wine
17:48 Watching what it was like for people to learn English, people just put into classroom, managed well though and went onto do great things in life.
18:25 Helped by being good neighbours- sign language at first. Anna Maria and she became friends. From age 9-14 were constantly in and out of each others houses.
19:00 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE : “That’s all there was” the way it was before immigration wave and continued to be, people would sit on their front porches and talk across the street to each other, or talk on the steps just a few feet between houses and lawns. She recalls absolutely no tension, she would go home for lunch “7 blocks there and 7 blocks back”
20:18 PARKS: Earlscourt Park - All park - no pool. There were bocce courts, baseball diamond.
21:20 Earlscourt Rink: Crowded all weekend.
22:42 HOUSE OF WORSHIP: Priest made home visits, he would pick a street and would visit every Catholic family on that street, possibly only staying a few minutes.
23:50 LIFE OF A CHILD/NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE Childhood best friend went to Earlscourt School and Linda went to St. Clare’s.
24:00 Half of kids went to Earlscourt, but after school you played with everyone, didn’t matter where you went to school. Lots of trees on the street, especially maples.
24:51 SHOPS/RESTAURANTS: The St. Clair Ice Cream Parlour, where the Spanish grocery store is, west of Earlscourt. White subway tiles in the shop.
25:30 Describing the street - corner of Boon was an independent drug store.
25:40 SHOPS: Usher’s bakery, bread, hot-cross buns, cookies.
26:00 SHOPS: Huge Bata Shoes - x-ray of your foot, St. Clair Gdns and St. Clair.
26:52 SHOPS/DATING: Roods Pastry: First Dutch bakery, Frans Rood, her first boyfriend. Shop was very popular because they cooked with pounds of butter in everything. Was at Glenholme, on the north side, just west of where Boom is now. Was there right through her school years.
28:25 RESTAURANTS/YOUTH: Tivoli: St. Clair and Dufferin NE side, lived at the ‘Tiv’ - a cafe - family restaurant run by Greek family. Single booths, or wider booths, with jukebox at every table. A bar with stools ran the length. Went there every day after high school for 5 years, Had chips and gravy and vanilla coke, it was the gathering of St. Joe’s, De La Salle and St. Mike’s crowds.
29:55 YOUTH GROUPS AND TEENS/SCHOOLS: Basketball player from Oakwood Collegiate was a star and all the girls at St. Joe’s would go to the games - he was the star of the neighbourhood.
30.41 They even followed Oakwood when they played Jarvis as it was a big rivalry.
30:45 Her son Kyle went to OCI for 5 years, lived at Glenhurst and also on Boon.
31:17 1980 lived on Glenhurst, bought where they could afford it just happened to be her old neighbourhood.
32:12 SHOPS: produce shops, all sorts of Italian shops, cheese shop.
32:30 Pusateri’s, fruits vegetables and flowers. She knew the boys - she was there all the time, they were older than her. Flowers were fabulous.
33:30 DATING: went to movies, mostly St. Clair’s Theatre.
33:43 YOUTH GROUPS AND TEENS: Drum Core: Frans Rood, boyfriend, was in the Drum Core so she would follow the drum core.
34:14 Competitions for Drum Core.
34:55 Linda had to leave the neighbourhood with one year left of high school, it was “horrible.” She moved to the Kingsway.
35:50 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: safe neighbourhood, parents let their kids play freely until dark, roller skating through intersections of the streets, lots of roller skating.
37:12 RESTAURANTS: La Sem: First outdoor patio licence, 1963-ish. It was where Invictus is, St. Clarens and St. Clair. Outdoor patio is still there. Toronto council was of the opinion that no one would want to eat and drink outside.
38:55 SHOPS: Tre Mari Bakery, Frank’s Pizza both operating over 30 years, Mama still cooks in the kitchen.
39:26 TTC - Go to St. Joe’s down Avenue Road.
39:47 LIFE OF A CHILD/TRANSIT: Going downtown on streetcar and subway with her best friend Donna at 10 years old with 5 bucks to spend at Simpsons - feeling like a big girl, old red subway trains.
40:55 Parents didn’t worry a bit, didn’t enter their minds to worry.
42:00 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: She feels everything else about our lives have changed but the street remains constant.
42:16 SCHOOLS: St. Clare’s School Boys and girls were segregated. Girls were taught by St. Joseph’s Sisters, Christian Brothers taught the boys on the other side of the school. Had different school yards, boys had back, girls had front.
43:23: She never had classes with boys, either grade/ high school or nursing school.
43:40 HOUSE OF WORSHIP/YOUTH GROUPS: CYO: Meet boys through church group.
43:55 Extra Curricular: De La Salle boys did theatre productions where the St. Joe’s girls played the girls roles. Went to St. Mike’s football and hockey games.
44:11 DATING: Didn’t date by themselves, always 2 couples in cars, sometimes cars sometimes TTC, depending where they were going.
44:39 WYCHWOOD BARNS: when she was little it was where the streetcars went to sleep.
44:57 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Didn’t know about Bathurst until she was a teenager.
45:25 Life as a child focused Earlscourt to Oakwood, then it expanded.
46:01 SHOPS: along St Clair was too expensive, baby dresses were very expensive, they shopped at Simpson’s instead.
47:00 SHOPS: La Scala and Genesis: Late 50s for men’s wear west of Dufferin, north side, around where McDonald’s is now. Both still in operation. High end, in 60s very expensive suits.
47:50 Diana Grocery still there, Verdi has been there for a long time.
48:45 Fiori, as long as she can remember, from her teens at least, at least the name of it has been the same.
49:05 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: they walked everywhere.
49:35 YOUTH GROUPS AND TEENS: formals in school gyms.
49:50 After parties at friends’ homes, although Fran’s at Yonge for one after party.
50:45 SHOPS/ CHILD’S LIFE: KRESGE’S: Dufferin and St. Clair NW, lunch bar, As little girls roamed aisles of Kresge’s with their Christmas list in hand. Wooden cabinets, lunch bar on one side, big store.
52:45 MEMORABLE EVENTS: WEATHER: Hurricane Hazel, All stood on front porch, pounding on sidewalks, gutters filling up water. They were fine. Next week family drove out to Holland Marsh and saw the devastation.
54:25 TRANSIT: STREETCAR: The newer streetcar (not the newest) sounded different. Her son called the old ones ‘clickety clacks’ because of the noise they made.
55:42 RECREATION: DANCE CLASS: From 6-13 yrs old, Miss Anderson’s dance class at 15 Earlscourt Ave. Danced at danced at Convocation Hall, CNE, OCI, at Eaton’s College St. Theatre - all recitals.
56:22 LIFE AS A CHILD: Playhouse: Dad built one in backyard, was only one in the neighbourhood. It had a front porch, thatched roof, wall paper inside Table and benches seated at least 4 people - all the little girls played there with her.
57:40 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Grocery stores: at Earlscourt and a grocery store at Boon. Both houses now, no longer stores. This is a big change. No longer as many inter-neighbourhood stores.
58:12 RESTAURANTS: Fish and chips shop north on Earlscourt at Morrison. She would be sent to get family’s worth of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper for
Friday night dinner. Catholic family didn’t eat meat on Fridays.