I REMEMBER
"I Remember", part 2, by R. W. Anglin (1244), circa 1955
Our first years at school were spent at Gordon Street Public school, a small limestone building that stood in the centre of the property where Ban Righ Hall, the University women's residence, now stands. I remember Miss Davidson as the teacher of the primary room and Mr. Bell and then Mr. Campbell in the senior room. Both of these men were studying medicine at Queen's and later practised for years in Kingston. I remember also, Mr. Newlands who tried to teach us his new upright penmanship. In the fall of '85, at the age of 11 I was promoted to the 4th book and entered Mr. Joyner's class in the then Wellington Street School passing the High School Entrance examination in December '86, writing in the west City Hall under Inspector Kidd as presiding officer. I was in Mr. Joyner's class when Father died and entered R.K. Row's fifth class in January '87 and moved with him to the new Central School on Sydenham Streeet in September. In the fall term, Miss Minerva Macdonald taught our class while Mr. Row taught the Model School class for third-class teachers.
Memories of public school include a strapping, my only one, for poor spelling in the Gordon Street School; brother George saying when I started to run for school, "Take your time Bert, we have a late note"; Mr. Joyner throwing a book across the room when in a temper; playing hookey, once only, being caught, punishment forgotten, except the guilty conscience; the lad sitting behind whispering shady stories (still remembered) and proving that he could pull out a hair without my feeing it, but I did feel the whack on the head; Miss Macdonald's phrase, "Oh it's immaterial to me", when the boys worried her, which gained her the nickname "Immaterial"; and my wonder that any boy should find the "pons asinorum" difficult.
In September '88 I entered the K.C.I. (Collegiate), then located on Clergy St., and was promoted to Form 11 in January because I had a head start in mathematics. Languages however, were another matter. With only one term of Latin and French and no German, I was expected to keep up with Second Form and under a new teacher "who knew not Joseph". I soon became discouraged and begged Mother until she permitted me to quit school and go to work, for a short time in Uncle Will Baker's "Manitoba Four and Feed Store" on the Market Square, and then for about a year in the office of the Locomotive Works under Mr. Birket. It was all good experience, but in the late winter of '90 a prolonged siege of typhoid pneumonia gave time to take thought of the future and I decided to go back to High School. Principal A.P. Knight again over-estimated my abilities and placed me in Form 111, but by taking Science in place of German, I was able to scrape through Junior Matriculation and to enter queen's in Sept. 1892.
Penrose was 10 when Father died and continued at school for 4 or 5 years when he was apprenticed to a Mr. McCartney, a carpenter, to learn the trade. Mother held the view that every boy should learn a trade. She succeeded with Penrose, but failed to make a bricklayer out of me as she once suggested. There may have been some prenatal influence in Pen's case as he was born about the time that Father & Mother were planning Hedgewood. Mother has also related that as a baby of 2 or 3 he would gaze up at a doorway apparently interested in how it was put together. While serving his apprenticeship, the great Milwaukee fire occurred, and Mr. McCartney and Pen set out for that city to have a hand in its rebuilding. From there they went to Chicago and took construction jobs in preparation for the World's Fair of 1893. After the Fair opened its gates Pen took a job with the English Confectionery Machinery firm of Joseph Allen Baker and Sons, who were cousins of Mother. For a time he helped the ice cream maker and later took over his job making the ice cream that was sold at 20¢ a dish in a booth run mainly to advertise their machinery. In the fall of '93 Penrose went back to High School, matriculating first into Queen's and transferring later to the engineering faculty of McGill, graduating into the construction business in which he had a very notable career.
Nettie graduated in '92, trained as a High School teacher, taught for short terms in St. Marys and Kingston Collegiates before she married the Rev. (later Dr.) William Sparling in January '95. Thus it was not long before Edna became Mother's right hand support and constant companion. As a young girl about 10 years she fell from one of the cherry trees injuring her hip, so that she had to wear a cast and use crutches until it healed. The mend must have been thorough as she played basket ball in her High School days at Essex.
How Mother carried on through all these developments is still a marvel to me. She supervised the gardening for which I was responsible, teaching me to trim fruit trees, vines and bushes, to plant and cultivate vegetables - my best crop was tomatoes - allowing me to run the hens as a a business, charging me for the food purchased and paying for the eggs and chickens eaten and starting me on an account book to record it all. Her income from the business and later from the money paid by Uncle Sam for our share of the lumber, wood and coal business, must have been quite inadequate for the needs of a growing family of five and the upkeep of the large house and grounds. To help out she took in boarders. The first was Mr. R.K. Row, our school teacher, and soon after, cousin Fred Vanluven who was then a traveller for the Crothers Biscuit Co, and Mr. Pratt, the Y.M.C.A. Secretary. Still later there was the Rev. W. Sparling, the young minister in charge of three suburban churches, Williamsville, Portsmouth, and the Junction. Cousin Fred and Mr. Pratt left Kingston and Mr. Row married and left us, but Fred's brother Rob followed and then Mr. Row returned with his wife and young son Gerald, and occupied the two "en suite" rooms. Mrs. Row's sister Laura (Babe) Gillespie lived with them while attending Model School. Other cousins also lived at Hedgewood while attending High or Model schools, Sara Anglin from Brewers Mills, and second cousin Florence Christy from Bloomfield who matriculated about '96 and attended Swarthmore College in the fall. Later she became the wife of brother Penrose. At times Mother had a maid to help with the housework. I recall a Mrs. Pace, or Page, a widow from Madoc, who brought along her baby boy, and a heavy built woman whose expressions were more realistic than elegant, "slow as a louse in a tar barrel", and caraway seeds were "mouse terds". What the financial arrangements were with the guests and maids I do not know, but we were very comfortable and always well fed. Another cousin King Chambers lived with us for a while and went to school. He was an orphan and the link that brought into our family connection his cousin on his father's side, Juanita Chambers, who later honoured me by becoming my bride. Her father and my Mother, King's uncle and aunt were his guardians.
Boyhood recollections? For work, there were the additional jobs of mowing the large front lawns, trimming about 400 ft. of hedges and in the winters shovelling some 300 ft. of boardwalk along the front and side streets. I have vivid pictures of all, but chiefly of one extra heavy snowfall when the snow piled fully 3 ft. along Albert St. The winters seem, on recollection, to have been much more severe. Heavy snowfalls also provided much fun and exercise, digging snowhouses, jumping or somersaulting from the fence top into the soft snowbank, snowshoeing, sometimes for miles north-west over fences and fields, or down to the frozen lake and west along its snow covered surface. Under other weather conditions there would be skating on sheets of ice on nearby fields or out on the lake front. At times the commons would become so heavily encrusted with frozen snow that we could slide on our sleds down the gentle slope from Union St., to near the quarries. On windy days we would use a sail for skating on the lake or take a thrilling ride on a friend's ice sail-boat. Once when I complained of "no-one to play with", Mother said, "Just put on your snowshoes and head off over fence and field singing 'I'm monarch of all I survey'".
In addition to the neighbours mentioned we had other boy friends. There was Ferdie Rockwell from across the commons on Alice St, Charlie Wrenshall in the earlier days, and Harry Breck and his cousin Bert Nutall who lived with Harry's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ira Breck, on a very fine wooded estate, our nearest neighbours to the west. Their home was roughcast, spacious, with a verandah across the south and entrance on the east front. I remember pleasant evenings there with Harry, the tall grandfather's clock at the far end of the entrance hall, and richly furnished rooms on either side of this hall. On Saturday evenings Mr. Breck would wind the clock and he and his gracious little lady would play backgammon. There was a long shed out back connected with the house and holding the coal bins. Harry did some experimenting here, filling a long clay pipe with coal dust and heating the bowl until it gave off a gas which would burn at the end of the stem. Later, when the John Baker cousins settled on Alwington, we saw much of them and of Hugh Bryan, one of the youngest students ever to graduate from Queen's, whose widowed mother had settled in a small cottage at the back of the Patterson property. Frequently there were long walks for swims in the Sand Bay on Uncle Will Baker's farm at the point first beyond the Cataraqui Creek bridge. Sometimes the swims were nearer home down at the lake front where the bottom was a treacherous shelving rock. As we matured we took to sailing with the Baker cousins or canoeing with the K.U. boys or with lady friends down to Cedar Island or up to Kingston Mills where Uncle Robert Anglin was then Lock Master. Tennis also took our fancy. We played at Uncle John's, on a court we levelled on Earl St., opposite the new collegiate, and on a clay court that we tried to make in our back garden.
To the boyhood memories should be added the sing-songs with Mother at the melodian or piano, or the goodnight song she taught us to the Sun, the moon, the stars. The moon verse began "moon, moon where are you going", and the star verse was "you stars you are sleepy, I know by your blinking, your mother the moon comes to put you to bed. She'll cover you up with clouds I am thinking and tuck you all in till the morning is red. Goodnight stars, goodnight". On clear nights these would be sung at the front window. Later when Edna went to Kindergarten she would sing for us "Good morning merry sunshine".
There are Sunday memories, such as the long walks to church and the rustle of the fallen leaves as we would drag the feet along Sydenham St. The infants class met in the north-west corner of the basement of the old church and had long pews on a series of steps. This was supposed to give the lady teachers better control. As a help to this end, one of our songs to a catchy air and with much repetition, ran thusly:- "We must not play on Sunday, on Sunday, on Sunday, we must not play on Sunday, because it is a sin. But we can play on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, till Sunday comes again." later I was in R.K. Row's class of boys in the large basement when Mr. Abe Shaw, the Superintendent, grabbed an unruly boy by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and carried him high and put him out of doors. It was a great cause for rejoicing when the church and school moved back from the temporary quarters in the skating rink to the enlarged church and new commodious school. It was in these quarters that I recall the Sunday morning class meeting, led first by Mr. Trenamin, station agent at the Junction, and later by Abe Shaw. Men and older boys met together and each, as the spirit moved him was encouraged to tell his "experience". It was at least training in public speaking, and perhaps some incentive to live up to one's profession. We had a succession of stimulating preachers including Revs. Hooker, Griffiths, Courtice, Starr and Carson, and I felt quite important in acting as usher. University students were drawn to the evening services, sometimes in large numbers.
There were summer visits to rural relatives. At Battersea the Vanluvens had a large house and farm and a number of butternut trees from which we were permitted to pick nuts to carry home, if we could beat the squirrels to them. There were also Anglins keeping the Post Office and store and others running farms beyond the village. Other Anglin relatives were visited at Brewer's Mills, Pine Grove and Seeley's Bay, at any of which we were made welcome. There was one grand boat trip, the summer after I had typhoid, on the Str. Kathleen, which was running that year by the Kingston Locomotive Works on the triangular course down the St. Lawrence, up the Ottawa and through the Rideau back to Kingston. I believe the boat had been built for a party who could not finance it, so the K.L.W. ran it hoping to recoup themselves. They made nothing on me as Mr. Birket offered the trip to me as a convalescence outing.
Our lives were lived at the end of one era. Incomes were low, but so were prices. The choicest beef could be bought at a "York Shilling" a pound, and a penny would buy a stick of gum or candy. But the new era was beginning. Horse cars gave way to electric, Grandpa Baker bundled us children into his box sleigh to drive down town to see "the new arc lights that are brighter than the moon". It was a great treat, also, to climb onto the high stool in Father's office and lift the receiver from the wall telephone and 'listen in' on conversations. We learned to ride Mr. Row's 'high wheel', and later saw it gradually replaced by the new 'safety'. It was an event to be remembered to watch the race when Mr. Sliter, Classical teacher, challenged Jim Minnes to race, safety against high, on the Fair grounds track. As I recall the race, the high wheel won.
Mother believed in relaxation. After a meal and before attacking the dishes she would sit in her arm chair, put her head back and take '40 winks'. She had a keen sense of humour. When she asked Edna why the beds were not made and was told they were "airin'", she replied, "well Mosey along now, they have been 'Aaron' long enough"; and at the girls' summer camp which she chaperoned, she admonished the girls as they pushed the boat out stern first, with Mother in the stern, "Remember girls the bow goes first." One of the girls at that camp has, recently paid this tribute to her, "I remember her as a very motherly, kindly, understanding person. She never lost her cheerfulness. I learned from her how to cook fish." At the same time Mother was deeply religious, true to her Quaker upbringing, active in church work, leader of a class meeting for women, the notices for which I have often delivered, freezing an ear once on the errand, and in one early September taking an active part in an old time 'camp meeting' at Wolford near Eastons' Corners, where son-in-law "Willie" Sparling was then stationed.
It was not all fun in our games as fights would sometimes develop. Brother George recalls a severe chastising in the hayloft, administered by big brother Alfred from some misdeed. George and I had many a tussle until I was big enough to roll him over and hold him down on the lawn. I remember a similar tussle with George Paterson. I have no recollections of any quarrel with Penrose who was two years my junior.
After Penrose returned to High School, he kept his hand in at improvements about the place. He built a lattice covered summer house with two winged entrances, to the west of the house, and this became a favoured spot for afternoon teas or for 'tete a tetes'. It looked very picturesque when the vines grew over it. Then after the city water mains reached us and we could dispense with well and cistern, he built a cold storage dumb waiter in the floor of the kitchen. It had a hydraulic lift made by fitting one pipe inside another and was operated by two pegs in the floor. Press one peg and the square of floor and the storage cupboard rose above the floor level so that the wire-netting covered doors could be opened and food removed or put in. Then by depressing the second peg the cupboard slowly settled to its place in the basement and the floor was one level again. It was a great step saver and a real feat of engineering for a lad still in his teens.
He was made of sterner stuff than I, perhaps the result of work at his trade, and could swim or cycle better. One late summer in the mid '90s, he and I ran an Ice Cream Parlour on Shuter St., Toronto, opposite Massey Hall during a Young People's convention in that hall, calling it "World's Fair Ice Cream". Financially it was a failure, but we had our wheels and attempted to wheel home to Kingston, after -- to do our 'century', which was then the craze. We started before dawn by the light of the moon. Approaching Whitby, on a downgrade, I ran into a rut and snapped one of the pedal cranks. I had to coast into Whitby and we stretched and tried to sleep on a couple of barrel hammocks in someone's front lawn until the repair shop would open and I could buy a new crank. When we arrived at Coburg, I was 'all in' and was glad to stretch out on a table top in a hotel room before attempting dinner. At Trenton Pen led me off into Prince Edward county for a stop at Bloomfield to see Cousin Florence. This was but fair for we had been stopping at the home of Cousin (?) Juanita while in Toronto.
Penrose, Hugh Bryan and I were great pals until Pen went off to McGill and Hugh took a position as classical master in Renfrew Collegiate. The three of us were members of the K.U. and entered into its full program as told in a previous story.
These Hedgewood days continued until I completed my course at Queen's and left to train and to teach as a High School Specialist, but that is another story. There were many happenings worth remembering during those college years. One summer Bob Asselstine and I joined Fred C. Stephenson of Toronto in attempting to sell sterioscopes and views down in Nova Scotia. Fred was an expert salesman and could sell more in an hour than Bob and I could in a day, but we saw something of Nova Scotia around Truro and Pictou, and up through Cape Breton to Badec and the two Sydneys and came home on a coal steamer to Montreal.
At home in Hedgewood there were social times when friends came in, visits from relatives, whose name was legion, sing songs with accompaniment at first on the melodian and later on the piano. There were piano lessons from Miss Cunningham, a friend of Mother's and solos and duets attempted. I remember a birthday party Mother gave me when one of the girl guests offered me congratulations and I replied, "The same to you," to the amusement of all and embarrassment to me. There was one very happy summer in 1896 when Edith and Frank Baker visited, during their summer holidays, their sister Minnie who was living then at Hedgewood. They were not relatives but close family friends. At the same time Sister Nettie and her husband, the Rev. William Sparling and baby Vera paid us a visit. George was home for a time also, and other Kingston friends joined in the gay times. Cousin Amy Williams came in from Seeley's Bay and cousin Edith Phelps from Canifton. Photography was our hobby at the time and many snaps taken, usually with dog Rover in centre front, which we attempted to develop. And during these last years my friendship with the cousin's cousin Juanita ripened into a love that has lasted us now for over half a century of wedded bliss. That too, could be another story.
In the half century that has elapsed since, many changes hae taken place in Hedgewood and its environment. Breden's field and the vacant lands to the west and north have, mostly, been built on. The Patterson home has since been occupied by Belle and her jusband Jim Minnes, a very handsome couple, and later by one family of Perry Mahood. The Breck property "Sunnyside" was the home of G.Y. Chown, Registrar of Queen's, and still later The Orphan's Home after its former location was acquired by Queen's for Gymnasium and Men's Social centre. When Mother and Edna finally left Hedgewood and stored the furniture in the hayloft, Hedgewood was rented first to Professor Ferguson, and then to Charles Low who later bought it and sold the back garden lots as building lots, and then the main Hedgewood front was sold to a Mr. McGuire. For some time, later, it was used as an Infants Home, being altered and enlarged for the purpose. Now however, Hedgewood is in the hands of the Salvation Army with future use of the home uncertain.
Return to 'I Remember' part 1 for the previous section of Bert's recollections.
Return to THE ANGLIN FAMILY STORY, PART 3.2 .