Stephen Endicott
AUDIO INTERVIEW
SUMMARY
July 3rd, 2015
00:18 SCHOOLS: Stephen introduces himself and mentions that he is retired, and has lived with his wife Lena, who died on July 3rd 3 years ago, for 50 years. They brought up 4 children who all went to Humewood School and Vaughan Road Collegiate.
00:44 WORK: The last job that Stephen retired from was as a history professor at York University.
01:08 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Stephen has lived on Humewood, is now on Cherrywood. He has also lived on Glenholme Avenue.
01:22 PLACES OF WORSHIP: Talking about what brought him to the neighbourhood originally – his parents were United Church missionaries in China and every 5-7 years they would come home – and so in that context, he came back once in 1933 when he was 5 years old and in 1941 he lived in the missionary apartments on Humewood Drive – the yellow brick apartments at the top of the street.
02:16 MEMORABLE EVENTS: Mentions the demolition on Humewood that brought down the Summerville House in 1933 when he was 5. His memories are limited.
03:22 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: As a young kid he remembers the impression it made on him walking in the neighbourhood (compared to the missionary compounds in China).
04:07 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: He mentions that the neighbourhood never changed from the 1930s-40s and how it was a comfortable residential street.
04:27 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: At the bottom of Humewood by St Clair where the street cars ran, there was the City Service gas station owned by Earl Cooch (sp?) a very “engaging fellow”, very friendly – Stephen’s father enjoyed his advice.
05:04 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: At the top of the street was the big mansion of the Edward Blake family who where high in the politics in Ontario in the 1800s (a Premier of Ontario) – the estate got carved up over time into building lots.
05:45 COMMUNITY GROUPS: When they were there in 1933 the building became a refuge for women bearing children out of wedlock either to maintain anonymity in the last stages of pregnancy or if their families couldn’t support them – the current Humewood House – it was called the Humewood Estate at the time.
06:34 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: Also on the street (on the right-hand side), number 4 was Dr. Lowrie, “a great family physician” – he came on house calls day or night. [Dr. Howard Lowrie Laneway running north of St. Clair between Rushton and Arlington is named for him.]
06:51 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: Stephen remembers Dr Lowrie visiting his house at 3am once to attend someone with a high fever – he lived to be 100 and kept practicing until his 80s or 90s.
07:08 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Across the street from #4 were two gingko trees – the tree comes from China and is considered the dinosaur of trees and he notes that it’s still there in front of the laneway at 9 Humewood
07:44 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: Further up the street on the right-hand side was a water trough for the horses.
08:00 DELIVERY PEOPLE / VENDORS: At that time a lot was still delivered by horse, milk and bread – the Browns Bread and Borden Milk companies.
08:29 There were no fridges at that time, so everyone had ice boxes and the Lake Simcoe Ice Company would come to deliver ice by horse and wagon – once a week they put a 50 lb block of ice to last the week.
08:53 Coal was delivered by flatbed truck – there were iron chutes at the side of the houses that the truck driver would dump small canal anthracite coal down – these things were there in the 30s and 40 and they didn’t change until the 50s.
09:37 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: The head of the Lake Simcoe Ice Company was Mr. T.G. Rogers – unknown if he is related to Ted Rogers – he was also the superintendent of their Sunday School.
09:50 PLACES OF WORSHIP: Stephen went to Sunday School along St Clair West at Timothy Eaton Church – his parents were the Sunday School missionaries – their photos were up on the wall: James and Mary Endicott.
10:50 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: He wouldn’t say that people were out on their porches a lot, it was a residential neighbourhood and as far as he remembers people kept to themselves.
11:04 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: Next door to them – the Summerville House – Hugh Summerville was older: he had a tuft of white hair at the front of his head and Stephen remembers him.
11:30 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: The Summerville House – it was a large wooden house with a veranda running around 3 sides – like an original farmhouse.
11:50 By the time his kids grew up it was a mystery place because the Summervilles had left.
12:12 The next house just north of the Summerville’s was the missionary apartments – 4 of them.
12:29 In 1941-44 they lived in the lower of those apartments – they were comfortable apartments with a long hall, three bedrooms and a small kitchen, small dining room.
12:53 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: There were 6 members of his family – three boys, one girl and his parents so they filled it up.
13:02 RECREATION: The kids loved the long hall – they played hockey there.
13:51 SCHOOLS: Up the street was the old Humewood three-storey school built in 1910 it was torn down in 1970.
14:09 It had high hallways, brick, a stained glass window in the library at the front for the kindergarten and auditorium.
14:30 The kids attended that school for a while.
14:38 SCHOOLS / MEMORABLE PEOPLE: The principal was terrifying and believed in the strap.
15:06 SCHOOLS: When Stephen came back in the 40s he went to Vaughan Road School.
15:18 SCHOOLS / MEMORABLE PEOPLE: Stephen remembers the wonderful teachers at Vaughan (some by name).
15:39 RECREATION / YOUTH GROUPS: He joined the debating society and did some sports like football at Vaughan – Billy Myers 5 ft 8 and small but he was a great athlete. Was the quarterback and became a player for the Argonauts.
16:39 SCHOOLS: A gallery in the school with some famous people in it that went to the school.
17:47 Humewood School building now is where the yard of the old school was.
18:05 RECREATION: There once was an ice skating rink in the school yard.
18:39 They had a backyard rink – showing a photo of that – that his father built in 1941 because they were embarrassed about learning to skate in their teens (there was no snow in China to learn).
20:04 TRANSIT: Stephen remembering the streetcars on St Clair.
20:23 The St Clair track had two streetcars – talking about their routes.
21:20 MEMORABLE EVENTS / TRANSIT: Remembering a “dramatic moment” when he was 5 he got on the wrong streetcar and ended up down at the docks.
21:55 TRANSIT / LIFE OF CHILD: He was nervous but things were safer then so his parents were comfortable sending their 5 year old on the streetcar.
22:10 RESTAURANTS: Remembering the new Niagara Café on St Clair West.
22:57 PLACES OF WORSHIP: Remembering a lot of churches on St Clair. Timothy Eaton church that they went to was the wealthiest and thus quite grand.
23:37 WYCHWOOD BARNS: Remembering the Wychwood Barns and the streetcars constantly going down to them, turning for rush hour (there were two rush hours of the day). You weren’t allowed in the barns then – they did a lot of work repairing cars, etc.
24:20 RECREATION: At Christie St south of St Clair there was a roller park where people roller skated – it was popular to go there for a date.
24:50 ENTERTAINMENT: The Christie Theatre was where the Salvation Army is now – it’s where he saw his first movie, his father took them. There were other theatres:, Radio City on Bathurst, St Clair City near Dufferin, the Christie Theatre.
25:45 RESTAURANTS: Not many coffee shops or delis. Bill’s Chinese Restaurant – a 30s style café, Chinese and Western food – he was there until the 80s – he leases it now to Chinese Dumpling.
26:33 RECREATION: McMurrich playground where Stephen went to practice extracurriculars and sports.
28:45 ACTIVISM / SCHOOLS: For the 1944 election a bunch of teachers came together and asked his mother to run – the children would distribute the leaflets in Ward 1 and she got elected twice but resigned to go back to China to join his father there.
29:50 Stephen found a leaflet and from then. It shows the issues of the time in education and the changes over the years in education.
34:49 DOMESTIC LIFE: Talking about how courageous his mother was because she had a stutter.
37:49 DOMESTIC LIFE: Talking about living in the neighbourhood in later years – when moved back from B.C. wanted to be near his aging parents – they were on Wychwood at the time.
38:14 Got his current house for $14k which was a lot at the time and lived there for 50 years – moved in with three daughters and another born soon after.
38:38 SCHOOLS: All his daughters went to Humewood and Vaughan Road.
39:08 ACTIVISM: Remembers the fight to stop developers from turning area into a “forest” of high rises.
39:22 MEMORABLE EVENTS: The subway was built in the 1960s and after this developers were looking for places to develop near the subway – the residents started to notice houses and lots deteriorating, and then being bought up.
40:20 MEMORABLE PEOPLE / ACTIVISM: George and Mona Luscombe noticed – he was from England, and started small theatres in Toronto like Toronto Workshop Productions – and he wanted the neighbourhood to remain a friendly, safe, residential community. He organized the movement against the developers and he was successful - it was cancelled.
42:13 ACTIVISM: The Summerville House was already torn down – talks about how the neighbour movement wanted a park there.
42:43 Another victory of putting the subway underground.
42:55 ACTIVISM / MEMORABLE PEOPLE / PARKS / RAVINES: Living in the neighbourhood he took part in activities to safeguard the neighbourhood by protecting green areas and ravines – there’s a monument to George Luscombe and his wife Mona in park.
43:50 DEMOGRAPHICS / IMMIGRATION: Talking about his street – Cherrywood – the composition of the residents has changed from an Anglo-Jewish communities and then the wave of immigrants: Italian, Portuguese, and Greek into Toronto – the former residents moved.
44:43 DEMOGRAPHICS: His house was built in 1917. His family didn’t move as new immigrants came in – they did renovations on their house, Stephen did a lot of work himself.
45:40 Now the community is more diverse – still the Southern Europeans – and now more Caribbean, more of a mixture.
46:24 What Stephen finds special is that “it’s a neighbourhood that doesn’t change, except it does” [laughs] in that there wasn’t a huge development and the “geography didn’t become ravaged” and though they lost a school or schools were modernized without windows that open – some things change but mostly not, a lot has been preserved, lots of greenery.
47:30 SHOPS / RESTAURANTS / NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: St Clair West has changed – it’s now a popular place to come and have a coffee – but he thinks there will have to be more density in the neighbourhood to make that work just not huge towers.