A Review from the North Toronto Historical Society

 

Hilary Dawson, North Toronto Historical Society

In 1943, Mary Elizabeth Welsman (Hughes) was born into 72 St. Leonard’s Crescent. She lived there until she was seventeen. It’s where she grew and played, made friends and discoveries, and learned about life’s ups and downs. Mary gathered her memories to produce this book for her daughters and  grandchildren. Importantly, she added context: current events, changing social attitudes, developments in household appliances and the like.

Mary and her friends seem to have been “free range” children, although in practice they remained on St. Leonard’s Cresc., and the one block of Dawlish it enclosed. Once school age, Willer's at Yonge and Ranleigh was "a terrific source of penny candy. You could get a bag full for a nickel.”

The blend of social history and nostalgia makes A Mid‐Century Childhood a great read whether you grew up in Lawrence Park or even in the U.K.! 

GUIDED WRITING GROUP

 Somewhat inspired by my own book, and considering how often people will say they wish they could write, I am facilitating a pilot project in my neighbourhood - a strata community of 235 small modular homes - and have launched a Guided Writing Group.

We met last week for the first time. I had promoted the idea as widely as I could within the village and a dozen people showed up for the first session. They arrived with a notebook or laptop and pens.

The structure of the session was fairly simple. The focus would be childhood, up to the age of about ten.  For the first ten minutes everyone wrote about a specific topic - in this case, the first home they remembered. After the writing segment, a few people shared what they had written. We moved on to one more fixed topic, and then it was a sort of pot luck. 

I had written numerous short subject suggestions on small pieces of paper, and passed the envelope around the table. One was "cars" and the woman who pulled that one was a person born in England in 1940. The family, predictably, did not have a car. She pulled another slip of paper and carried on. 

Ten minutes was too long for some and not enough time for others. By the time we were through the 90 minute meeting, everyone had shared at least once. The age range of these attendees was about 20 years. 

We will meet twice a month over the coming months.