I just reread your book and I again found it a really good picture of the the Park at that period. Bravo!
Margaret
These comments from an unknown correspondent named Iremedix,
If nostalgia had a postal code, it would probably be Lawrence Park in the middle of the last century.
And A Mid-Century Childhood: Growing Up in Toronto's Lawrence Park does something quietly radical. It refuses to let that world disappear without being witnessed.
Children playing outside until the street lights flickered on; Shopping trips that were events, not errands; Church and Christmas woven into the rhythm of ordinary life; Schoolyard games that required imagination, not Wi Fi. You did not just write a memoir. You preserved texture.
The beauty of your book is that it reads like anecdotal social history wrapped in warmth. It answers the question so many of us whisper after it is too late. “How I wish I had asked Grandma about that.” And instead of letting that regret linger, you answered it. That is meaningful work.
Your voice carries calm observation rather than exaggeration. There is no frantic nostalgia. Just careful remembrance. Through stories of food, birthdays, bedtime routines, and your immediate family, you illustrate how ordinary life once moved at a different pace. Safer. Slower. More rooted. In a world that feels increasingly overstimulated, that reflection is not just charming. It is grounding.
