Beryl's Blog: Every Picture Tells a Story

Amy, our Administrative Assistant here at SouthWest, has been diligently sorting through decades of “memorabilia” in preparation for our exhibition of the history of Verdun United/Crawford Park United and, ultimately SouthWest United Church which will commence with a wine and cheese soiree on Friday, November 15th.

We all have them. They have come to us through our parents.  They are in boxes, in albums, in frames.  We seldom get them out to look at them.  The boxes are covered in dust and we move them, as they are, from house to house as we move on with our lives.  We do not know what to do with them, yet we do not have the heart to throw them away because, somehow, they are a part of us.

Images of what was, wearing hairstyles and clothing so foreign.  Yet, there is familiarity in their faces - a family resemblance, genetically passed down in a smile, or “so and so’s eyes” which you have recognized all your life, even if you have never met the person.  Some of them are wearing army uniforms, faces brave and confident as they head off to the unknown.  Others are holding babies who probably grew into adulthood – or not.  Smiling faces of brides and grooms. People strolling along boardwalks.  Ghosts of the past, yet there before our eyes.

Old photographs; what is it about them that brings on nostalgia, longing, questions?  If someone took the time to name and date them, they can fill in pieces of a puzzle and give us a glimpse into our family history.  They can also leave us sad and longing for times when generations lived under the same roof and we all felt connected.

As the oldest sibling, I seem to have inherited the albums and bags of loose photos left by my own parents.  They are filled with faces which are anonymous, faces of colour, places unfamiliar; yet random moments in time captured and present right there in my hands.

Today, our children and grandchildren take photos with their iPhone.  They post them on Facebook or Instagram.  There for an instant and then gone forever into cyberspace.  What legacy will they leave for their own children?  How will they provide them with tangible evidence of family faces and events?

Early Christian art, beautiful in its presentation though sometimes questionable in its content, has left us with a visible legacy of our Christian heritage.  An artistic interpretation of our Christian journey through the centuries.  Is there any artist who is continuing such a tradition?  I don’t know.

But I do believe this; unless we have clear images to help us understand from where we have come, we will have difficulty discerning where we are to go in the future.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the exhibition of SouthWest’s journey to the present!

Beryl

Branches of a Family Tree

UPDATE (January 2021): I had an e-mail from a Mark McElwain, who confirms that the minister in the group photo down below is Alec Renton. It seems Mr. McElwain’s father, the Rev. William McElwain, succeeded Renton as Minister of First Presbyterian. He was there from 1959-1962. Rev. McElwain passed away in St. Catharine’s, Ontario, in 2004. His obituary is here.

I also did a bit of Googling and found that after leaving Verdun, Rev. Renton went to East Hampton, New York. First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton has quite an extensive biography of him on its website. It includes a story, apparently widely reported at the time, that he was hired by First Pres in Verdun sight unseen. They hired him as their pastor based on a “cassette tape” he sent from Scotland. You can read the whole post here. In fact, it must have been a reel-to-reel tape because cassettes and 8-tracks were only developed in the 60s! Here is a clipping from an unknown newspaper about the momentous event.

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ORIGINAL POST:

Family trees are funny. They usually start with an individual, then show his two parents, four grandparents, and so on. They tend to make everything look tidier than it could possibly have been in real life. What if great-grandpa was married twice? What do we do with that information? What if grandma had thirteen brothers and sisters? Where do they go? You can find yourself running off the page pretty quickly.

If you were to draw our SouthWest United family tree, I guess you’d  put Verdun United and Crawford Park United as the two parents. But I think you’d have to include Chalmers United and First Presbyterian Church as aunts and uncles; even St. Paul’s United in Ville Emard must qualify as a cousin or something.

Verdun and Crawford amalgamated, while the other churches I mentioned closed in the 80s and 90s, and some of the people who worshipped in those churches found their way to our congregation. I think of the Buchanans as a SouthWest family, but they worshipped at St. Paul’s until it closed in 1991. The Padghams went to Chalmers, the Hasties to First Pres.

I was talking to Doug Hastie this week about some old sepia prints that turned up (Historical Stuff really has been just appearing at the church; I think we have elves). I recognized the exterior of the First Presbyterian building  at 503* 5th Avenue (now a Tibetan Buddhist centre). It was built in 1925 and this picture was taken long before the extension which now houses Verdun Community Church, was built in 1956. I’m not an expert when it comes to cars, but the one parked outside the church in this shot suggests the 1940s.

There were also sepia prints of church interiors which Doug confirmed were of First Pres, but appeared to be before his time. Finally, there was a shot of a group of people standing outside a building, and one woman was holding a spade. I guessed this might be a sod-turning ceremony as First Presbyterian prepared to build the extension in the ‘50s. Doug was able to recognize Rev. Alec Renton, a Scotsman who he says was the minister there in the ‘50s.

Doug Hastie was one of a group of First Pres members who were officially received into the United Church of Canada in 2010 at SouthWest United. If anyone else can identify any of the other people in the picture, please get in touch with the office!

Rev. Alec Renton is at centre. Can you recognize anyone else? C.1955

Amy

*the current address of the original building is 503 and the extension is 501. Back in the day, the original building’s address was 501, 5th Avenue.

Beryl's Blog: Lest we Forget

They were our great grandfathers, our grandfathers, our fathers, our uncles and our friends.   They were wives, sisters and nurses.  Some left never to come back, some came back broken in body and in spirit.  The horrors they witnessed were seldom, if ever, spoken of.  But their lives were changed and, hence, changed the lives of those who loved and lived with them. Mothers who mourned husbands and/or sons; siblings who would never forget, wives who raised children on their own, sweethearts who lived in sorrow, even beloved pets who waited for their master’s return.  The bad dreams which woke families, the angry outbursts which frightened children, the unexplained behaviour which alienated friends.  The periods of binge drinking or stone silence, the days of retreat into somewhere else. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the ripples were far reaching, touching everyone and everything for years to come.  War changes everything.

A poem written by Maria Cassee

On a cold November morn, an old man sits a while,
Looking through old photographs, he cannot help but smile
They’re all there, all the boys, with hair cut short and neat
Uniforms of khaki, strong black boots upon their feet.
They met as strangers, but became brothers to the end,
Smiling at the camera there could be no truer friends.
They all took the Queen’s shilling, went off to fight on the run,
Soon learnt the pain of loss once the fighting had begun.
So many never made it home, lost on foreign shores,
Many more were injured and would be the same no more.
The old man’s eyes mist with tears as he remembers every face
Each of his fallen brothers and the killing which took place.
He proudly dons his beret, his blazer and his tie
For today he will remember the ones who fell and died.
On his chest there is a poppy, a blaze of scarlet on the blue -
He steps out into the cold; he has a duty he must do.
Once at the cenotaph he stands amongst the ranks
Of those who marched to war and those who manned the tanks.
He bows his head in reverence as the last post begins to play
And he wonders what will happen at the ending of his days.
Will anyone remember?  Will anybody care?
About the lads so far from home whose life was ended there?
I wish that I could tell him that he should fear not
For this soldier and his brothers will NEVER be forgot.
We owe a debt of gratitude that we can never pay
And this country WILL remember, on each Remembrance Day.

Beryl

Holly Tea still needs bakers

With so much going on this November, don’t forget that Saturday, November 30th, is SouthWest’s Holly Tea and sale! There will be a silent auction, trinkets and treasures, collectible bone china, and handicrafts. And what pre-Christmas sale would be complete without a bake table?! If you are able to contribute some holiday baking, please get in touch with the office or Dorothy Brown.

SouthWest in the Senior Times

An article about our upcoming exhibit appears in the November edition of the Senior Times. Look for a paper copy or see the issue in PDF format here. We’re on page 27.

Our changing tree

Our sanctuary tree continues to change and surprise! Last Sunday, the coloured leaves placed on it to show gratitude at Thanksgiving, gave way to coloured hearts bearing the names of those we wished to remember on All Saints. Beautiful new traditions, courtesy of Pastor Beryl!

The tree will disappear before Sunday’s Remembrance Dday service, but keep your eyes open, there’s no telling where or when it may turn up!

October

November

In Search of Mrs. Clement King

She just kept turning up. Usually as an elderly lady in a hat: Mrs. Clement King. Well, I thought, we know who her husband was, but who was she?

You’ll recall she was present at the Verdun United mortgage burning in 1947, identified as the church’s oldest living member*. She appears in a group of ladies in hats identified as Mother’s Day, 1950, and her age at that time is given as 84.

Her name appears on a brass cross on a wooden base from VUC. The dedication reads:

In loving memory of
Mrs. Clement King
A member from the inception of this church
An elder 1925-1957
Presented by her Family

Well that makes sense. If she was 84 in 1950, she was born around 1866, so would have been a young wife and mother by 1899 when Verdun Methodist Church came into being. It also means she was an elder of the church until she was around 90.

The name Clement King appears on one of our Verdun United stained glass windows, but it is dedicated to him and to his mother, Mrs. E. King, by the family. Perhaps Clement’s wife had a hand in making that happen. But the question continued to nag: what was her first name?

Then one day it dawned on me: I already had the answer. I had had an e-mail conversation two years back with Dianne Nolin, who was looking for a baptism record from VUC. She mentioned that she was descended from “Clement King of the stained-glass window”. I ended up sending her the Mother’s Day 1950 picture and she recognized her great-grandmother, Mary Jane Porter King. Yes, you guessed it: Mary Jane Porter married Clement King!

Dianne replied to my photo with one of her own. It shows the Ladies Aid Society of Verdun Methodist Church, circa 1910. Among those pictured are her grandmother, Sadie King, who was a girl of 16 at the time, and, yes, her great-grandmother, Mary Jane, is shown, four decades younger than in the photo I had sent.

A follow-up e-mail to Dianne this week produced the biographical information below.

Dianne is quite the geneologist, it turns out. She has a blog called The Days of Their Lives, which is worth checking out, especially if you have a connection to the King, Mavor, Porter or other old Verdun families.

My great grandmother, Mary Jane Porter was born oldest of 11 kids on 7 Oct 1867 in Ulverton, QC. to Susanna Johnston and John Porter, a carpenter of Ulverton. Mary Jane was a meticulous dressmaker and she married 1 May 1893 in Ulverton to Clement King, youngest of 7 kids of Elizabeth Nichols and George King, Miller of Montreal. They lived in Verdun where Clement King had properties.

They had five children: Sarah (Sadie, my grandmother, married Herbert Mavor), Melvin Clement who died at 2 months), Stella (never married), Elizabeth (Bessie, married Harry Gay) and Robert.

Mary Jane’s brother Horace lived in Montreal and was a streetcar motorman. During the strike of Feb 1903 Horace was hit in the head with a Brick and spent the rest of his life (45 years) in the Verdun Insane Asylum. Mary Jane went to visit him every week until he died in 1948 then had him buried with their parents in Ulverton.

Mary Jane’s husband Clement King was a carpenter. In July 1922 he was making repairs to the Verdun Methodist Church when he fell off the roof and subsequently died of his injuries. She then lived with her unmarried daughter Stella.

My grandmother Sadie King was a life long member of the Verdun Methodist, and the United church all her life. She married Herbert Mavor, son of Alexander Mavor and Rebecca Campbell.

I don’t know when, but sometime after the First World War the Mavors and Kings sponsored the stained glass windows that were later moved to SouthWest. One was in memory of Clement King and his mother Elizabeth (Nichols) King. The other window was in memory of Alexander Mavor (Herbert’s father who died at age 60 in 1924) and Alexander George (Herbert’s brother who was killed in action in Belgium in 1916).

In Oct 1942 Mary Jane’s children from Verdun and brothers and sisters from New Hampshire and Calgary all came to Verdun to celebrate Mary Jane’s 75th birthday.

Blog:the-day-granny-king-turned-75

Mary Jane died 5 March 1957 at the age of 89. I was 7 years old when she died and I missed her terribly.

Dianne

Apart from Mrs. King, at least one other lady appears both in this 1910 photo and the Mother’s Day one from 40 years later: Mrs. W. Taylor. Now if only we knew her first name! [See this blog post for a small update on Mrs. Taylor]

The ladies are identified on the back of the photo with their ages at the time:
Back row: Mrs. C. Dawe (76); Mrs H. Salmela (73); Mrs. A. Parker (74); Mrs. E. Ritchie (74); Mrs. R. Norman (80); Unidentified; Mrs. A. Timms (78); Mrs. E. Grey (73); Mrs. E. Cain (75)
Front row: Mrs. C. King (84); Mrs. W. Taylor (89); Mrs. L. Hobbs (98); Mrs. E. Retallack (93)

Ladies Aid Society of Verdun Methodist Church, 1910

Back row, left to right: Mrs. Evely; Mrs. Taylor; Mrs. Mavor; Mrs. Dawson.
Middle: Mrs. Bradbury; Mrs. Hayden; Flo Bradbury; Mrs. C. King (Mary Jane Porter)
Front: Sarah Myrtle (Sadie) King, daughter of Mrs. C. King; Jessie Bradbury; Mrs. Brown

According to the original inscription, the photographer was Reg Cummings, and the photo was taken at the “corner of Wellington and Gordon, Verdun”. The second, larger Verdun Methodist church building was built by then, and the original one was still standing, so this could have been taken in either of them.

* This is incorrect. Mrs. King may have been the oldest founding member in 1947 but, as the 1950 photo indicates, she was nowhere near the oldest living member.

See also this post about Clement King.

Invitation

You are invited…
 
1899 – 2019
120 Years in Verdun

Please join us for a wine and cheese reception at the opening of our exhibit of photos and objects that tell the story of the United Church in Verdun.

Friday, November 15th

4 to 6PM

The exhibit will remain in place through November and December and will be accessible during any of our scheduled events and services. See below for dates and times.

SouthWest United Church,
1445 Clemenceau, Verdun H4H 2R2

Pre-Christmas Events at SouthWest United

 Friday, November 15: Opening of Exhibit: 120 Years in Verdun, 4pm to 6pm

Saturday November 16: Harvest Supper, 5pm. Tickets $15

Sunday November 17: Worship service 10 am

Sunday November 24: Worship service 10am

Saturday November 30: Holly Tea with Silent Auction. Lunch $5, tickets at the door

Sunday December 1: Worship service, 1st of Advent, 10am

Sunday December 8: Worship service, 2nd of Advent

Sunday December 15: Worship service, 3rd of Advent

Sunday December 15: Chantons Noel Candlelight Carol service, 4pm

Sunday December 22: Worship service, 4th of Advent, 10am

Tuesday, December 24: Worship service, Christmas Eve, 7:30pm

Remembering Robert Luckie, 1941-2019

Some of you may have known Bob Luckie, who was involved with the choir at Chalmers United for many years, as well as a group called the Church Street Singers. His obituary, quoted below, appeared in the Gazette this week. Bruce Padgham remembers Bob as having a great sense of humour. He sang bass, as the obit mentions, but Bruce recalls that if you needed a tenor, he could sing that too, in a pinch!

LUCKIE, Robert Carl
August 22, 1941 - September 26, 2019
It is with great sadness that the family of Robert (Bob) Carl Luckie announces his sudden passing on Thursday, September 26, 2019 at the age of 78 years. He leaves his wife of 56 years, Dorothy (McLean) Luckie, and his daughter, Christine (Marc). He is also survived by his sisters Marian (Jocelyne), Sheryl (John) and Lorraine (Rick), his brother Leonard (Lise) and many nieces and nephews. Bob was predeceased by his brothers Brian (Arijana) and Kenneth (Maureen). Following his retirement from the Reader's Digest, Bob was beloved handyman for many years to the St. Lambert community to which he also belonged as a longtime active member of the United Church serving as a valued bass voice in the choir. A memorial service will take place on Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 11 a.m. at St. Lambert United Church, 85 Desaulniers Blvd., St-Lambert, QC. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Lambert United Church.

Don't Forget!

This is the weekend we change the clocks to gain a little more light in the mornings, and unfortunately lose it in the afternoon. Before you go to bed Saturday night, turn the clock an hour earlier and enjoy the extra sleep. Hopefully we’ll all wake up refreshed and ready to come to church Sunday morning!

Also this weekend: Bingo on Saturday, doors open at noon.