I came to Uxbridge in the spring of 1948. It was kind of strange My sister Gaille and I had stayed in Montreal for over a year until our parents had found a place to live in Ontario. Gaille stayed with my mother's sister Carrie and me with my father's sister Stella. I lived in a totally French part of McMasterville and so when I came here I kind of spoke half French and half English. My Aunt Stella brought us down on the train. It was such a wonderful feeling to see my parents again. The station was amazing it was like out of a storybook painted a bright red with a pointed cone roof and a permanent smell of creosote.
We walked from the station to Toronto Street. Wow we lived in a mansion, 'River Valley Court' We lived with my mother's step-sister Bessie who was married to 'Mac' Anderson. I later learned Mac won River Valley Court in lieu of 800 dollars in a poker game. My first view of River Valley Court is burned into my 5 year old memory. There was a formal steel fence around the property and inside the fence was a large trench almost like a moat in front of it. An old 1 ton Garbage truck was dumping garbage into that moat.
The moat was actually a slue running under the main street from the central Pond, it than just ran along the east side of Toronto Street in a board slue in front of River Valley Court to the Tannery where it ran a water wheel. I later learned that people who lived on the other side of the street just ran their raw sewage pipes under the street into the slue. Mother had complained about this to the Board of Health who consisted of Doc McClintock and he did nothing. Then her friend Elsie Wood's daughter Marion fell in the slue and became very ill. Mother complained again and with no remedy she cut appropriate size branches and with an axe she drove plugs into all the offending pipes. With backed up toilets the offenders quickly acquired septic tanks.
We lived in 2 small dingy rooms on the second floor. Life with Mac and Bessie was a little crazy. I remember a hockey stick that was used to reach around the corner of the porch to turn on the hydro after Max had turned off to save money. Max also had a mint Maxwell yellow roadster with a rumble seat that he occasionally took us on picnics. I learned later that he had bought this from John Grieg $25.00 down and I will see you later. Some how the "moat" was quickly filled in and as I explored the grounds it is hard to imagine as it stands today. There was a huge lawn A huge oak tree stood in the middle of the lawn and a row of great Maples along the street. There was a wooden garage on the south end it was full of records and papers and old furniture. I still have a beautiful old table that mother salvaged from there. It has piece sliced out of it that was supposed to have been done my American Officer during the war of 1812. ?? There was a large brick driving shed and stable at the north end this too was filled with all sorts of neat stuff that was also just abandoned.My mother drewattention as she often hunted along the creek. Shooting partridge withe 410 shotgun. we all fished for brook trout.
I remember my sixth birthday so well. It was the first real one of my life. I had a real cake with candles and lots of new friends, mostly the wonderful Woods Family from across the street. They where my first friends in Uxbridge. Gwen was a bit older but Joyce, Tish, Cookie, Bev and Jimmy still in diapers were always a major part of our lives and almost family in those days also around the corner up Albert Street was the McFarland’s Penny and Peter and down the street was Woods cousin Donny. Donny's father was Gord Woods, Bill Woods Partner in the Lumber Company Donny had the most amazing trick, he would wrap himself around the hub of the lumber one ton truck and when his father drove off he would cartwheel around off the wheel on to the street. It is hard to describe that summer at River Valley Court. It was an incredible place, the garage had some sort of vehicle in it and was full of old books and files and loads of interesting stuff. It was the same with the driving shed and the basement and the attic. We had full access to everything nobody was interested in all the junk and we could play with anything we liked.
There was no tarmac then it was a deep ravine with a boardwalk on the East side of Toronto Street to River Valley Court. Where Centennial Park is now was then a huge millpond. One spring the Dam broke and it was no more. Shortly after that the Quonset building by the library went up and became the fabulous RIO theatre. 25 cents got popcorn and a movie every Saturday afternoon.
My Father Harold LeDrew and my uncle Bert LeDrew (his twin brother) worked for Mac as painters Mac was rather shady and soon my father and uncle worked for the lawyer Greig painting his new houses. There was some kind of court case with Mac and I remember that my parents won and we left River Valley Court to move to Vesey’s house on main Street by the railway tracks. where the rental place is now across form the old veterinary building. I remember well as we moved out of River Valley court the Ballinger family moving in. Fred, Betty Fred jr. and Jack with Billy still in diapers. Fred Ballinger was a butcher and opened a Butcher shop on the north east side of the creek on Brock Street. I can never forget the sign a huge painting of a shorthorn bull with equally huge proportional parts.
How Willard Grieg got to Uxbridge
Willard Grieg was a determined young man with ambition to become a lawyer.
He lived in Nestorville (now a ghost town near Thessalon)
as a teenager he was an accomplished trapper and woodsman.
In the spring of 1909(circa) he told his sister Florrie to pack her bags they were going to Toronto. He had a dogsled heaped high with the furs he had trapped all winter pulled by his 2 huskies 'Grit and Tory' He said after he sold the furs he would have enough money to go to law school and also to pay for Florrie's tuition at the Royal Conservatory of Music. So they got on the train with the sled, dogs and all and headed for Toronto.
From Union Station they headed up Bay Street sled and again dogs and all and as they approached Gold's Furriers the dogs who had not eaten for a couple of days broke lose and chased down the furriers cat and killed it and ate it. When the Furrier saw the furs he forgot about the cat. He bought the sled full of furs. He also noticed Florrie and a few years later after she graduated from The Royal Conservatory of Music He (Bert Gold to become Gould) married her.
And they were to become Glenn Gould's parents.
This story was told to me by John Grieg of Uxbridge Ontario
who is Glenn Gould’s first cousinUxbridge Rangers 116th Battalion WW1 use to chant to on parade; "We are the boy's from the Uxbridge Ranger's. ....We don't take no shit from strangers ....We are rough and we are tough, But God aren't we sexy!"
No sooner then Willard Grieg became a lawyer WWI started up. He joined The Ontario Regiment's Uxbridge Battalion under Major Sharpe. Willard had flat feet and was being discharged. Major Sharpe took him aside and told him he needed somebody to run his law practise in Uxbridge and offered him a partnership for $2.00.
Major Sharpe had promised the people of Uxbridge he would bring his soldiers home safe and sound. That was not to be. Uxbridge had a tragic number of casualties and the despondent major Sharpe committed suicide by jumping out a window in Ottawa rather than face the town. This left Willard with a Law practice for $2.00
Across the street from Vesey’s House lived Tom and Eva Banks. Tom ran a farm right in the town he owned the fields across the track and kept a couple of jersey cows and a Holstein too. I remember Tom chopping heads off chickens and when our Hound dog 'Mike; impregnated Tom's Bulldog and especially Tom swearing as he drowned the pups.
Next door lived Elwood Wagg. He was a gentle man and loved kids. He was burdened with most grotesque rupture. He always wore extra large overalls and it looked like a basketball between his legs. Some times he even carried it in a wheelbarrow. I guess he was more terrified of Doctors than living with this terrible deformity. It is amazing that he lived so long with it and still managed to do odd jobs and hunt and fish.
Down Main Street towards Brock Street just above the bridge over the creek lived a midget. He had a strange little half sized house that he had built to suit himself.
Mrs. Percy King was a mysterious recluse. I guess she had Alzheimer’s one day she walked down the railway tracks and threw herself off the trestle (The BB Bridge) Of course we kids had to look at the poor old dear lying in the creek shocked that she wore a wig.
Oscar Welsh was another tragic case he disappeared in the spring floods and they found his body behind our place in the creek some weeks later.
David Milne lived in Uxbridge then and I occasionally played with his son David. David’s mother tried to repay some kindness showed by another schoolmate’s mother by offering her on of David’s oil paintings. The mother handed it back sniffing “I wouldn’t hang that in the house.’
Dr. Carl and Sheila Puterbough were dear friends of our family too. Carl made the mistake of turning down an offer of a painting for some dental work from David Milne too.
Duncan Macpherson and his wife
Dorothy moved to town and they soon became good friends with my parents. Duncan
was getting work as a clever illustrator back then as he struggled to become a
serious Artist. One winter Duncan got the flu and sent Dorothy over to borrow a
bottle of rum. There was no liquor store within 20 miles back then. My mother
was aghast when Dorothy returned the rum the next week. The unpretentious Dorothy
just carried the bottle in her hand (no bag) and marched down to the drug store
where mother worked and handed it to her.
Back then
the train was a big part of Uxbridge life and the only way to get to Toronto if
you didn’t own a car. My
dad told me a story about sitting with Duncan and David Milne on the train to
Toronto. Somewhere near Stouffville David
pointed out the window and remarked what a beautiful green this haystack
was. Duncan said he was crazy that haystack was red.
Dad
said he didn't say anything but that haystack sure looked yellow to him
Duncan
was a wild man. He was banned for life from the Uxbridge Legion at least 3
times. He once disappeared for 3 weeks. Dorothy was crazy with worry until he
finally returned. He had hitched a ride on a cargo plane to Jamaica on the spur
of the moment.
One
time he took my mother to the Stouffville Sales Barn auction to buy some garden
tools. Duncan bid and got a huge box of garden tools for a dollar. There was an axe, a shovel, a rake, and a
hoe even. but that came with a dozen or so old cellar window screens. As
they carried them to the car Mother asked Duncan what she was going to do with
all the screens. Don't you know anything? says Duncan as opened the nearest car
door and threw them in the back seat and walked away.
When David died in 1953. Duncan rented Milne’s former studio
(right across from Coffeetime) Bun Willis raised the rent from eight dollars a
month to ten.
