Monthly Archives: October 2021

Leslieville Roots: The Roothams

I wonder how many in our neighbourhood have Red Seal builders in their family trees? There is a small clue in this rather mundane article from the Toronto Star of October 25, 1917. Lewis Rootham was a contractor who built many of the houses on the lower of Woodfield, Connaught and neighbouring streets. But heContinue reading “Leslieville Roots: The Roothams”

Balmy Beach Postcards

By Joanne Doucette I love collecting these old postcards. Most are from my collection though some are no longer in my file of old fragile paper things. Due to the rarity many go from that drawer in my desk to libraries and archives. Some I also give away as Christmas stocking stuffers for friends. IContinue reading “Balmy Beach Postcards”

George Leslie: Let’s go to the Ex

By Joanne Doucette George Leslie was also one of the founders of the “Ex” – the Provincial Exhibition, forerunner of the Canadian National Exhibition (C.N.E.).  He showed his seeds there in 1858 and continued to exhibit over the years, winning many prizes. When the Provincial Exhibition incorporated in 1879 George Leslie Jr. was one ofContinue reading “George Leslie: Let’s go to the Ex”

October 16 -Eureka: Remembering some special women

visiting shut-ins, distributing food and clothing, supplying glasses for children, making cancer pads; awarding scholarships to students entering university, donating a wheelchair to Bloor-View Children’s Hospital, assisting churches in purchasing hymnals…Their work, ever since that first session 70 years ago to help one needy individual, has been largely in the black community, but not confined to it. Toronto Star, Oct. 16, 1980

October: The Month from Hell

By October 12, the hospitals were triaging, turning away patients they thought might have a chance of survival or just accepting patients on a first-come-first-served basis. Doctors and nurses were not seeing those we would think would be least likely to survive: elderly, frail people and young children and infants. Those who were dying were, overwhelmingly, young and healthy men and women, in all neighbourhoods including older areas in the East End such as Riverside, Leslieville and Todmorden and new neighbourhoods spreading across the farm fields of the Ashbridges, Charles Coxwell Small, the Sammons, Cosburns and others. Even the new cottage communities along the Beach were not spared.