By Patricia Stephenson

On Sheila’s living room wall above the sofa, hangs a poster size black-and-white photograph of her childhood home. In the picture is a two-storey brick house with Tudor-style influences, and with a spacious sunroom to catch the rays of the late afternoon sun. There is an outbuilding partially obscured by the house, and just beyond it, towering Lombardy Poplars line the northern edge of the 2.5 acre property. 

In the summer of 1950, Sheila was four years old and her sister was 11, when her family moved to the rural property at 317 Lake Shore Road West in Trafalgar Township (now Lakeshore Road West in Oakville). The house was built in 1931, and set well back from the road. Sheila recalls the fabric awnings that shaded every window, and the task her father had of removing the awnings every autumn, and reinstalling them in the spring. 

The outbuilding, referred to as The Chicken House, was a large two-storey barn-like building that served multiple purposes. The first floor was divided into three separate sections: One side was used to house chickens, the opposite side was a one-bedroom apartment, and in the middle was a garage without doors. The second floor contained three rooms, and was accessible only by using an outside staircase located at each end of the building.

 The apartment was rented out to several tenants over the years, including a Dutch husband and wife who professed to have been spies during the Second World War. In addition, says Sheila, the wife proclaimed to be a concert pianist and “she often came into our house and played the piano.” Another tenant “got his gun out and shot the fox that was catching our chickens!” 

Of all the tenants, Sheila had grown especially fond of the Tessel family. “Mrs. Tessel was a dressmaker,” she says. “She made my first ballet outfit.” Sheila recalls being in awe of the beautiful dresses that she made for her clients. Just as memorable, were the “candied almonds that she made and the most delicious pancakes!” In time, Mrs. Tessel’s sister joined her family and rented a room on the second floor of The Chicken House. As the Tessel family grew, Sheila’s father had a one-room addition built onto the apartment to serve as an extra bedroom. By the early 1960s, The Chicken House had been relocated to Speers Road.

 During her childhood and early adolescence, Sheila spent many carefree hours at the estates directly across Lake Shore Road. She recalls the adventures she had with a friend who lived at the Shorewood estate — “building forts in the woods and picking wild flowers” and swimming in the pool. In winter, there was the rush of sliding down a big sled run. She remembers building a raft with friends and swimming from the stony beach at the Holyrood estate. 

Yet, Sheila didn’t have to go far to find entertainment. Her home was surrounded on three sides by neighbouring fields: Horses grazed in the pasture to the east and to the north was a large deep pond, with frogs that croaked throughout the night. “I used to catch tadpoles and keep them in smaller quarters while they developed into frogs,” she says. Even more enjoyable, was the pond in winter. “It was one of my favorite places to be — skating and playing hockey at any time of day or night with some of the local boys. How I loved that!'

Sheila took a keen interest in helping her father care for their chickens. In addition to The Chicken House, she says, “there were two chicken coops, each about the size of a small shed, and a hen house with an outside run.” Besides the fox, “weasels also went after the chickens, but our dog Spot, a fox terrier mix, took care of that."

“We used to get a truckload of baby chicks delivered every so often,” says Sheila. In preparation of their arrival, “my mother would get the brooder in The Chicken House ready so that it was nice and warm.” As much as she enjoyed chicken farming, there was one part that did not appeal to her: “Poor creatures, they would grow and lay eggs, and then after a while, get killed for their meat. My father would often kill a chicken for our dinner, and my mother would clean it.” Even so, she accompanied her father on his chicken deliveries to a farm in Milton. 

The eggs were sold locally, and Sheila gladly delivered them to customers who lived within a short walking distance of her home. On Saturdays, she went with her father to make egg deliveries to customers who lived on Christina Drive and on the east side of town. Her father would wait in the car, while she took the eggs to customers’ doors and collected the money.

“Summertime was work!” states Sheila. “There was a lot of picking to do.” Her father, an agronomist, had a tremendous garden at the front of the property, close to Lake Shore Road. “He grew lots of asparagus — I would pick baskets of it. My father would bunch it up, weigh it and sell it.” He also cultivated and planted corn, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries and Gladiolas. She recalls the striking killdeer birds that nested on the ground between the asparagus plants. “If I got too close to their nests, they’d get very upset — they’d pretend they had a broken wing to lead me away from the nest.” Sheila’s younger sister was much too young to help in the garden, and her older sister was away at nursing school. “But I liked it and always had friends helping me. My mother knew how much work it was and she would help too."

Sheila sold fruits and vegetables from a roadside stand at the bottom of their driveway. And when her pet rabbit, Frisky, had babies old enough to leave their mother, they too were sold at the roadside stand. The Gladiolas were sold to the Century Theatre for the lobby. Pears, apples and white cherries were grown for the family’s own use — in particular, Sheila’s father made apple cider with a cider press. He also made “a pretty lethal dandelion wine!” says Sheila. 

The cider, wine, vegetables, and her mother’s canning were stored in the cold room under the sunroom. Sheila remembers when the cold room could be accessed from the outside: The sunroom stairs would pivot upward, revealing a door that would lead down to the storage area. Storing foods that needed to be kept frozen, took a bit of planning. In the years before Sheila’s parents owned a freezer, they rented a freezer locker located in a building on Colborne Street (now Lakeshore Road East).

Another vivid childhood memory, says Sheila, was the kindness of her family’s health care provider, Dr. E.P. Soanes. “My mother thought the world of Dr. Soanes.” And if time permitted, she adds, “My mother would make a loaf of bread to give him on his home visits."

Sheila began her schooling at Westwood Public School and then transferred to the newly built W.H. Morden Public School, conveniently located just beyond the field behind her house. She attended Thomas A. Blakelock High School, then Gordon E. Perdue High School, the new school that was built in the pasture next to her home. She finished secondary school at Albert College in Belleville.

In 1966, Sheila moved to Toronto and attended The Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing. A year later, she enrolled in the Welfare Services Program at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. After graduating in 1969, she remained in Toronto and worked for the Ontario Government in Legal Aid. That same year, she was dismayed to learn that her parents had sold most of the land surrounding their house to a developer. The plan would include building 11 new houses and a cul-de-sac named Tavistock Square —her childhood house would be incorporated into the development, with a change of address and a new suburban-sized lot.

In the autumn of 1972, Sheila spotted a magazine advertisement promoting a trip from England to India that piqued her interest. Shortly afterwards, a friend introduced her to another travel enthusiast. The two young women hardly knew each other when they set out on their trip, she says, yet it worked out well, and their friendship remains strong to this day.

Sheila and her travelling companion boarded a bus in London, England and travelled for three months through Europe, the Middle East and Asia to Nepal — at times camping, and at other times, staying in cheap hotels. In Nepal, Sherpa guides carried their camping equipment, while they hiked over hills, showered under waterfalls and camped with other young people on the trip. “We hiked all the way to the Chinese border. It was absolutely grand!” she says. The trip ended in Kathmandu, Nepal, however, Sheila was not ready to return home. Instead, Sheila travelled solo by train from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Bombay (now Mumbai), where she embarked on a freighter bound for Australia. She immediately sent a telegram to her parents who would have been anxiously waiting to hear from her. It took almost two months for the ship to reach Australia.

There were many stops along the way, at times lasting a few days, while cargo was moved on and off the ship. On those occasions, members of the ship’s crew provided excursions for passengers. And once, says Sheila, to her horror, an elephant destined for a zoo was hoisted by crane onto the ship. “It was sad to watch.” For three days she sailed, “with an elephant chained by foot to the deck. It was not happy — moving its head back and forth, back and forth.”

While in Sydney, Sheila stayed briefly with a young couple she had met on the freighter, after which she boarded a bus and headed to Kyabram, Victoria, to work at a cannery. Although “the work was boring,” she says, “I had a fantastic time!” Most of the labourers were about Sheila’s age, and she easily made friends. While in Australia, she had a visit from her parents. Afterwards, she met up with a friend from the cannery and together they took a ship to New Zealand. Eighteen months later, they returned to Australia. From there, Sheila sailed to Florida and to the Bahamas, then headed for home.

When Sheila arrived at her childhood home, she was taken aback and greatly saddened by the “drastically changed” landscape. The property that her family once owned, had become a completed housing development. Even so, there was some comfort in the fact that the house, where her parents still lived, remained unaltered. 

“When I left on the trip, I thought I’d be gone for a year,” admits Sheila, instead, the adventure lasted five years. She travelled — she worked — she travelled — she worked. She canned peaches, picked apples, worked as a waitress and hotel hostess, cleaned rooms and served meals at a retirement home. All of her overseas employment consisted of “live-in jobs with meals provided.”

In contrast, after she returned home, Sheila resumed her career as a Welfare Worker with the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Over the years, she would visit Australia several times.

 Change is inevitable, Sheila concludes. “Nevertheless, I have these lasting memories of growing up at 317 Lake Shore Road West.” Recalling her childhood and youthful adventures, she says, has “unleashed such pleasant memories of earlier years — and they are such fine memories.”