Yesterday and Today
In search of Humberlea’s past
By Tim Lambrinos
Searching out and uncovering one’s roots, is a practice that can reveal a great deal about somebody. It may include finding out certain facts about descendants and their locations of upbringing. Neighbourhood surroundings can play an important role in shaping what someone has become today.
Bryan Gordon has been engaged in a search for more about Humberleas’s past, and the Melody Road public school. The initial school was built in 1951 but was rebuilt and replaced by St. Simon Catholic School in 2018. A commemorative rock was placed in front of the new school in a ceremony held by former students.
Since that time, Bryan Gordon has been methodically researching the origins of the community of Humberlea in an effort to create a written narrative that ultimately defines the chronological progressions of the community.
He’s doing it because he finds it fascinating to find out more about the past. He is connected to the area, born and brought up in a home built by his father, Jack Gordon, in 1949. The household of their home on Wallasey Avenue was overseen by his mother Doreene.
Young Bryan attended Melody Road public school throughout the 1950’s. Some of his childhood friends included Jimmy Pitkin, Holly Hurlburt and Adele Boy. At the time, one of the more influential persons in his young life was Melody Road teacher, Myrtle Black. She originally came from Seaforth, Ontario (near Lake Huron) and was married to Tom Black. The couple had moved from town to town quite often as Tom had been working on electrifying Ontario and setting up hydro corridors in the 1940’s. They finally established themselves in the Town of Weston, on the west side of the river, and brought up their family. She began teaching at Humberview Public School on Weston Road and transferred to Melody Road when it officially opened in 1951. Mrs. Black was reported to have a positive effect on many of Humberlea’s primary school students.
As for Bryan Gordon, his father Jack Gordon worked for CN Rail at Union Station. In 1949, he built their home on Wallasey Avenue for the large family that was to follow. The home was created from a design of a Veteran Lands’ Act home but with a full second floor. It was notable as being one of the only homes in the area that was covered in stucco instead of white asbestos tile-siding.
Once leaving Melody, Bryan Gordon attended Emery Collegiate and graduated in 1968. Many of his siblings also had the pleasure of following the same educational pathway to Emery and beyond.
Gordon’s memories of Humberlea from the 1950s, sixties and seventies remains quite vivid. He talks about the Crang-Booth Brick factory that was in full operation on the east side of the CPR train tracks.
In his youth, access across the tracks was quite easy, a mere walk away into a “slimy” pond. This pond began it’s life as an empty pit that was quarried for clay required by the nearby brick factory.
Gordon has other boyhood memories of the Humber River and the lush ravines on the west side of Weston Road. And then there was Albion Park’s Musson bridge along Flindon Road. It was originally constructed as a bridge for Albion Road in 1903 that would allow wagon passage for travellers. He and his boyhood friends recall many great fishing expeditions at the bridge prior to it being torn down in 1962.
His current research has found that the Griffith brothers owned and operated farms that were transformed into a veteran housing community named Humberlea in 1947. The Veterans’ Land Act (V.L.A.) homes were followed by an extension of the community in 1950. The extension of single brick homes was built over the former land of the Caulfield Dairy Farm. This was where dairy cows grazed on pastures that were transformed into streets named Melody Road, Lovilla Boulevard, Ann Arbour Road, Yorkdale Crescent and Jodphur Avenue.
Gordon’s research has also connected him to many names of the past including Jethro Kirby Crang, James Griffith, Matthew Griffith, Ethel Griffith, George Booth and James Lever.
With many COVID-19 restrictions still in place, his research has been somewhat stagnated but should pick up soon to allow him to place the final pieces of the puzzle that have previously remained a mystery.
In 2021, Gordon took a long walk down memory lane to his former stomping grounds to coordinate some of the yet uncovered facts about his research. And to see what remnants of the past still exist to this day. He visited the former laneway to Ethel Griffith’s farmhouse. In the early 1960’s, this laneway led into the farmhouse rented by the Campbell family where a wild apple orchard encompassed much of the surrounding terrain. Immediately north of the orchard, Southam Murray had their own driveway that led off Weston Road into their massive printing plant. The Griffith farmhouse and orchard disappeared in 1966 when the land was cleared for new semi-detached homes along Rockbank Crescent and Starview Drive. These days, the original laneway has been transformed into what is now called Starview Lane. A catholic high school has occupied the previous plant location of Southam Murray since 1999.
Gordon found that his former home along Wallasey still had the same central fire hydrant planted firmly into the ground. As well, he looked at some of the original homes on the street, still standing after more than 70 years.
He then travelled to the fence that separates the CPR railway tracks from the residential properties along Highbury Road.
He noticed some of the original wooden posts still exist from the original farmer’s fence. But now, there is a new metal chain-link fence built right in front of the old one.
Although Gordon currently resides in Cambridge, Ontario, he finds great pleasure in re-visiting the neighbourhood that he grew up in. In addition, he has found time to enjoy numerous trips to France to visit the beaches of Normandy and look at the actual locations of battle that was done by long-lost relatives.
Bryan Gordon, the former resident of Humberlea, has been organizing a reunion for all that had the privilege to attend Melody Road public school from 1951 to 1986. He feels that it now might be able to be organized for the spring of 2022.
He can be contacted at:
bgordon1949@gmail.com
