Thursday, April 24, 2014

52 Ancestors: #13 Departures

This page will feature obituaries that are unusual for one reason or another. This will be a work in progress.

We start with John Moynahan who suffered two strokes in one week in a heat wave:


Patrick Moynahan was run over by a train. There are other train mishaps that I will add later:


And John Lennon was struck and killed by an auto. He had "habitually walked well down in the ditch as if taking no chances of being hit" and there is no explanation on why this was not the case on this fatal day?


52 Ancestors #12: Priests and Nuns

Reverend Raymond Moynahan (1904-1980)


Father Ray was the former assistant priest of St Mary's Woodstock; Pastor of All Saints' Church, Stratford; Pastor of St Peter's Church, Goderich; then retired to Glengarda Convent in Windsor Ontario.








Sister Madeline Demarse (1927-2010)

Sister Demarse was a Grey Sister of the Immaculate Conception. She died in 2010 the 60th year of her religious life. She entered the community in 1950 and took her vows 1954. A music teacher by profession, she taught in Ottawa, Timmins, Eganville and Midland for many years. Other assignements included bookkeeping anmd leadership positions as well as her primary ministry - teaching piano.


The Lennon Sisters



Bernard Broderick (1916-1992)

Monday, April 21, 2014

52 Ancestors #17: Joseph Foreman (1933-1999): Track Star, Olympian and Lawyer .

No Story Too Small has issued a New Year's Challenge: "Have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.” 

This blog post is about my husband's uncle Joseph Foreman who was a track star,  Olympian athlete and lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario.

Joe Foreman represented team Canada as a sprinter in the
1956 Melbourne Olympics before he became
one of Sarnia's most prominent lawyers.

He was born in Mimico the son of Donald Jennings and Rita Foreman. He had two brothers (Tom and Pete) and was raised in New Toronto and Mimico Ontario.

The three Foreman brothers


The three Foreman brothers
According to an article in 2012 (the Sarnia Observer) "Joe attended high school at St. Michael’s College School -famed for its sporting excellence. His athletic prowess at St. Michael’s - including Ontario and Canadian junior championships - helped him earn a scholarship to Notre Dame, one of his most-cherished achievements."


St Michael's 1954
St Michael's College senior A Football
The Kerry Blues 1954

St. Michael's College Tower 1954


The Melbourne Summer Olympics 1956

In track: "He tied legendary Canadian Olympic champion Percy Williams' record for the 100-metre dash in 1955, then established a national record in the 200-metre dash that stood for five years." (Source Toronto Star)

Joe Foreman had the following podium finishes at major championships prior to the 1956 Olympics:

Personal Bests:
  • 100 - 10.6 (1956);
  • 200 - 21.5y (1954).


The Notre Dame Years 1957-58








"It was his connection to St. Michael’s that would lead him to Sarnia in 1972 to defend a former St. Michael’s priest in a legal battle in town. After the much-publicized case, Foreman was aggressively pursued by local law firms, and settled his practice in Sarnia in 1973."


" Foreman died in an automobile accident in 1999 at the age of 63, but the Foreman traditions live on in his son. Jonathan Foreman is a class-action lawyer in London, a former runner and track captain at Western University."






" And to commemorate Foreman’s competitive spirit, Sylvia and Jonathan inscribed the Olympic motto on his tombstone. It reads ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius.’ Faster, higher, stronger."


Links

The three Foreman brothers (early 1990s - Joe in the centre)



Sunday, April 20, 2014

52 Ancestors #16 - Family Places and Homes in Mimico

No Story Too Small has issued a New Year's Challenge: "Have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.”

Today's post is about a few of the places I remember as a child and some of the homes that I lived in with my family in Mimico, Ontario.
  
Mimico, Ontario
 

Mimico was the neighbourhood my family lived in before moving to Cooksville, Ontario.

"Mimico is a neighbourhood and a former municipality in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the south-west area of Toronto, along Lake Ontario. It is the south-east corner of the former Township (and later, City) of Etobicoke, and was an independent municipality from 1911 to 1967."

Picture from Chuckman's Postcard Collection
(circa 1966)
 

St Leo's School
 
St. Leo's school was where my brother and I attended from kindergarten through to Grade three. The St Leo's schoolyard adjoined that of John English public school which made for some interesting interactions between the children of working class Irish Catholic families and children of the Irish protestant families.
 
1964: My brother and I posing on the steps of St Leo's school
for our First Communion photo
 


St Leo's school (with St Leo's church on the right) today
 
St Leo's Church

St. Leo's R.C. was the church that my family attended and where my brother and I went daily (my brother was an altar boy).
 
St. Leo's Mimico
 
The interior of St. Leo's
 
St Leo's school can be seen between the two buildings

61 Superior Avenue

We lived in the bottom apartment of the triplex at 61 Superior while my father worked as a firefighter at the fire hall nearby (at 13 Superior Avenue).
 
1962: Dad practicing his golf swing on the lawn at 61 Superior

1964: The three of us posing in front of 61 Superior
61 Superior on google maps today.

 
Mimico Fire Department
13 Superior Avenue, Mimico

This is the fire station where my father worked in the early years

Mimico Fire Department
(my father in rear row - 2nd from the right)
 

1929 newspaper clipping: "Police And Firemen Have New Quarters"

Plans for Fire Dept.
 
In 2011 the Mimico Fire Hall where my father worked was officially the Town of Mimico's last remaining municipal building still standing. Both the Town Hall and Public Utilities Building which were on Church Street (now Royal York Road) were demolished long ago
 
Mimico Fire Hall in 2011
 

Mimico Fire Hall on google maps


Sussex Drive
 
Our family lived in a home located on Sussex Drive on the shores of Lake Ontario.
 
1965
Posing on front lawn of Sussex Dr. home
 
 I was surprised to learn about the architect Harold Watson who designed the homes in this area. I remember the sound of the streetcars as I tried to sleep at night. I had never had to try and sleep with lots of noise outside. The streetcars ran along the Lakeshore.
 
New Toronto (507) streetcar
 
 
Map of Sussex Dr. and Lakeshore Blvd. homes designed by architect Harold R. Watson
 
The homes on Sussex Drive show the skill of it's architect Harold R. Watson.   "The homes constitute a little country village, all executed in similar design and materials.  Their high pitched roofs and towering chimneys are distinctive, as is his use of brick on the first floor and stucco above.  The design employs many of the features he used in his Eighth Street project including exterior walls made of brick on the lower and stucco on the upper floor and small front porches that are covered by an extension of the roof line.....The homes at 8 and 10 Sussex Drive were also part of this project but they were demolished in 2010 as part of the construction of a new house."
 
 
Google map of Sussex Drive today


Links

Mimico's famous Pickin Chicken

 
Cooksville, Ontario
 
My family later moved to Cooksville, Ontario.
I will devote an entire blog post to Cooksville Ontario at some point in the future.
 
Hurontario Street at Elm Drive. Included in the photograph are the
Britannia School of Trade, Fairview Road and Hansen Road.
  Lake Ontario is in the background. Photographed by Bert Hoferichter, MPA.
 

Saturday, April 19, 2014

52 Ancestors #15: The Next Generation - We Are Family

No Story Too Small has issued a New Year's Challenge: "Have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.” 
 
In 52 weeks of the 2014 52 Ancestors challenge I missed three posts (#15-The Next Generation, #16 - Family Places and Homes in Mimico  and #17 - Joseph Foreman (1933-1999): Track Star and Olympian ). I have decided to go back and fill in those blank pages with some photographs that I feel are important to share with my family.
 
This week the photos are group shots of the "next generation". By "next generation" I mean the grandchildren (and great grandchildren) of Joan and Ernie Moynahan.
 
It is a tradition to do a group photo at family gatherings in front of the beloved blue spruce that stands at the corner of the lot at our family home.
 
As time passes, gatherings become more difficult with a busy and growing family and the last group shots were taken at my niece's wedding in 2008, a family vacation in Florida in 2009 and a family ski holiday in Collingwood in 2010. 
 
I think a wonderful resolution for 2015 would be to gather the family again in front of that grand old blue spruce tree.
 

 

 


2007
 
 
 
2009