The grass had a coating of frost as we pulled into the long driveway. The house was red brick and seemed friendly enough. My father braked and the Olds came to a stop. Our first night in the Dickson house. Bags were unpacked, pj’s and bedding hauled inside. My room […]
The Dickson Avenue house was my mother’s dream. She came from a predominantly English-speaking town in the eastern townships where, in those days, being English meant you had it made in the shade. Her father owned an insurance agency and she remembered the depression years as more or less having […]
My very old, faded and worn landed immigrant card says my family and I crossed the border into Canada in April, 1954. I would have been two and a half, so of course I can’t really remember anything about it, but somehow my mind has supplied an image of my […]
It is the first house. In one of the few photographs of that first house, which predates conscious memory, my unfolding family history presents itself. My brother and I were only fifteen months apart, so we look almost like twins. I would guess my age to be one and half […]
In the summer of 2013, a man knocked on the door of my house. He’d grown up within its walls. He was in his late eighties and he wanted to look around. He remembered his neighbours, which bedroom had been his and where his brothers had slept. The house is […]