Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

 

On December 25, 1943, the acrid smell of cordite hung over the rubble barricades of Ortona, Italy, where Canadians and Germans were engaged in grim hand-to-hand combat. Even amid the thunder of collapsing walls and the blinding dust and smoke darkening the alleys, the men of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and The Loyal Edmonton Regiment were determined to celebrate Christmas. They chose the abandoned church of Santa Maria di Constantinopoli as their banquet hall.

 

The dinner was set out on long rows of tables with white tablecloths, and a bottle of beer, candies, cigarettes, nuts, oranges, apples and chocolate bars at each setting. The companies ate in relays. As each company finished eating, they went forward to relieve the next. The menu was soup, pork with applesauce, cauliflower, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes, gravy, Christmas pudding and mince pie. In the corner of the room was a small, decorated tree. Even amidst the dread of war, that most universal of Christmas symbols provided comfort and hope.

Though intimately associated with Christianity, the Christmas tree has a pagan origin. Many pagan cultures cut down evergreen trees in December and moved them into the home or temple to recognize the winter solstice, which occurs sometime between December 20 and 23. The evergreen trees seemed to have magical powers that enabled them to withstand the life-threatening powers of darkness and cold.

Legends about the first Christian use of the tree include that of a woodcutter who helps a small hungry child. The next morning, the child appears to the woodcutter and his wife as the Christchild. The child breaks a branch from a fir tree and tells the couple that it will bear fruit at Christmas time. As foretold, the tree is laden with apples of gold and nuts of silver. By the 1700s the Christbaum, or "Christ tree,” was a firmly established tradition in Germany.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Christmas Trees In Canada

The first Christmas tree in North America appeared on Christmas Eve 1781, in Sorel, Québec, when the baroness Riedesel hosted a party of British and German officers. She served an English pudding, but the sensation of the evening was a balsam fir cut for the occasion and placed in the corner of the dining room, its branches decorated with fruits and lit with white candles. The baroness was determined to mark her family's return to Canada after a trying ordeal with a traditional German celebration.

Baron Frederick-Adolphus Riedesel was commander of a group of German soldiers sent by the Duke of Brunswick to help defend Canada. Riedesel and his family were taken prisoner during the disastrous British offensive in northern New York in 1777. They were not released until 1780, when they returned to Sorel.


The famous English engraving of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their tree in 1848. The German-born Albert helped to popularize the Christmas tree in Britain and Canada (Illustrated London News).

It is commonly said that the Christmas tree's popularity dates from the time of Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria, who decorated a tree at Windsor Castle in 1841 to celebrate their first-born son. However, though Albert may have popularized the Christmas tree, the English royal family had been decorating trees since at least 1800 when Queen Charlotte raised one at Queen's Lodge, Berkshire. The tradition only gained popularity among the general population after the illustration of the family's decorated tree at Windsor Castle was published in 1848.

The first time a Christmas tree was lit by electricity was in 1882 in the New York City home of Edward Johnson, of the Edison Electric Company. He lit a Christmas tree with a string of 80 small electric light bulbs, which he had made himself. These strings of light began to be produced around 1890. One of the first electrically lit Christmas trees was erected in Westmount, Québec, in 1896. In 1900, some large stores put up illuminated trees to attract customers.
Today the Christmas tree is a firmly established tradition throughout Canada, where the fresh scent of the evergreen and the multicoloured decorations contrast with the dark nights and bleak landscape. Beyond its pagan and Christian origins, the Christmas tree is a universal symbol of rebirth, of light in the darkest time, of hovering angels, and of the star that points to the place of peace.

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Windsor Station/Gare Windsor

 

 

 

courtesy - Massey F. Jones

Looking north on a very muddy Windsor St., corner of St-Antoine in 1904.

Windsor Street south of Dorchester (now René Levesque Blvd) was renamed Peel Street/Rue Peel in 1968.

The granite building was not only the Montreal terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway but also their Canadian headquarters, until then named CP moved its entire operation to Calgary in 1996 and changed its name back to Canadian Pacific Railway.

Behind the early Montreal Tramways streetcar, we see a faint outline of the elegant Le Windsor, then and now,  a historical nine-story structure, offering palatial splendor with a gold-embossed lobby, six restaurants,two ballrooms, concert hall and 382 luxurious guest-rooms.

 

 
courtesy – Massey F. Jones

Today  Windsor Station is not connected to any track and has been developed into a hotel and retail complex, with access the Lucien-L'Allier metro (subway) station which is below the station building and a connection to the Bell Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team.  

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Île Bizard's rural schools

 

Before the beginning of the 19th century, Île Bizard's official name was ''île Bonaventure''. But Montreal's residents used to refer to it as ''île du Major'', ''île Major'' or ''île Bizard'', because from 1678 the seigneur of the island was Jacques Bizard, town-major of Montreal. However, neither Jacques Bizard nor his descendants lived in the island. In fact, there was no settlement in the North-West section of Montreal, including Île Bizard, at that time. From 1735, Jacques' Bizard eldest daughter, Louise, began to grant lands to settlers. Gradually, the population grew, and by the beginning of the 19th century the island was entirely settled. However, there was still no town, no church and no school at Île Bizard at that time.

The first school was erected in 1850. It has been in use during several years, until 1920 when it became too small for the needs of the students and the teachers. Thus, a new school was designed by architect Joseph Sawyer and built in 1923-1924. It was located at the same site where the first school stood.
This rural school had two classrooms on the ground floor, each of them having enough space for about thirty students. The first floor was used as accommodation for the teachers: it included two rooms and a kitchen. In addition to serving as a school, the building was also used as a meeting place for the municipal council.
In the 1950s, the same thing happened than a few decades earlier: the school was too small for the community's needs, so a new one was built. In 1964, the municipality of L'Île-Bizard acquired the 1923's rural school and transformed it into a town hall, following the plans of architect Patrick Stoker.

In 2001, the building was designated a historic place by the municipality of LÎle-Bizard.

Sources:
Société patrimoine et histoire de l'île Bizard et Sainte-Geneviève

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Manseau No. 101 Dipper Dredger

My Uncle George passed away in November of 1964, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines at 17 years of age and traveled the world. He would occasionally call us from his latest port of call and tell us about the people he met, the cities he had visited and where he was sailing next.

Manseau No. 101 Dipper Dredger
authors collection

Among his souvenirs I found a photograph of what looked to be a barge, there was no description save the name Manseau No. 101 Dipper Dredger.
It was a 10 cubic yard dipper dredger, one of the two largest dredges in the world. The dredgers were all run out of Sorel, Quebec owned by Marine Industries, Ltd.

Sorel, Quebec was not that far from where my uncle lived in Montreal. My assumption is he traveled to Sorel, possibly took some training there and off he went to sail the high seas. His favorite country was Spain.

The Manseau No. 101 was scrapped many years ago.

Boat Graveyard at Sorel, Quebec

(c)2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Disaster at Windsor Station

It's march 17 1909, St.Patrick's day. Around 08:30 the overnight train from Boston with 200 passengers aboard is being pulled by engine 2102. On the final approach to Windsor station an explosion happens in the engine scalding the engineer Mark Cunningham and fireman Louis Craig, the engine is uncontrolable, both the engineer and fireman jump out around Westmount. The passengers and the rest of the train crew are unaware of what is going on. The rear end brakeman senses something is wrong and applies the emergency brakes around Guy St. but it's not sufficient, the train plows in to the station.



Mrs W.J. Nixon of 143a Ash st in Pointe St-Charles is in the station washroom with her two children, they have no chance and all three perish. Louis Craig the fireman will survive, unfortunately the engineer mark cunningham dies.
My Dad worked for the CPR in the 50's and 60's and this story was still being told by train crews.
-courtesy Roger Albert Griffintown Memories

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Farmville: Mr Lamy Feeds Maisonneuve's Poor

 

In 1917, during a recession, urban agriculture came out of the shadows. The Montreal Cultivation Committee lobbied Maisonneuve, then an city industrial city that was independent from Montreal, for formal urban agricultural programs.

Maisonneuve transformed at the future Maisonneuve Park into a gigantic vegetable garden in order to feed the poor. But planting crops required investment and the city had not approved a budget. In order to do his job, the garden’s superintendent, J.N. Lamy, gambled—he bet the harvest could cover the costs of starting the garden as well as feed the city’s poor.

 

We don't know much about J.N. Lamy, even his full name is a mystery. Like most ordinary men, he left few traces in the archives. But when he was the garden superintendent he kept meticulous records. Most of his notes are in one yellow covered ledger titled Cultures intensives de Parc Maisonneuve. He titled it intensive agriculture because he knew it was a huge venture. Every week, Lamy recorded the jobs completed and the hours his team of five worked. He calculated how much tending the garden cost—the tally carries forward for over twenty pages. Each detail was recorded in a steady, neat cursive. There is one exception; the recurring notation “chargés aux patates” is slightly askew. It crawls up the margins. The three words accompany smaller expenses Lamy couldn’t afford to pay. The note became more common as the season progressed.

A new venture meant everything has to be bought or borrowed, but Lamy had few resources. On May 29th, Lamy bought $241.75 worth of seeds on credit. He then bartered part of the harvest to rent a harrow, buy burlap sacks, and hardware to build fences. The note “chargés aux patates” preceded each purchase. The humble potato became currency, like salt during the Holy Roman Empire.

If it had been a meager harvest, it's unclear how Lamy would have covered the expenses or what he would have said to hungry families who were promised potatoes. City council did not know what Lamy was doing. The superintendent’s reports contained concrete numbers and no mention of the charge-to-the-potato system. By June, the potato seeds had cost $771.65 and another $955.80 was spent in wages, yet not one green stem poked above the ground.

In September, Lamy and his men leaned on their shovels and dug into the ground. Whiffs of sweat and loam must have made Lamy suck in his breath, hopeful. Their shovels tilted the earth up and revealed mounds of Prince Edward
Potatoes like gold nuggets. The team pulled potatoes out of the ground until the end of October, filling 1,050 eighty-pound sacks. The heavy sacks may have eased Lamy’s mind—the wait was over, the gamble won. He managed to feed several hundred families and cover his costs.

Lamy checked off all but one of the charged-to-the-potatoes marginalia. It was an end of season bonus that he had asked the city to approve. As superintendent, Lamy earned eighteen dollars a week--the same as the labourers, but he had more experience and responsibilities. The man who invented the charge-to-the-potato system tested it one last time. He asked for ten sacks of potatoes. Jos. Écrement, Maisonneuve Secretary-Treasurer, refused and the next day ended Lamy’s contract. Lamy helped feed the city, but the harvest must have been bittersweet.

courtesy: Jess Grosman

©2016 Linda Sullivan-Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved