I don’t remember too much about our family move to Toronto back in August of 1964 but I have some memories of moving back home to BC in summer of 1973. I was 13 years old by then. I was 5 when we first went to Toronto.
A bit of back story…
I started school in Toronto at Kew Garden elementary school. I did not get to go to Ruskin School, which my boys Matt and Robert, brother Daryl, and my dad Murray attended. My boys were part of the last class before the school closed. I was proud that 3 generations had gotten to go there.
I was terrified to go as it was a huge school, bigger than anything I have ever seen. I, like my brother Daryl, did try to “go home” at recess time…. got caught of course and brought back. I did add one trick though, I pretended to get “lost” one time, but that move failed me too. It was one of my recess getaways, and I knowingly headed for the beach. (We lived about 2 city blocks from Lake Ontario). I was headed to the playground when 2 young men found me. Realizing now, that could have had a not so great turn out. But these two guys were on the up and up and really tried to help me. I don’t know how they got a hold of my dad, whether they called the school and the school called him or just what. Needless to say dad was not impressed with me. After that one I caved in and went to school. I just cried until recess instead of running away.
I remember not having much for furniture in our Toronto apartment when we first moved in. I remember the back seat of the car being our couch for a time. Being the apartment was only a 1 bedroom for 4 people, my dad converted the living room into a bedroom for Daryl and I. He later split it in 2 when we got older. We used the dining room as the living room for all those years.
My hatred of school did not cease. The only fun time was in grade 8 in a business or some sort of boring class, we had a nice “Newfie” girl in class. I thought she was ok, but she got teased more than I did unfortunately. I always thought it was neat how they said the letter “H” or “3” differently, and chimney was “chimeley”. Then there was the European friend I made in grade 7 or so who got bullied horribly for simply liking flowers. People are stupid! I wished I was not so ladylike back then… I would have straightened those bullies out right quick.
Dad, after repeating some college years and courses due to working too much and a late diagnosis of dyslexia, finally told us we were going home to BC in 1973. Daryl had married Barb at that point and chosen to stay behind.
I hadn’t seen my grandparents for 9 years, other than a train trip back to BC in summer of 1967 with Daryl and my mom, and visits from my grandparents a year apart in 1972 and 1973. Grandma and Grandpa Roadhouse flew down in 1972 for a long awaited visit. Grandpa would disappear on us for hours, and later would turn up just amazed at all the brick houses. Mom, Daryl, Grandma and Grandpa and I went on a trip to Bolton Ontario and after a little detective work we found a relation Mr. Downy, who showed us the Roadhouse farm house that Grandpa was born in. That was a really cool sight to see. That house I believe is now back in the Roadhouse family some how (I read online somewhere).
In May of 1973, my parents flew Granny Hopper (Helen L. M. “Nellie” Murray) to Toronto for my dad’s graduation from Chiropractic college.
On to the trip….
So then in late July of 1973 we cleaned out the little rental 1 bedroom apartment we had lived in and I had grown up in. I said goodbye to my best friend Janet who I had known since we first moved there when I was 5. We were in different school districts so we never went to the same school but it didn’t stop us from being besties.
The trip home did not go as well as the trip to Toronto did. Dad still had the old homemade travel trailer that he and Grandpa built. It had been parked at cousin Reid and Doreen’s farm in Lindsay Ontario. I’m pretty sure some kinds of critters lived it in while it sat there at the farm. I don’t remember much about dad getting it ready to go but they got it road worthy again and dad bought Reid’s old 1 ton truck to pull it. He had also purchased an X-ray machine that he figured he would need when he opened his office in BC. That thing is another story all on it’s own.
A little sidenote about the truck… this GMC truck was bought new in 1964 by Reid who used it for a farm truck for many years. Daryl learned to drive on that truck and years later, once we were back in BC, Dad used it for the “stump farm” he called it, which was the property he had kept in Ruskin to come home to and build a home. The funny thing is that I also learned to drive on that very same truck! By the way, Mom and I named the truck “Old George”! They had several “George’s” as they got more successful later in life. Daryl inherited our old Buick as dad did not think it would make it back to BC, and he later parted with it. It ended up being in a showroom at a car dealership when he decided to part with it.
We saw Reid and family every summer throughout the years we lived in Toronto. I was between 2 of their daughters so there was always an exchange of hand me down clothing going on. We always seemed to go there at corn picking time too… funny how that worked out eh? I have to admit, I learned a lot about corn… and garter snakes… ewwww!
I was checking my mom’s diaries to see if she had our trip to BC was in her 1973 diary and it is! So I once I digitize it I will post a copy of it to show her version.
I don’t remember the exact dates that events happened but thanks to mom’s diaries she has that covered. So I’ll just touch on the events that happened as I remember them.
July 29th, we left Toronto to go to Reid and Doreen’s farm in order to prepare for the long trip home to BC. I am not sure how long we stayed but it was long enough to sort out Old George, and ready the trailer for travel. Loads got rearranged and goodbyes were said.
August 7th, 1973 we were underway at last. We got as far as Orillia Ontario when it was discovered that the tongue of the trailer had bowed badly. This was likely due to the trailer being overweight likely from the X-ray machine he’s bought. Dad got it welded and we found a camp to stay at for the night.
The next day, we got as far as Mactier in Muskoka area when the tongue broke again. This time it was right down to the ground just about. It was towed a tiny gas station in a place near Parry Sound Ontario. The guy told dad he would have to rebuild the tongue and so we had to order the steel for it from Parry Sound. We couldn’t stay in the trailer as it was now lopsided, so we got a motel for the night.
The next day, August 9th, the men had the work done on the tongue. Dad also got them to grease the wheels on the trailer.
We left Mactier late in the day, and got literally about 5 minutes away when it happened. We were going along, tongue working fine. We drove over a small hill, making note of the station wagon pulling a large travel trailer passing by us going in the opposite direction. I was sitting in the passenger window seat when we saw smoke coming from the trailer and it seemed to be listing to the left badly. That is when I saw in the side mirror the tire bouncing down the middle of the road….
We pulled over as quickly as we could safely. Dad and I ran back over the top of the hill to see what had happened because we had also seen a cloud of dust come up from the other side of the hill. It was the worse as suspected. The tire had come off of our trailer, bounced down the road and somehow hit the station wagon right smack in the radiator. This caused the woman driving to panic, jam on her brakes which of course flipped their trailer onto its side! Thankfully no one was hurt!
It turned out these poor people had suffered the worst vacation ever. It made our bad luck seem like a day at the park. The man was a minister with his wife and their family. They had 4 flat tires, their son nearly drown and when the husband tried to jump in and save the son, he nearly drown because he could not swim! The wife had to rescue both of them. So this accident just was the “the icing on the cake” for them! The police came, phone numbers and insurance exchanged, and at that point we were beaten. Dad was “done” with trailer and it’s problems, so after the mechanic put the tire back on we drove back to the gas station, off loaded what we could take onto Old George, and abandoned the rest for now. We then drove back to Reid’s to off load and leave stuff, regroup and start over again. I had to fight to keep the TV set! Dad hated TV for years.
We had to wait out a thunder storm before going as George had a tendency to leak. So we hid out parked under a bunch of trees. After the storm we finally got going. We stopped for gas somewhere and when I got out to go use the rest room, and bunch of bats came flying out from under our tarp swooping down at dad and I. I being a 13 year old girl, ducked and screamed of course! The guys at the gas station were excited about the bats though. The told us that their area was mosquito ridden and the bats would help to get rid of them. At least something good came out of it!
We arrived back and Reid and Doreen’s after midnight. They were completely shocked to see us again!
The next day, Doreen took us kids to Peterbough to sell corn door to door (oh joy!) while the grown ups dealt the truck load of stuff. Daryl and Barb came to help and we finally left Reid’s for the second time on August 11th. We got back to the trailer and loaded what we could onto George. We slept in the trailer that night for one last final time.
The next morning, we loaded the rest from the trailer, then finally got underway, arriving in Parry Sound by lunch time. Dad had left instructions for the gas station owner (I think) to sell the trailer and forward the money… of course, we never saw a penny of that.
We stayed in a place called Blind River that night and I believe that is where we saw the water was literally black from minerals I suppose. You could not see the bottom of the river water.
We were not able to get at our clothing as it was packed too tightly in the back of the truck, so we made do and shopped at Kmart for some things as needed. Other than that, things were fairly uneventful, thankfully. That is until we got to Medicine Hat Alberta.
We somehow had managed to drive completely across Saskatchewan in one day, almost 700 miles! We were completely beat by the time we crossed into Alberta. We stopped at a Kmart (I can’t remember where) to pick up a few things and I remember it being so hot that the pavement melted onto my flip flops! What a time getting that off.
It was night when we got to Medicine Hat. Dad found us a motel to stay at but it was full. They told him there was a convention in town and there wasn’t a room to be had anywhere. Dad got them to call and ask around at other motels as we were to exhausted to go any further. They did and told him that one place had one room left from a cancellation and we could have it if we got there quick enough. We hurried to the motel they sent us to, but the manager there told us there was some sort of miscommunication and there was no rooms available at all. We were done for!
We had no choice but to keep driving. We went a while until dad could not see straight anymore to drive. We pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station and just sat there. We tried to sleep sitting up in the truck, dad at the wheel, mom in the middle, and me on the passenger side. That’s when mom “lost it” so to speak. The day had just gotten to her and she was beyond exhausted. She began laughing hysterically! Which of course started me laughing too. I had my head on her stomach for a pillow and every time she laughed my head would bounce. It got old pretty fast and finally after a while she settled down. I think we only slept 2 or 3 hours in total. By 4 or 5 am we were on the road again.
We arrived in Golden BC August 16th around 4 pm. Too tired to go a mile further we found a nice motel and took a long nap. We slept good that night.
We went through Rogers Pass, I took in the beauty moreso this trip as I was now older and could appreciate it.
Throughout our entire trip west, we occasionally would pass a “hippy” hitchhiker. We first saw him in western Ontario and of course we were so full up we could not have picked him up if we wanted to. We passed him over and over again, even in BC. The last time we saw him, he gestured that he would ride up top on the tarp… Oh my God! I think not!
Dad stopped at BC weigh scales because he thought he had to. That’s where he found out we had a 1 ton truck with nearly 4 ton on it! Nothing sketchy about that eh? He also neglected to tell us that every time we went down a big hill through the Okanagan and on highway 3, it was all he could do to brake. I remember him having the brake petal to the floor and him nearly pushing himself through the seat. He also didn’t tell us that the gas petal was nearly wore out too. We made it to Hope by the skin of our teeth! Mom and Dad were determined to get home to Mission today as they were just done with this trip from Hell.
We arrived in Mission about 11:30 pm and stopped by the hardware store which was across from the post office. Mom used a phone booth to call Grandma and Grandpa Roadhouse. We did not know where their address was as they had moved since the last time we were there. All I remember was overhearing a very loud scream of joy from that phone, mom holding the receiver away from her ear because Grandma was screaming so loudly from happiness and excitement. They kept telling us that they’d come get us and show us where they had move to. Dad thought he didn’t want to bother them and we’d find the place ourselves. Grandma insisted, and said they could just walk down to us. We were confused, but the next thing we knew there they were running toward us with open arms. Dad and Grandpa got George parked for the night, and we went upstairs to Grandma and Grandpa’s rental apartment on Welton Street. It turned out that it was less that a block away from where we were standing to call them!
It was long after midnight before we got settled in for the night. Grandma had mail for us, two of which were very important. One was the bill from the accident we had in Ontario. Those nice people only asked for $400 for the damages to their vehicles. Dad paid it out of pocket gladly. That could have been so much worst in so many ways. The second was the college documents that we did not stay around long enough to wait for. Dad had forwarded all mail to Grandma and Grandpa’s address before we left so his final college exam results were waiting there when we arrived. To everyone’s relief, Dad passed! He was now a licensed Chiropractor!
Their apartment was actually a small bachelor suite but Grandpa had partitioned it off for Grandma’s bed and he preferred a comfortable recliner to sleep in. I think we just crashed on the floor. All I remember is Grandpa’s snoring. He could move earth with that roar, but I remember how nice it was to just be there despite.
The next day Dad and Grandpa went to Maple Ridge and found us a house to rent. Within a week they had secured an office space to set up shop. I started grade 10 at Maple Ridge Senior Secondary that fall and we ended up moving again after only a month in the rental house. They were building a new mall (Maple Ridge Square) and the house was being sold to make way. The Realtor helped us out though, and set us up in Pitt Meadows in a duplicate rental. There we stayed until the house in Ruskin was built in 1975. Every weekend Dad would drive Old George out to the “stump farm” to clear the land. One Saturday not long after we got back, he had an accident. The brakes finally gave out on George and he crashed though a sign in a parking lot. Luckily, no one was hurt. So that’s when GMC George became Chevy George. George ended up with a Chevy hood, grill, fenders etc.
Funny fact: Both my brother Daryl and I learned to drive on Old George! Later our dad traded old George for my 1965 Chrysler Valiant.
