There goes the neighbourhood

Almost.

Imagine picking up the paper and discovering a plan to wipe out half your street. According to the front-page Winnipeg Free Press story of March 1, 1972, the scheme to redevelop Glendale Country Club was no mere proposal; construction was scheduled to start that November. The only outstanding stipulation was an application to have the lands rezoned.

You heard it here first. Winnipeg Free Press, Wednesday, March 1, 1972
  

What was especially alarming to the neighbours was that the development would swallow the houses (and back lane) on the east side of St. Charles Street. While we felt relief in being on the west side, no-one relished the thought of this enormous development happening.

St. Charles, an old French parish, was an enclave that had a small-town atmosphere, contained as it was by Portage Avenue, the Perimeter Highway, the Assiniboine River, and Glendale Country Club. This was our territory as children, and we ran carefree and loose in our range.

Glendale Country Club shareholders had approved the idea, and were quite prepared to relocate west of the Perimeter Highway. According to Glendale 50th Anniversary Yearbook, many members felt that selling this lucrative piece of property would allow them to build a newer, larger golf course elsewhere that would provide many other amenities that the current golf course needed. A call for tenders was sent out and the highest offer was from the St. Maurice Capital Corporation of Montreal.

This 1961 map identifies the Glendale Golf Course property. Whittier Street is now Bedson Street. Note the two Ferry Roads. The one south of the Assiniboine River identifies where the St. Charles Street ferry crossed. A housing development wiped that out. Other street names have since changed, too.
[Source: https://www.newpghs.com/historical-maps]
   

Porteous Street was west of present-day Bedson Street in Westwood. The name Porteous Street no longer exits; it was redeveloped into residential bays like Twain and Dickens.
   

Newspaper illustration (top) and architects' rendering (bottom). 
   

According to the rendering, highrise apartments and other housing would be part of the development. It is hard to conceptualize. Locate the river, Perimeter Hwy. and St. Charles Catholic Church to get your bearings. The church appears to be misplaced, several streets are shown between St. Charles Street and the Perimeter Highway, and Buchanan Blvd. and Stewart Street south of Portage Avenue appear to have been swallowed whole by a department store.

In anticipation, Glendale took an option on about 300 acres 8 miles west of Glendale, on the Assiniboine River, near St. Francois Xavier. But on March 31, 1973 St. Maurice Capital dropped their option. The Club then dropped its option on the St. Francois Xavier property, forfeiting $25,000.

Glendale tried the idea once more and purchased a parcel of land on the Assiniboine River east of Headingley adjacent to the land they'd considered previously. The 310 acres of land cost $330,000. High financing costs discouraged members, who also preferred the closer St. Charles location, and the idea fizzled. The land was sold for $400,000, but interest and other charges wiped out any profit and left a debt of $90,000. By 1984 the Club owed the bank $700,000 and was losing members. Their solution in May 1987 was to sell 13 acres that fronted Portage Avenue, for $4 million. The course was re-designed and the funds allowed renovations to the Clubhouse.

Glendale Country Club as it remains today. Originally it extended to Portage Avenue.

The initial idea of a huge retail and housing development in St. Charles was not so far-fetched. After the Glendale sale of 1972 fell through, Unicity Mall was built directly north of Portage Avenue, across from the golf course. Much of that property was empty pasture, but it did require expropriation of the east side of Knox Street and the west side of David Street. The mall opened in 1975 and was only the third enclosed shopping centre in the city (after Polo Park and Grant Park). It was followed in short order by the St. Vital Mall, a much more successful enterprise serving the growing population in the southeast end of the city.

Unicity Shopping Centre site today, a collection of big box stores that replaced the enclosed mall.
   

In 1975 Unicity was a much-heralded new mall, boasting a radial plan that made travel between its anchor stores (The Bay, Woolco and Dominion) quick. Alas, when Wal-Mart swallowed up the Woolco stores it deemed them too small, and today the property is a boring, ugly big box store destination centre, rather than a true mall.

Unicity Mall, c. 1999. Wal-Mart had replaced Woolco, but was not content with the small size of the store.
   

Some planners anticipate a move back to the enclosed mall concept, where you can shop without needing a car to travel between stores. (That idea strikes me as so, well, American.) The mall idea makes much more sense to an aging population in Winnipeg's climate.

Westwood Village Shopping Center on the south side of Portage Avenue and a few km east of Glendale: Safeway and Zellers connected by a strip mall.
   

The Frasers with Grandma Stevens at Polo Park, when it was only one-storey and had an open roof. Keep your mitts on, kids.

A tale of two gauges

Dad's surface gauge, top, contrasts with his much older carpenter's gauge.

While showing me his machinist's toolbox in his basement one day, Dad pulled out a surface gauge. I was very intrigued with its sculptural qualities and beautiful machining, and was astounded when Dad explained that he had made it himself.

"You want it?" he asked, nonchalantly.

"Sure!" I gasped.

It was a treasure I set aside when we donated the toolbox and its other contents to the Western Canada Aviation Museum. Sorry, but it's mine. 

Dad couldn't recall just when he had made the gauge, sadly, so we don't know whether it was a student project in Winnipeg, or made while studying tool making in Trenton with the RCAF. Perhaps he made it overseas in 1945, after peace was declared and he was waiting to return home.

I couldn't help but compare it to the carpenter's gauge in Dad's woodworker's toolbox. The wooden gauge had been his father's, and may well have belonged to Pete's own father or grandfather before him. Dad certainly used it himself, and considered it a handy tool, rather than the piece of history I consider it to be.

It is interesting to compare the two gauges as metaphors for Dad and his father. The tools represent the progression from straightforward wooden construction of an earlier time, to the advanced aeronautical engineering Dad mastered.

His surface gauge, from its knurled knobs to the sphere decoration at the top, exemplifies Dad's impeccable precision and skill as a tool-maker.

It's easy to understand the carpenter's gauge, less so the surface gauge, so here's a brief lesson from one of Dad's own textbooks, Tool Making, by C. B. Cole.

According to the textbook (American, thus "gage"):

Universal Surface Gages. The surface gage is a handy tool in laying out jigs, fixtures, and other tools. It is also used extensively in setting up jobs on shapers, planers, and milling machines. The surface gage used in conjunction with a dial or pointer indicator has become almost indispensable to the average tool or gage maker.

Various applications of a surface gauge (courtesy L.S. Starrett Company)

In using the surface gage to lay out work for the planer or shaper, a combination square is often used. In this case the scriber on the surface is set to the height desired by means of the scale on the combination square. The height is then transferred to the work to be machined by using the surface gage scriber to mark a line. This is done by placing the work on the surface plate and moving the surface gage to the distance required to be marked.

Left: surface gage used in conjunction with combination square.
Right: Surface gage used to lay out a jig (courtesy Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co.)

The surface gauge is still an indispensable tool in a machinist's collection. These days they are also used for stop-action animation. Their fine-tuning allows precise control, either way.

Fine and precise, just like Dad.

The heart of a poet

Dad had the brain of an engineer, but the heart of a poet. His library included books on tool-making and mechanical engineering, alongside volumes of poetry. The poetry books were often the most worn.

Among Dad's papers are folders entitled "Good Stuff" that contain poems, scribbles of jokes, clipped articles, quotations, wise words, and more -- much like the scrapbooks and journals the Fraser women before him kept. Likewise, Dad kept a variety of small notebooks.

Dad committed several short verses to memory, and recited a select number of these even more frequently in old age. We knew to nod and allow him his chuckle, even though we heard these repeatedly.

Complain about someone at work, and Dad was sure to reply, "Non illigitimi carborundum," mock Latin meaning "Don't let the bastards grind you down." There are several versions of this. One theory states it originated in World War II by British army intelligence. Perhaps Dad picked it up in the RCAF.

Conversely, if he was having a great time (often enjoying a meal out), Dad would say, "I wonder what the poor people are doing." This is a quote from a fellow at Bristol Aerospace, and it always tickled Dad to say it, usually while flourishing a spoonful of ice cream. We were flattered to hear it because it meant Dad was thoroughly enjoying himself.

You could not pass a fireplace without Dad reciting an excerpt from William Wordsworth's "Personal Talk":

To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

"In the loved presence of my cottage-fire..."

In recent years, Virginia took Dad to visit Edmund in Kingston a few times, and they stayed at the Hochelaga Inn, a cozy historic inn that boasted a double-sided fireplace. I suspect the proprietor heard this recitation, oh, about one thousand times. (Ironically, Dad didn't covet a fireplace of his own - he knew the dirty work they require.)

An oft-quoted verse was by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950):

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

I am certain this has long been a favorite passage of Dad's. In a tiny notebook from 1945, there is a simple sketch among pages of grocery lists, addresses, travel notes, and assorted reminders. The drawing is obvious if you know this quotation. The engineer and poet converge.

My candle burns at both ends...

Divided by 2a

That’s as much as I can remember of the quadratic equation. Dad, on the other hand, often recited the formula as though it was yet another sonnet in his memorized repertoire.

Dad often quipped that “Frasers can do mathematics through a brick wall.” He was, in fact, quoting Dr. John Duncan Campbell. J.D.’s flattering assessment would be valid. This esteemed educator and superintendent obviously crossed paths with the Ontario Frasers, by proximity and by profession. The small township of Turnberry (30,000 acres) in Huron County was both Dr. Campbell’s birthplace (according to one source), and the location of the Fraser farm on the Maitland River.

In the old scrapbook from Grandma Fraser’s trunk, there is an obituary (c. 1950) for Dr. J. D. Campbell. To have saved this is evidence that admiration ran both ways.

J. D. Campbell's obituary, circa 1950

Further online searching yields little else about such an accomplished man. A publication entitled “Report of the Minister of Education Province of Ontario for the Year 1945” notes his retirement after an impressive career in education:

Dr. J. D. Campbell, B.A., was born in the Township of Turnberry and received his elementary education in the rural school in S.S. No. 9 Turnberry. He obtained his secondary education in Seaforth Collegiate Institute and Harriston High School. He attended the School of Pedagogy in 1895 and began teaching in U.S.S. No. 12 Culross, where he remained for four and one-half years, resigning his position to become principal of Highgate Continuation School. After three years he attended the University of Toronto and graduated with First Class Honours in Mathematics and Physics in 1908. He was appointed to the staff of Chesley High School in September, 1908, and obtained the principalship in 1909, which he held until 1913 when he was appointed Master in Mathematics in the Stratford Normal School. Dr. Campbell later served with distinction as a Master at the Ottawa and Toronto Normal Schools. Under his skillful and steady guidance thousands of student-teachers learned a great deal of the more excellent way of teaching. In 1928 Dr. Campbell was appointed to the Technical staff of Inspectors in the Department of Education, and one year later was appointed Assistant Chief Inspector of Public and Separate Schools. In 1944 he became Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education, a position which he held until his retirement on August 31st, 1945. Dr. Campbell obtained his degree as Doctor of Pedagogy from the University of Toronto in 1943. His thesis regarding Arithmetic in the Ontario elementary schools is a splendid contribution, and is indicative of the type of work done by Dr. Campbell. The educational system of the province has benefited greatly from the services of Dr. Campbell, and his sound scholarship and good judgment have won him the respect of all who have been associated with him.

We can’t be sure of which Fraser(s) Dr. Campbell was referring to (or which township Dr. Campbell was actually born in), but we know that Dad perpetuated the ability to see mathematics through a brick wall, starting at an early age. Proud mom Annie (Reid) Fraser kept a few of his early workbooks, along with high school tests and years of report cards. Dad was consistently at the head of the class across the board. [Likewise, Mom was a precocious student, and I will grant her extra credit for being a number of years younger than her classmates!]

Arithmetic test, 1926

Grade 1 report card, 1927

Grade 2 report card, 1927-28. Note the perfect marks in Story Telling and Memorizing. Indeed!

Grade 7 report card, 1932-33

Grade 8 report card, 1933-34



Grade 10 Dept. of Education marks, July 1936

Geometry test, Easter 1937