The Goddess Serendipity plays a quiet, but effective game.
When Mom and Dad married in 1949 they settled into a tiny home at 230 Parkhill Street in Kirkfield Park, about 13 kilometres west of Portage and Main. A few years later, in 1952, they were helping Uncle Edmund (Mom's oldest brother) and Aunt Phyllis move in Charleswood. To get there they needed to cross to the south side of the Assiniboine River. The Perimeter Highway did not yet exist, and the closest bridges were at Headingley (7 km west of St. Charles) or at St. James, near Polo Park. Thus, Mom and Dad drove down St. Charles Street to use the ferry. The parish of St. Charles was established in 1855, when the Hudson Bay Company granted land to the Catholic Church for a
mission. The spot was strategically between St. Boniface and St. Francois-Xavier, and in this area the Assiniboine River's banks were high. (The disastrous Red River flood of 1826 was not soon forgotten.) Originally, a small log chapel was built on the riverbank, followed by a frame church in 1866. Graves in the cemetery date back to 1868. A rectory and school followed, further defining this French enclave.
St. Charles Church built in 1866
St. Charles Catholic Church (built in 1905) with ferry in foreground, 1922
The much more ornate Gothic church built in 1905 was destroyed by fire on New Year's Eve, 1928. Rumor has it that the basement was full of coal, and an argument over whose jurisdiction it was delayed firefighting efforts. The church was a total loss, and the coal continued to burn for days and days. A more modest church was rebuilt in its place, which was doubled in size in 1988.
The current St. Charles Catholic Church (photo: J. Arnott)
Just west of the church, on the riverbank, was the St. Charles Novitiate, built in 1897. Alas, once it was no longer occupied, it soon fell into severe disrepair and was torn down in the 1980s.
The St. Charles Novitiate, shown here in 1979 (photo: MB Archives)
The ferry with St. Charles Academy on the north bank. Classes first began there in 1906 with 41 students.
The original site of the ferry was actually further east. Around 1865, a river road was cut through the dense woodland along the south bank of the Assiniboine River. A ferry was established at The Passage in 1870, linking Berkley Street in Charleswood with Rouge Road. Due to shallow water, the ferry was moved upstream in 1908, connecting Xavier Road on the south bank to St. Charles Street on the north. This ferry remained in use until the Perimeter Highway and bridge were built in 1959. It was because they were using the St. Charles Street ferry that Mom and Dad happened upon this fixer-upper:
First look at 86 St. Charles Street, 1952
Built in 1915 for the LaFleche family, early pioneer farmers in the parish, the house was already feeling its age by 1952. It sat on the northern edge of its one acre, and the land with it included five separate lots. Its address was later changed from 86 to 400 St. Charles Street, when postal services were improved.
Main floor
The main floor had some unique design features. The pantry off the kitchen provided access to the living/dining room. Pocket doors opened that space into the den, handy for very large gatherings. The kitchen had windows in all four directions. It was said that the tiny window near the kitchen sink allowed Mrs. LaFleche to keep an eye on traffic down the street. This kitchen and the sunroom above it were lined in brick, a fire prevention strategy, no doubt.
2nd Floor
The second floor featured a large centre hall. Because it was ringed by doors, the space was nice, but not especially useful. The bathroom was enlarged by moving the tub back, into the closet space of the SE bedroom. A replacement closet was built inside the bedroom. The floor also had an unheated solarium above the kitchen. This sunroom was originally open to the elements, with brick "exterior" walls on its north and east sides. When the room was later glazed in, it remained unheated, with its tar paper floor and drain to the eavestroughs (a peril for wayward hamsters, as we were to discover). The hamster was rescued within a few days via a kitchen soffit, but Frasers never did find a proper use for the room, beyond ripening tomatoes. St. Charles was still very rural back in 1952. Perhaps that was part of its appeal. The house had a cistern in the basement, a coal-fired furnace, and was connected to a rudimentary sewer that ran down the street to the river. A 14-by-20-foot stable was included near the southwest corner of the property.The house and yard needed work, but had lots of potential. But Mom and Dad were undaunted. Maybe Dad was reminded of the great old Ontario brick homes, like that of his Uncle Stan. Perhaps it was the small-town setting and space for kids that appealed to Mom. In any case, they were both intrigued enough to take a good look.
P.M. likely refers to Pilot Mound. Mom had been a good saver and was actually earning more than Dad when they married.
That porch always seemed to need paint!
Mom, having worked at Dale and Company Insurance, added Interest + Insurance to Dad's notes.
"Concrete crib well" was a cistern in the basement.
The foundation and faulty beam placement were to plague Dad's peace of mind in subsequent years. But the opportunity was unique, and Mom and Dad were up for the challenge. They even arranged to swap their little bungalow for this much larger home!
$100.00 deposit on the purchase of 86 St. Charles Street
230 Parkhill was valued at $3000 compared to $5000 for 86 St. Charles Street.
86 St. Charles was sold by Mr. Railton, but Pierre Menard held a mortgage on the property.
Two real estate transactions for $94.75. Not bad.
Because the mortgage-holder, Mr. Pierre Menard, could not be located, the lawyers had a little extra work to do to legally secure title of the property for Mom and Dad. Although not a fan of lawyers generally, Dad always said that White & Newman did a terrific job with all of this.
As an aside, Dad's Uncle Gordon told a story from his harness racing days in the U.S. He once came across a fellow from Manitoba who bragged to him about his big house in St. Charles. "That sounds just like my nephew's house," the surprised Gordon replied. It seems the man was indeed talking about 86 St. Charles Street. Could this possibly have been the mysterious Mr. Menard, who thought he still held the mortgage?
I recognize this writing. Mom calculated the mortgage payments.
In due course, the mortgage was paid, a great relief to "pay-as-you-go" Murray and Hazel Fraser.
The purchase was a wise one, and Frasers enjoyed 400 St. Charles Street for almost three decades, until it was sold in July, 1981. Dad (who could do anything) went to work improving and maintaining the property. New sidewalks, fencing and a driveway were added, a 20-by-24-ft garage was built, and the house was re-wired, re-floored, re-plumbed, re-roofed... indeed, Dad was the owner that house needed.
The house in 1953
The photo above features the 1948 Ford, plugged in through the kitchen window. Dad had by this time moved the back porch steps from the west to the south side, to better protect the back door from the weather. There was nothing to temper westerly winds.
Mom makes her way north with two kids on a bright winter day.
By the summer of 1958, there were five Fraser kids enjoying the large yard.
Above: Mom's large gardens helped feed the Fraser brood. Beyond the trees on the east side of St. Charles Street is the Glendale Golf & Country Club, which helped contain St. Charles as a distinct neighbourhood.
Summer of 1958
Above: view to the south end of the property, showing Montagnons' and Collins' houses at left. St. Charles Church marks the riverbank. Behind the swing set and trees is a familiar-looking house at the end of the block. It appears to have been built by the same contractors who built 400 St. Charles Street. Some records say it was also built the same year, but I recall hearing that it was built three years earlier, in 1912. It was called "The Nazareth" and used as a residence for some of the Oblate nuns of St. Charles Academy.
362 St. Charles Street
This home, kitty-corner from St. Charles Academy, differed from 400 St. Charles Street in a few important ways. Its foundation was of stone rather than concrete, the brick was all one colour, and its rooms were small, befitting the dormitory it once was. It lacked the big intersecting kitchen and back porch that was such a feature at Frasers'. While it did not have a sunroom, it did boast a second-floor balcony that we envied.
400 St. Charles Street - still a landmark in the neighbourhood
According to wikipedia, kaizen is Japanese for "improvement" or "change for the better" (kai = correct or change; zen = good). It is a manufacturing/production approach that is also a broader philosophy. One of its tenets is to find the root cause of mistakes and correct them. With its emphasis on process, Kaizen seeks to improve systems, reduce errors, and increase customer satisfaction. It promotes efficiency and productivity by streamlining processes and reducing waste. This philosophy is intended to create a corporate culture in which employees at any level are respected and encouraged to offer suggestions for improvement.
Toyota has set the current standard. The company has incorporated the Kaizen philosophy into its renowned Toyota Production System. TPS identifies seven types of waste:
Waste of over production (largest waste)
Waste of time on hand (waiting)
Waste of transportation
Waste of processing itself
Waste of stock at hand
Waste of movement
Waste of making defective products
Kaizen and TPS principles are highly regarded manufacturing practices. You may know these ideas by more American terms, like Total Quality Management. These days, "Lean manufacturing" is all the rage, akin to Kaizen in that it seeks to avoid waste while boosting efficiency and providing value and quality to the customer. Just-in-Time manufacturing, as the name suggests, streamlines production while minimizing the expense of overstocked inventories.
Jargon aside, the Lean approach to manufacturing can be applied to other fields, too, because it promotes smart, practical and efficient ways of doing things. It simply makes good sense. This video describes the four major Lean principles:
With his orderly and intelligent approach to everything he did, Dad would have embraced these smart, common-sense principles, regardless of how you packaged and labelled them. He always looked for the best way to do things. Because he came up from the shop floor, Dad could identify and understand how to streamline operations almost instinctively. He was highly regarded for what Bristol president Murray Auld termed "his inventive and positive approach to tooling and production problems."
The blueprint I have mounted over my couch is testament to this. This full-scale engineering drawing is over 6 feet long by 3 feet high. It took Dad about a week to draft it, in 1967. It details his invention of a machine to drill holes in a component for the General Electric J85 jet engine. The J85 was an important, lucrative and long-term contract for Bristol.
Remember, back then Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machines were a long way off, and precision and accuracy were largely a function of the skilled machinists, not guaranteed by computer programs and automated equipment.
Consider the precision and tight tolerances required by a jet engine. The "Murray Fraser Automatic Index" (as he called it) proved its worth in many ways. It simplified and standardized machining, resulting in less waste, more precision, yet much faster production. Dad's hand-written note on the margin of the blueprint claims it reduced machining time from 21 minutes to 12 minutes per part. In manufacturing, that is a substantial time savings. No wonder Dad saved this blueprint as a keepsake. It was a proud achievement. And his inventiveness is the essence of Kaizen philosophy.
The Murray Fraser Automatic Index - engineering drawing
Detail from blueprint
Another accepted factory or shop practice is the implementation of the 5S system. This is a more basic and simple set of rules that can be applied in all sorts of environments:
SORT: remove all unnecessary items
SET IN ORDER: everything needs visual location indicators
SCRUB: clean and inspect for problems with furniture/equipment
STANDARDIZE: post visual standards and checklists in area
SUSTAIN: Make workplace organization a regular activity.
Some add a sixth S, for Safety. The 5S system can be applied in any environment.
These workplace habits sound very familiar to those of us who were taught "a place for everything, and everything in its place." Mom had worked for a blind woman as a teen, and taught us to "tidy as you go." Heaven help you if you walked off with her scissors and did not return them to the top drawer of her sewing cabinet. And Dad? Well, Dad was Dad. One need only recall his machinist's toolbox or watch him scrape his plate clean and set his cutlery across it at precisely 45 degrees when done, to understand how neat and orderly he was.
Dad might never have heard the term Kaizen but he certainly was a practitioner. Below are recommendations he submitted to Lloyd Scales in 1954 intended to improve workflow and conditions in Bristol's Tool Build Department.
MF/hf - Dad was fortunate to have a wife with excellent editing and typing skills
Dad was a smart manager, and knew that if you want changes made, you are wise to identify issues objectively and outline the solutions you want. Complaints alone just make superiors groan. They are not always qualified to solve problems.
Listen to Employee #2795. He knows what he's talking about.
Another set of recommendations exist in Dad's handwriting. Because they are undated and not typed, perhaps these pages are only draft notes.
"Morale -- human dignity, pride of workmanship, enthusiasm, and team spirit -- are not fostered by cracking the whip."
Dad expected management to provide the right tools and resources needed for good workers to strut their stuff and do their jobs to the best of their ability. He believed that, given the right conditions, workers would step up. Dad was not a tough task master, and the Golden Rule was his guide. Like Mom, he was fair-minded and a born teacher who respected others. He earned their respect and loyalty in return.
It seems Lloyd Scales listened to Dad's recommendations, and accepted them in the helpful spirit in which they were intended. Below is a copy of Mr. Scales' own correspondence of June 11, 1958 to an unnamed superior, promoting many of Dad's wise suggestions.
Kaizen!
Now, go clean your room, or as Mom would say, "consolidate things."
There's no doubt about it, the spitfire is a war hero in itself, a formidable defender in the Battle of Britain that was the favourite of RAF aces like Douglas Bader. The mighty spitfire became a symbol of British spirit and doggedness. It is the stuff of legend. The first spitfire flew on March 5, 1936, and it was used in secondary roles into the 1950s. Over 20,000 were built, more than any other British aircraft. Sadly, its designer, R. J. Mitchell, died in 1937 and did not live to see how important his design was to be. The elliptical wing of the spitfire allowed it greater speed than the Hawker Hurricane, and it was known for its maneuverability and responsiveness. Several variations of the spitfire were built, powered initially by Merlin and later Griffon engines, both from Rolls-Royce. The fighter continues to be immortalized in artwork of all sorts. According to Wikipedia, trench art is "any decorative item made by soldiers, prisoners of war, or civilians, where the manufacture is directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences." It seems a crude term, especially for pieces made by fine aircraft machinists like Murray Fraser. The "sweetheart brooch," a sub-category of trench art, was worn by wives, girlfriends, and also mothers and sisters, etc. to show that they had a family member serving in the forces. Dad made a sweetheart brooch for Hazel Stevens.
Cpl. Murray Fraser made this spitfire pin for his sweetheart, Hazel Stevens.
L-R: top and bottom of the spitfire pin.
Dad machined Mom's pin from a half-crown, which until 1946 had a silver content of 50%. At 1.25" in diameter, the coin is larger than our 1" loonie and twice as heavy at 14.1 grams. The half-crown was equivalent to two and a half shillings (30 pennies), or one-eighth of a pound. They were minted until 1970 when decimalization came into effect.
A 1945 half-crown
Dad once said that he made another spitfire pin out of a copper penny, but none of us has ever seen it. Copper would have been softer and easier to work with. Perhaps it is lost, or went to his mom or sister. (Molly Neil doesn't mention such a gift in the few letters we have from her.) And, lest you think that Dad was original in designing this pin from a coin, I hesitate to tell you that this seems to have been a common practice in the RAF. I have come across similar spitfire sweetheart brooches online, especially the UK eBay site. Here are a few examples:
Spitfire earrings (top) and brooch, made from New Zealand three-pence coins.
The two illustrations above are from http://www.spitfiretrenchart.co.nz. Those wings seem to be out of proportion, and saw marks are clearly visible, but it's interesting that these are in current production. The fellow who creates and sells these explains that:
My late grandfather James Fisher taught me how to shape a 3d or three-pence
coin into the shape of a spitfire fighter aircraft. Jim, then a 15-year old in
war-torn England, fashioned these brooches from English three-pence coins during
tea breaks from making real spitfires for the RAF in a factory near his home in
Swindon. He used the three-pence coin because of its high silver content,
while I use New Zealand three-pence coins for the same reason. My grandfather
met my grandmother in the spitfire factory, where she too was employed during
World War II.
Another example found on the UK eBay website, is an authentic wartime piece of trench art made from a penny. At the time of writing, it is listed at £10.
Another copper version, still not as nice as Dad's and half the price of the one above, was also found on eBay UK:
Another vintage sweetheart pin from eBay UK
Here's an example of an Australian "penny spitfire". That's a mighty large tail:
An Australian "penny spitfire"
These show up regularly on antiques websites, too. Add these to our squadron:
Hmm, not copper. Might this be another half-crown version?
Odd proportions, but the first I've seen with a propeller. (c) cjbalm.com
One website illustrates how to create these. Steve, a British machinist, noted that he hadn't made one of these in forty years, but wanted to show how it's done.
Step 1. Get yourself a pre-decimalization, large penny.
Step 2: Beat it with a hammer to flatten it.
Step 3: No need for fancy annealing, just hold in an old
pair of pointed pliers, or stand it on three small nails banged into a scrap of
wood. Heat until red and drop straight into cold water.
Step 4: Fold it in half, right through the date. The line represents the fuselage.
Step 5: Hammer out the sides, so you have material to form the wings.
Step 6: Starting to shape up. Cut out the gap between the front and
rear wings to allow the fuselage to grow longer when you hammer the shape into
the top. You have to do this so that there is metal present all the way along,
or you will break through when it is filed.
Step 7: Starting to look like a spitfire now.
Step 8: Protecting the back end, give the front a wallop to shape the cockpit and engine canopy. Do the same behind the cockpit and in front of the tail.
Step 9: Put the thing in a vice sideways, and with a
punch, elongate the tail up, turn it over and repeat from the other side. This will
also stretch it out rearwards, so put the fuselage back in the vice upside down
with just the edge of the tail poking out and knock that back where it was.
Step 10: It needs more work, but note that it's now bigger than a penny.
Step 11: "It was one of those things we all did. I won't
bother finishing this, as I don't have a sweetheart, just to show how it's done.
It took an hour to do this."
Now, if you're getting nostalgic for spitfires, check out the real thing below. If you have more time, learn more in BBC documentary on YouTube.
If it's your dream to go up in a spitfire, contact Tiger Airways. Of about 50 spitfires still currently flying world-wide, they have one one of the five remaining two-seaters (Mark 9s). Three are in the UK and two in the USA.
2-seater Spitfire Mark 9
The owner of the spitfire in Aspen, Colorado, offers 45-minute rides for about $2500. Tiger Airways notes that "this spitfire has dual controls, so it will be possible to actually try
your hand at flying the aeroplane. It is also possible for some aerobatic
manoeuvres to be carried out on the flight." Although you won't have Messerschmitt Bf109s shooting at you, try not to hit the ground and wind up like Douglas Bader, okay? If you'd prefer to just stay on the ground, consider one of these, the Motomobile UCI Mark III Spitfire by Martin
Aubé, an enclosed 3-wheeled concept vehicle inspired by the fighter. The Motomobile website claims the design is a tribute "to a generation of brave young men and women who saved democracy ..." The vehicle has "a WWII Spitfire attitude, including, glass canopy, camo paint and invasion
stripes. The engine is electric, but the wheels got good old white walls tires and cops hub caps."
The side view with "Invasion stripes" and camo paint.
