I agree; fascinating! It seems Montreal went from 19th century shtetl to streamlined city in a matter of years. It’s always sad when physical and community history are stomped out in the name of progress. I love the old photos!
Fascinating! Quick story to give you hope that kids are still curious about their ancestors: About a decade ago, a friend and her granddaughter are with me visiting a mutual adult friend. We expect the teenage granddaughter to be bored with our talk, so we invite her to take the family dog and go for a walk on the beach. "Oh, no," she says, "I'm staying here. I'm learning more about my father than he's ever told me."
I am torn. I love visiting historic homes and admiring the architecture (even that of a log cabin), but having grown up in a 110-year-old house, I don't blame people for tearing them down.
We always wore shoes because you'd get splinters from the floor. There was no shower, only a deep claw-foot tub with a tiny spigot you couldn't fit a shower attachment on. If you wanted to make toast or blow-dry your hair, you needed to let everyone know because the electric wires couldn't handle much and pretty much everything else had to be turned off. The pipes were too narrow for a dishwasher. And one winter, I couldn't take the cold any more and I taped trash bags to my window and watched them breath in and out the whole season.
Yes, these neighborhoods were torn down for a reason - much of the housing was unlivable. A lot of the old homes had degraded past the point of repair. The photos I saw in the archive collection showed some people living in unimaginable squalor. I could not imagine making it through a Montreal winter in some of them. A lot of Little Burgundy was replaced with public housing. I just wish the city had been more thoughtful about it, and not torn it all down, or scattered the people who lived in the neighborhood. I feel your pain about living in an old house. My own home is 140 years old and no matter how much I scrub, it just never looks clean.
I agree; fascinating! It seems Montreal went from 19th century shtetl to streamlined city in a matter of years. It’s always sad when physical and community history are stomped out in the name of progress. I love the old photos!
An interesting slant to seeing this lost community; through the eyes of your father as a young doctor making house calls.
Fascinating! Quick story to give you hope that kids are still curious about their ancestors: About a decade ago, a friend and her granddaughter are with me visiting a mutual adult friend. We expect the teenage granddaughter to be bored with our talk, so we invite her to take the family dog and go for a walk on the beach. "Oh, no," she says, "I'm staying here. I'm learning more about my father than he's ever told me."
I am torn. I love visiting historic homes and admiring the architecture (even that of a log cabin), but having grown up in a 110-year-old house, I don't blame people for tearing them down.
We always wore shoes because you'd get splinters from the floor. There was no shower, only a deep claw-foot tub with a tiny spigot you couldn't fit a shower attachment on. If you wanted to make toast or blow-dry your hair, you needed to let everyone know because the electric wires couldn't handle much and pretty much everything else had to be turned off. The pipes were too narrow for a dishwasher. And one winter, I couldn't take the cold any more and I taped trash bags to my window and watched them breath in and out the whole season.
Yes, these neighborhoods were torn down for a reason - much of the housing was unlivable. A lot of the old homes had degraded past the point of repair. The photos I saw in the archive collection showed some people living in unimaginable squalor. I could not imagine making it through a Montreal winter in some of them. A lot of Little Burgundy was replaced with public housing. I just wish the city had been more thoughtful about it, and not torn it all down, or scattered the people who lived in the neighborhood. I feel your pain about living in an old house. My own home is 140 years old and no matter how much I scrub, it just never looks clean.