THE NOTMAN HOUSE AND GARDEN TOUR $10 Quebec VOL 10, NO. 2 S PRING 2016 HeritageNews Wisdom from Two Goldblooms Victor on Navigation, Michael on Bishop’s Internment to Injury Italian Families Cope with Wartime Challenges Elga’s Unpompous Circumstances An Elderly Lady and Her Gentleman Caller QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS Quebec CONTENTS eritageNews H Editor’s Desk 3 My Jewish Education Rod MacLeod EDITOR RODERICK MACLEOD PRODUCTION QAHN News 5 DAN PINESE; MATTHEW FARFAN Matthew Farfan Mystery Object 7 PUBLISHER QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE The Notman House and Garden 8 HERITAGE NETWORK Heritage partly protected Sandra Stock 400-257 QUEEN STREET SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC J1M 1K7 Overlooked Quebec Churches 10 Good news for the Trinity Church site in Iberville Sandra Stock PHONE 1-877-964-0409 (819) 564-9595 Curator’s Handbook 11 FAX Stay on top of things: keeping heritage buildings well maintained Heather Darch (819) 564-6872 CORRESPONDENCE Ships that pass in the night 13 [email protected] Victor Goldbloom WEBSITES QAHN.ORG “Unpopulated Countryside” 14 QUEBECHERITAGEWEB.COM Joseph Graham 100OBJECTS.QAHN.ORG River Valley Rendezvous 16 PRESIDENT Theatre Wakefield brings local history to the people Peter MacGibbon SIMON JACOBS Higher Learning 18 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & WEBMAGAZINES EDITOR Bishop’s University: small but agile Tim Favot MATTHEW FARFAN “What my mother went through!” 22 OFFICE MANAGER Montreal women and the internment of Italian Canadians Licia Canton KATHY TEASDALE Classic Montreal: Revisiting Anglo Institutions 24 Quebec Heritage News is published CJAD: an interview with Chris Bury Flora Juma quarterly by QAHN with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage. QAHN is a non-profit and non-partisan Walking Black Montreal 26 organization whose mission is to help Rockhead’s Paradise Ashlie Bienvenu advance knowledge of the history and culture of the English-speaking communities of Quebec. The Gentleman 27 Andrew Caddell Annual Subscription Rates: Individual: $30.00; Institutional: $40.00; Family: $40.00; Student: $20.00. Review: Three Brief Books 30 Multiple-year subscriptions available. The Miracle, Railway Terminals, and Percy Nobbs Sandra Stock Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement Number 405610004. ISSN 17707-2670 Cover photo: Notman House in Winter with its garden and red brick Annex. PRINTED IN CANADA Photo: Eva Blue for Notman House. 2 SPRING 2016 EDITOR’S DESK My Jewish Education by Rod MacLeod any of you will remember chief; when I first saw Barbra Streisand nebulous, involving a certain emphasis the old PSBGM calendars, in Funny Girl and What’s Up Doc, she on New Testamenty virtues but never with their rows of big stark was Miss Gertel. Miss Richter was cast much in the way of analysis. And the bold numbers filling each from the same mold, but she treated us hymns: ask any Jewish Montrealer over Mpage so that it was easy to tell what day 11- and 12-year olds with such respect the age of 55 who attended a PSBGM it was even from the back of the class- and encouragement we almost forgot she school what the words to “Jesus Loves room. When it came to the end of the was a teacher. Even when one of the Me” are, and you will get a full rendi- month, one lucky student got the privi- louder boys would cross the line and she tion. As products of this system, my lege of ripping off the top sheet to ex- would send him to the office with a flick Jewish teachers would have known these pose the next set of dates. The weekday of her thumb, it barely felt like disci- cultural ropes. I’m also pretty sure that, numbers were black; Saturday and Sun- pline. for these young women, taking Jewish day and any holiday were red. Two full holidays off was as much about vindi- weeks in December/January were also cating a hard-won privilege as it was (gloriously) red, as was (even more glo- about religious observance. riously) the last week of June and the Earlier generations of Protestant whole of both July and August. Not that students would have been much more we ever actually saw those summer conscious than we were of cultural dif- pages, of course, unless we thumbed ference in the classroom – although I’m ahead in anticipation – or to check also pretty sure that You’ve Got to be which day of the week September 1st Carefully Taught to hate and fear, as the would be; if a Monday, we’d go back to song says. But I went to school at the school the following day, but if it were a height of the Quiet Revolution, when Tuesday, we’d have an extra week, since much of the confessional character of school always began the first Tuesday public education was being, if not elimi- after Labour Day, which was the first nated, clearly undermined. I got no reli- Monday of September. gion at all in school. I have only two Easter was always red, of course. memories that count as even remotely But there were other mysterious days Looking back half a century or so at religious. One, that I was cast as a rein- that were clearly black on the calendar our relationship with these teachers, I deer in the manger scene (sic!) for the and yet certain teachers took them off marvel at how simple and straightfor- Grade One Christmas pageant – the only with impunity. Not Mrs. Bradshaw ward it seemed at the time – especially occasion such an event occurred during (Grade One), nor Mrs. McRae (Grade given what I now know of the long row my time, and I missed the whole thing Five), but definitely Miss Long (Grade hoed by Jewish teachers to find sure em- (didn’t even have to buy the brown Two), Miss Gertel (Grade Three), Miss ployment within a system that, while turtleneck required for the costume) by London (Grade Four), and the divine willing enough to teach Jewish students, being in the hospital. Two, when Mrs. Miss Richter (Grade Six). These days, was most reluctant to have Protestant McRae announced that some outside we learned, were “Jewish Holidays,” al- children taught by Jews. That Easter was agency had provided a bunch of pocket- though it was never explained why cer- red on the calendar but Yom Kippur (for sized New Testaments for students to tain teachers took them. If those teachers example) was black had enormous sig- take if they wished (I did, upon learning had one obvious thing in common for nificance, given the decades-old struggle they were free, good Scot that I was). us, it was that they were young. Mrs. by the Jewish community to have their The times, as we all knew, were a’ Bradshaw, though hardly ancient, was holidays recognized within the public changin. Forget “Jesus Loves Me” – mu- rather matronly, and Mrs. McRae was a school system. For decades, Protestant sic class with Misses Long, Gertel and no-nonsense Scot whose genuine nurtur- school boards had been contractually London saw us belting out “Blowin’ in ing streak was nevertheless parcelled out obliged to give Jewish teachers their re- the Wind” and “Born Free.” By the time with Calvinistic preselectiveness. But ligious holidays off, but had rarely been we got to Grade Six, the cultural gloves Misses Long and London were svelte open about the arrangement, preferring were definitely off – and if any parents and fresh, their dark hair long about to maintain the illusion of schools char- complained, I never heard of it. Trippy their shoulders, while Miss Gertel acterized by Christian values. The reali- though parts of the New Testament are favoured pant suits and wore big round ty, of course, was that the Christian as- (what was the author of Revelations on, glasses, her auburn hair often in a ker- pect of the Protestant curriculum was I’ve often wondered), we tackled the re- The studious youth, c.1970. Photo: Graeme Clyke. 3 QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS al dope in Miss Richter’s poetry class, he was outspoken about it. Not that this wary of having Jewish teachers in their sampling the tangerine trees of (wink, attribute carried any particular signifi- schools, they quite drew the line when it wink) “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” cance, any more than the fact that two of came to native French speakers, who and headin’ for Spain with “Daniel.” my friends came from single-parent would almost certainly have been Armed with lyrics printed on pink homes, or that another had a father who Catholic. mimeographed “stencils,” we debated was an airline pilot, or that I bore a tra- Grade Seven, for me, turned the sit- what was going on in “The Dangling cheotomy scar on my neck. Alan’s be- uation rather abruptly on its head. The Conversation,” why that lady was buy- ing Jewish was essentially a conversa- graduating class before me had been the ing a “Stairway to Heaven,” and what tion piece; what he told us about his first guinea pigs in that newfangled ex- was all that ticky-tacky they made those family’s rituals (no Christmas presents, periment that was French Immersion: “Little Boxes” out of. To this day, when for instance) was quite interesting. Like one year conducted entirely in French, I hear snatches of these songs (often, cu- our teacher, of course, he didn’t show up save for English class. When it was our riously, from my own kids), I am taken on Jewish Holidays. Other than that, he turn, a handful of Elizabeth Ballantyne back, not to the rock concerts or smoky was Alan. grads trooped up to Wentworth School basement rec rooms of a slightly older The ratio of Jews to Protestants in in the majority Jewish Côte St.