Working an after-school job, studying at the library, hanging out with friends, having that first date – these are some of young Leasiders’ coming-of-age experiences today. And also for 88-year-old former Leaside resident Mary Lou Arniel, born Mary Lou Doel.
Mary Lou’s parents bought 200 Sutherland Dr. in 1936. “Soon after they married, an uncle suggested they buy one of the brand new Leaside homes since they were built well,” explains Mary Lou. “He was a plumber and vouched that 200 Sutherland had good pipes!” Her parents both worked – her dad at Kraft Foods and her mom at the Sangamo Company Ltd., a major employer at Laird and Eglinton.
“One of my earliest memories is going to Eva Procunier’s nursery school across the street in the old Lea farmhouse (201 Sutherland). She had many sons who were friends with my older brother Bill. The classroom was the large living room, but I mostly remember playing in the sandbox in the immense yard that surrounded the house,” says Mary Lou.
At the time there were no houses between #201 and Millwood. There was even an old barn on the property. “After school my brother and I would sneak in and slide down a chute into a haystack. That usually got us in trouble.”
Mrs. Procunier was also an accomplished musician and taught Bill piano, something he enjoyed playing into adulthood.
During the war Mary Lou’s father decided the family needed more space so he bought 677 Eglinton Ave. East from the builder. Mary Lou was one of the first students to attend Northlea School. “Eglinton then was a quiet street since it didn’t go any farther than Brentcliffe,” she recalls. “There were no houses on the west side of Hanna – just a copse of trees and a stream where a neighbour called Skippy Bartholomew and I would catch pollywogs. It was beside a beautiful old, abandoned home (the Lawson house) we used to call the ‘haunted house,’ which got demolished to make way for Leaside High School.”
She also remembers spending time with her good friend Anne Hiltz, who lived across the street at 674 Eglinton. “Her dad was an ophthalmologist whose practice was in the basement with a special entrance at the side of the house – it’s where my mom got her eyes checked.”
Mary Lou remembers studying at the library, which was in a shophouse at 1645 Bayview. She graduated from Leaside High in 1955 and says, “At lunch in the wide hall outside the cafeteria a few musical boys would play the latest hits like Rock Around the Clock for an impromptu sock hop.”
She enjoyed skating at either Talbot or Millwood (now Trace Manes) Park and tobogganing at the hill by the high school. In June she and her friends would enjoy the parade that passed her house and ended at Millwood Park where the annual carnival began.
A regular Saturday afternoon treat was seeing cartoons and a movie at the Bayview Theatre for “not much more than a dime.” Afterwards, on the way home “Barbara Fry and I would stop in at Frey’s Drug Store at the corner of Bayview and Fleming for a Mel-O-Rol that came in three flavours: chocolate, vanilla or strawberry.”
Life centred around Bayview. “It’s where the whole town met on V-E Day to celebrate the end of World War II. Bill and I took pots and ladles to the corner of Bayview and Millwood to make as much noise as possible,” she remembers with a smile.
On weekends Mary Lou worked at the Loblaws at Laird and Eglinton. It’s where she met her boyfriend Mel, whom she married a month after graduation. Her first full-time job was in the offices of George Crothers, where heavy equipment was manufactured. Ironically, it is now the site of the Loblaws at Redway Road.
Even though Mary Lou moved from Leaside in 1959, “the good memories stay strong – like old friends.”
