KAWARTHA LAKES-In most communities in the Kawartha Lakes region, a church was one of the first public buildings, and the denomination was often indicative of the common background of local immigrants. The first church in most settlements was Protestant, most frequently Anglican, which was practically a state church in Upper Canada. Lindsay’s first church was Catholic, and for generations Catholicism was a very important part of the community. The first mass is thought to have been celebrated by Father Hugh Fitzpatrick on November 1, 1841 (Corpus Christi Day) at St. Mary’s, a log church on the southwest corner of Lindsay and Russell Streets.
The first European immigrants came to the Kawarthas before the establishment of public schooling. In that era, volunteers taught their neighbours and education was often rudimentary by today’s standards. A significant portion of the population was illiterate. To the extent that there was organized education, it typically came from a church. Lindsay’s original log Catholic Church served as a school from Monday to Friday.
In 1859, a new and much more architecturally striking St. Mary’s Church opened further east on Russell Street. Nine years later, Father Stafford commissioned a white brick schoolhouse on the original church site, named St. Dominic’s School. Initially this school taught both boys and girls, but after a convent was built on Russell Street in 1874, the Sisters of Loretto taught female students at that site. In 1890, the Sisters of St. Joseph replaced the Loretto Sisters, and took over instruction at the school, known as St. Mary’s School. These arrangements for Catholic Schools continued until the mid-twentieth century.
In the 1950s, students would receive some religious education in the public school system. Opening exercises commonly included the Lord’s Prayer. But public schools were not specific to one denomination. At that time, the school levies from municipal tax revenues did not go to support Catholic Schools, so students had to pay tuition. Laura came from a Catholic family, and when the time came to enroll her in school, she was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph at the Convent, while boys would attend St. Dominic’s (the current site of White’s of Lindsay was once their school yard). After she completed Grade 2 in 1954, the new St. Mary’s School was built on St. Lawrence Street, where both boys and girls would be taught—initially 420 students in total. The former school at the convent became St. Joseph’s Academy, a Secondary School and boarding school for girls. Boys would attend either Lindsay Collegiate Institute (it became Lindsay Collegiate and Vocational Institute in 1963) or St. Peter’s in Peterborough.
“I wanted to go to St. Joseph’s Academy. My older sister was there—she was two years ahead of me. Most of my friends were there. We loved that it was girls only. It was such a good thing that we were never distracted by boys, we were not overshadowed by boys, and it was a small school. Socially, you were not segregated into grades—everyone knew everyone, regardless of what grade you were in. When the younger sisters came up, we all knew each other. The school was like being part of a family. Many of the country girls at St. Joseph’s Academy were from Downeyville.”
The alternative, for Catholic girls in Lindsay was LCI. “In those days it was free to attend LCI, but not St. Joseph’s Academy, so only Catholics went to Catholic school. The sisters had a sliding scale, because they needed students. A lot of the girls chose to go to LCI. Many more left to do Grade 12 and 13 at LCI, because they had science labs and many more courses that they could take. And there were boys, which was a big attraction!”
“My family was not wealthy, and we earned our own tuition. To earn the money to go, the nuns gave me a job. I swept floors and cleaned the classrooms. I would iron their sheets and table clothes. I could run them through the mangle (a mechanical laundry machine, consisting of two rollers, used to flatten textiles). I also worked at Stedman’s five and dime and Beavis’ grocery store in Lindsay. We all babysat. In summers I lived at Greenhurst working for Sam McLaren in the dining room and convenience store.”
“Back then, parents had big families—Catholics were not allowed to have birth control and the church encouraged families to have babies. People were not nearly as well off financially as they are today. Yet no one went hungry—I don’t understand how, with everything that we have, that there are kids going hungry today. Everyone had a garden, they knew how to budget, and they knew how to make healthy meals from what they had. Mothers knew how to make a penny be a dollar. My mother made all our clothes. I know we could never afford the clothes to keep up with the students at LCI.”
“We wore uniforms to school, but because we didn’t have much money for clothes, everything was hand-me-down. I would just wear my older sister’s clothes. No one ever showed up without their uniform. It was black brogue shoes and knee high socks in summer. There were long stockings in winter. We had a pleated navy blue skirt, white blouse and navy blue jacket. The school colours were brown and gold, so we wore brown and gold ribbons pinned on our arm. St. Joseph’s logo was on our pocket. For gym class we had a royal blue skirt and blouse with shorts underneath. It was freeing to wear a uniform: We did not have to think about it; no one would stand out; there were no cliques or jealousy; it was easy peasy; we had lots of freedom. We all loved it and everyone knew that we were St. Joseph’s girls wherever we went, so we had to behave ourselves.”
“We all grew up together and had been together since Grade 1. I had no desire to go to LCI. We thought that there were a lot of wealthy families going there, and I did not want to compete with that. That school was humongous and the thought of going there was frightening. I knew the Sisters and I loved the Sisters. The education that we received was more classic. We studied Latin and French for five years. We received a basic education and it was very solid. We had our own theatre and we would not have been able to be in theatre if we were at LCI. There were different opportunities because the school was so small—by the time I was there it was dwindling out. When I was in Grade 11, there were only 11 students and my graduating class was less than 20 students—that was both Grade 12 and 13. There were less than 100 students when I went to St. Joseph’s Academy.”
“A typical day at school began with everyone arriving in uniform at 9 am. The first class of the day would be religion. We had been studying religion since Grade 1—we had 13 years of religious instruction. In elementary school we learned catechism [religious instruction where students learn questions and answers, or statements of doctrine. For instance: ‘Who made the world? God made the world. Who is God? God is the creator of heaven and earth and all things. …] and were being prepared to receive the sacraments. By the time that we were in secondary school, we were learning church history and how to comport ourselves, while living a moral, ethical life. That was what was expected of us, there were no questions asked.”
“We were expected to follow the church rules and everyone went to church on Sunday at St. Mary’s, which was the only Catholic church in Lindsay. We received our sacraments. We did not eat meat on Friday. Friday night was hard, because everyone wanted to go out for a burger or hot dog, so we could just have fries. After a while, some of the guys would end up eating meat. We were expected to dress modestly, that was a virtue. We were expected to follow the church rules. We did not eat meat on Friday. Everyone rested on Sunday, no one was to work on Sunday. Because of the religious instruction, our school day was half an hour longer than at public school—the Ontario government mandated that religious instruction could not take any time from the regular school day. In summer we went down to the Iron Bridge to swim at lunch hour—it was much more private than the Rainbow Bridge.”
Other than religion, the classes at St. Joseph’s Academy were not that different than in public schools: Latin, French, English, history, science and mathematics. “Then in Grade 11 we could take typing and home economics. Each year we studied a different branch of science. We did a lot of theatre. Sister Marie Camille was the French teacher and also taught theatre. She had a cat named Buttons, who was famous, because she was not supposed to have it. We performed the Mikado at the Academy Theatre and did an Irish concert for the town. We also had a curling club. If you failed one exam, you failed your entire year. 50 was still a pass when I was there, but it later became 60.”
“At St. Joseph’s we had nothing like the band instruments that they had at LCI, but the sisters were pianists. Many Lindsay kids went to St. Mary’s to learn how to play the piano or organ. I remember we took a trip to the Midland Shrine so we could learn about the missionaries there, like Jean Brebeuf. St. Joseph’s did not have a cafeteria, just an all-purpose room where we would play cards and eat our lunch.”
“In the 1960s, boarders paid $500 per year, while day students paid $2 per month for a 10 month year—that was later raised to $5 per month. There were boarders from South America and Mexico there. Some were from really wealthy families. The sisters lived in the convent, which was in the same building. Their private life was completely separate from the academy—we did not go anywhere near their living quarters.”
“While they were teaching us, the sisters all wore their habits. St. Joseph’s mission was teaching and nursing, and they had to be faithful. They lived a very regulated life of prayer and their work. They were very strict—you did not speak unless spoken to in class. We all just sat there and listened. If you had a question, you were to put up your hand. Throughout the school day we did everything in groups. We all had to be part of the church choir, if you could not sing you were to mouth the words, and you still had to go to choir practice.”
In the public school system, it was mandatory to be a cadet during the Second World War, and for many years afterwards. Students would spend countless hours marching, and practicing their marksmanship. There was not the same emphasis on military training at St. Joseph’s—“I never even heard the word cadet.” While students at other schools would have air raid drills, “At St. Joseph’s there was no fear of nuclear war and no air raid drills. Our fathers had come back from serving in the Second World War and we were recovering from that. We used to talk about how lucky we were to live in peace. Back then there was no such thing as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it was called shell shock. There were fathers who came home from World War II and became raging alcoholics, but that was all hidden behind closed doors and there was nowhere to get help. I am thankful that I had a high school experience that focused on divinity more than military matters.”
In the mid twentieth century, many of the region’s old-fashioned schools were replaced by modern schools, built to a much higher standard, with many more amenities. When Laura went to school, LCI was the new modern school, while St. Joseph’s offered a school environment that in many ways had not changed in two generations. “The basement had a dirt floor in the corridor that went from the lunch/rec room to the washrooms. The building did not have that much heat—we wore mitts in the winter because it was cold. Our science classes were at Holy Angels, which was on the opposite side of Russell Street. We only had one test tube to share for science class, but we made the most of what we had. Holy Angels was beside a big field where we would play baseball.”
In the 1950s corporal punishment was acceptable in both public and Catholic elementary schools. “In grade school we got the strap. When we were at St. Joseph’s they would call our parents if it was something serious, for instance, skipping school. We might be sent to the cloak room or the principal’s office, where the principal would give us a detention and we would have to do something extra.”
“The Catholic Youth Organization brought us together on Sunday night. Father Hart ran it at the gym, and we would have a dance for high school students. Many of the boys that we went to public school with attended LCI, they would attend and we would intermingle. There were Teen Town dances above the arena. On Friday and Saturday night, the town let us have a room, and we played records from the 1950s and 1960s—it was slow dancing and jiving. The Kawartha Kavaliers practiced at LCI and every girl wanted to date a Kavalier. We were all very proud of them. Boys wanted to be a Kavalier because that made the girls swoon.”
“The Olympia Restaurant was also a big gathering place for teenagers—it seemed like everyone went there after school. It was a lot of fun and it was the place that many Lindsay couples met. At that time everybody smoked, and many kids would order a coke or fries. ‘Ma Tozios’ ran it then—she was Greek and had the bakery at the front. She did not put up with too much nonsense. If you started acting up, she threw you out. As a high school student, social life in Lindsay revolved around dances, the Olympia Restaurant and going to the theatre.”
“When we were kids, the Academy Theatre was the only one in town. On Saturday morning our mom would give us 25 cents each, and we would walk to the theatre. We could see the show for 10 cents and the other 15 cents would buy popcorn and a drink. For 25 cents each, she could have all six of her kids out of the house for Saturday afternoon—it was well worth it. We would watch two movies and a short in between.”
“When the Century Theatre was built, it was very modern. Then the Academy Theatre became a stage theatre instead of a movie theatre. The former had only one large screen at the time and there was no short, just one movie.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, Greenhurst-Thurstonia was one of the region’s major attractions, and a place where many local students worked in the summer. “There were two dance halls there. Friday night was the Pink Palace, that was for a younger crowd. On Saturday night everyone came to the Pavillion and it was the big dance there. On Saturday night you could hardly move. A lot of couples met there. A lot of guys from Toronto would stay on the weekend as they had cottages. Many high school kids would go, but some parents would not let their kids attend. So, some snuck out and found a way to get there. In the 1950s, Rock’n Roll was introduced with Little Caesar and the Consuls and many other groups.”
“They had great musical acts. Bobby Curtola came, there was an Oshawa band that came up too. A lot of Lindsay kids would get rides to and from work, but I just lived there for the summer. I was working for Sam McLaren—he had been a football coach from Buffalo University. We made tons of friends working there.”
“In the 1960s, high school students would go out with different people all the time. It was just called a date, if a guy called you, you would just say yes or no. That didn’t mean that you were his girl. A lot of people dated whoever they wanted and there was nothing serious, it was very simple. You just went and saw a movie together or went to the dance.”
There were mischievous kids in the 1960s just as there are today, but they did not get into the same kinds of trouble as kids do today. “One of the guys we hung out with had a car and we would tie a toboggan behind it and just go flying through the streets. Back then there were no seatbelts. Often the police found kids drinking and driving and they would just take the kid home. When one boy got arrested, the police called his mom and asked if they wanted them to bring him home. She said, ‘No, I want to leave him there to teach him a lesson.’”
“There were lovers’ lanes. The cops would patrol them and flash the lights on the police cars, telling the kids to move on. If the police thought that there was anything serious, they would give a heads up to our parents privately—it was not as formal as it is today. I never heard people talk about drugs. The worst thing that kids were experimenting with at that time was sex—and if you were unlucky you got pregnant. There was not the same issue with homelessness. We used to skip school and hitchhike to Toronto. We would go downtown and look at the stores like Simpsons and Eatons. We had to make sure we were on the bus to get back to Lindsay. The Lindsay bus terminal was in the east ward and I could be home by 4 pm if I skipped school.”
“As a Catholic we had to go to confession and tell our sins to the priest. We made our first confession in Grade 1 or 2. In Grade 1 we learned about sin—at that point it was if you told a lie, swore (which was taking the Lord’s name in vain, rather than the coarse language that is popularly taken to be swearing today) or disobeying your parents. As you grew older, if you ate meat on Friday, then you were not allowed to go to Communion on Sunday without confession. We had to fast before communion for three hours, which has now been reduced for one hour. As a kid, if you went to Teen Town, you would be hungry after dancing and then, you would have to say that you broke your fast. Sex would be a mortal sin, as would be missing mass or anything that went against the Ten Commandments.” After committing a mortal sin, Catholics are required to take part in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, before they could be part of other Sacraments, like Communion.
“There were a couple of girls who went on to join St. Joseph’s after high school. Veronica O’Reilly became Mother Superior of Mount St. Joseph in Peterborough. I did not consider becoming a Sister of St. Joseph, because they were teachers and nurses and that was not the vocation that I was looking to have. In those days, as a woman, you were going to get married, be a teacher, a nurse, a secretary or some girls left after Grade 10 to become hairdressers. There was no other horizon then. You did not have to go to university to be a teacher or nurse. They had normal school and nursing school, which you could attend straight out of high school. I went to a Girl’s College in Maryland.”
After she attended Grade 2 at St. Joseph’s, St. Dominic’s was demolished. Then all elementary catholic girls and boys went to the new St. Mary’s. “It’s a shame that St. Joseph’s Academy was taken down, because it was a gorgeous building with the grotto.” The convent moved across the street, which subsequently became Women’s Resources. In 1980, Pope John Paul II Catholic Elementary School opened, followed by St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School in the year 2000.
“My favourite part of attending St. Joseph’s Academy was the time that we spent with the Sisters and each other. We had a lot of fun. I enjoyed my wonderous adventures there. It was a great learning experience and we really appreciated the education that we got. Today everyone thinks that Latin is a joke, but so many words are derived from Latin, and there are so many Latin references in theatre and culture. We did not realize at the time what a gift it was.”
“The sisters gave us discipline, respect, grounding, ethics, morality, responsibility and comportment—they taught us how to be a lady. What we learned was based on our faith, and it gave us a grounding for anything that life would throw at us. We did not have the anxiety and stress that so many people feel today. We had a freedom that children do not enjoy today. We were a lot more mature and allowed to do so much more than kids are today. Much of the time we were completely free, we ran wild, and there was no one asking you, ‘What are you doing?’ We went off and had a wonderful time and our parents didn’t ask or seem to worry about where we were or what we were up to. Today, kids have so many more belongings, everything is handed to you on a platter. But we had freedom and we had that in spades, and I would never have traded that for anything.”
This story is a memory and nobody’s memory is perfect. Sometimes details get a little mixed up, things get forgotten or overlooked, and the perspective is inevitably subjective. If you notice something that not right, have something you would like to tell us, or a memory to share the museum would be happy to hear from you: [email protected].
This story is part of our partnership with Maryboro Lodge, The Fenelon Falls Museum and was written by Glenn Walker.
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