By Christina Williamson
The backyards of Lowertown in the 1930s and 1940s were not where children played. Backyards were for stabling horses, growing vegetables and drying clothes. Instead, children in Lowertown played on the streets.
Children were creative in coming up with ways to entertain themselves throughout the year. In winter they enjoyed a wide array of cold-weather activities. Sylvia Kershman recalled how she would cross-country ski from her home on St. Andrew Street to Rockcliffe, where there was a ski hill. Sol Gunner, meanwhile, remembered how in the 1940s he would play pick-up hockey with the neighbourhood kids on Murray Street.
At the time, Murray Street was paved with wooden cobbles that froze in the winter, allowing them to play ice hockey right on the road. Pucks were easy enough to find in the winter because there were many horses stabled in the community: frozen horse manure worked quite nicely. There were rules, however: no slap-shots and no raising the “puck”!
Kids also enjoyed ice skating. In 1959, Lowertown author Norman Levine wrote in the Jewish Post about his Ottawa childhood that “I used to go skating at Anglesea Square, in the open rink with the scratchy records playing waltzes over the loudspeaker, the lights on from overhead wires.”
In the summer, kids had many other activities to entertain themselves. They could bike or swim, and play tennis, badminton or baseball, although “not necessarily at [sport] clubs”. Mrs. Kershman notes: “you needed a brick wall, or a barn door…maybe you needed a partner maybe you didn’t, but you could still play!”
Visiting the city’s beaches was a popular activity as well. Lowertown residents could take the Ottawa Electric Railway tram from St. Patrick Street through town all the way to Britannia Beach, considered to be quite a distance from Ottawa at the time. Estelle Gunner laughed that it would take all day to get there. Another popular location to spend summer holidays for Lowertown’s Jewish families was Carlsbad Springs, a mineral spa near Mer Bleue where, starting in the 1900s, many Ottawans would arrive to take the baths and relax at the hotels in the area.
However, these activities only took place during the summer holidays, because school had precedence over play for many of Lowertown’s young Jewish children. Sol and Estelle Gunner remember that they did not have much spare time. After classes at York Street Public School they had another two hours of religious school plus their homework each day. Still Saturdays and Sundays gave some kids a chance to relax and play. Going to the movies on Saturdays is a particularly lively memory for Dr. Gunner.
He recalls the Théâtre Français and the Rideau Theatre were where “we would go from twelve o’clock and end at about six o’clock – the serials would end on a Saturday afternoon – we’d sort of walk out bleary-eyed.” Rumour has it that by the 1950s, the Français was not the finest of establishments; rats used to run around on the floor forcing patrons to keep their legs up on the seats!
More structured activities were also available for children during the school year, such as Girl Guides, Brownies and Boy Scouts. The all-Jewish 13th Girl Guide Company was formed in the 1930s and met on Wednesday evenings in the York Street Public School gym. The 39th Hebrew Boy Scouts Troop, one of the first of its kind in Canada, was formed in 1918. Both the boys and girls learned survival skills and went on hikes, while the Boy Scouts would also attend Camp B’nai Brith in the summer.
Teenagers were also busy with dances, socials, teas, fundraisers, debates and lectures in the Talmud Torah School, which was housed in an old public school on George Street from 1923 to 1949. Many were involved in sports teams, too, either Jewish or mixed.
Years ago, Lowertown’s streets bustled with pedlars and their horses and carts, and with people walking to the shops, to work and to home. Life could be difficult as the Jewish immigrant community worked hard to establish itself in Canada’s capital city, but kids will always be kids and they made sure that the Lowertown roads were playful roads as well as working ones.
Editor`s note. Christina was a LCA Canada Summer Jobs student in 2016, and interviewed former Jewish residents of Lowertown for this story.