By Nancy Miller Chenier
Ann Tarantour Lazear’s death this year is a loss, not only for her family and friends, but also for our Lowertown community. During her life, she fulfilled many roles in different places but in this piece , she is remembered for her special connection to York Street Public School.
In 2016, Ann was interviewed as part of a Lowertown Community Association project to uncover more history of some of the Jewish families who lived east of King Edward Avenue. During the talk, she had many stories about the school and its role in her life and in the community. York Street Public School is celebrating 100 years in 2022 and if she were still alive she would be an honoured guest at any event.
As a young girl, she lived at 131 Chapel in the Bernice Apartments, literally across the street from the back entrance to York Street School. As a student during the Second World War, she remembered making bandages in the school basement to help the war effort and rehearsing calisthenics for the June sports day at Lansdowne Park. In 1940, the Ottawa Citizen noted her role as a pianist at a York Street school piano recital.
As a teenager, other Lowertown places beyond York Street School were part of her life. At the Talmud Torah on George Street, she was in an operetta titled Lest We Forget and won a masquerade prize during a Purim celebration. Her family attended the Adath Jeshurun synagogue on King Edward Avenue and she was valedictorian on graduation from the Hebrew Sunday School organized there.
Top row L-R: Ann Tarantour Lazear (class valedictorian), Ann Ain (Feldman), Lilly Cardash, Muriel Bodnoff, Rosaline Shoihet (Adelberg); Selma Tarantour. Front row L-R: Mrs. Zivian (School Superintendent and Principal), Joy Edelson, Sarah Zaretsky, Sybil Goldfield, Jean Newton (Lichtenstein) and Rabbi Fasman
And then she met Arthur Lazear, who grew up at 243 York Street, and by 1948became her husband. In 1956, Ann and Art held a joint art exhibition at the Odeon Theatre, a show with scenes of Jewish life and ritual objects A puzzled Citizen writer noted that most paintings were simply signed “Lazear” with no indication of which one had created the work.. Both were trained artists; Ann had studied with Ottawa artists Henri Masson and Larry Halpin and in later years, taught art to high school students.
Ann was married with children when she got a job at York Street Public School in 1961. She was initially hired as an extra teacher but when the social-studies teacher was incapacitated after an accident, she was asked to take over the class. In the end, she taught there for seven years, and her legacy lives on in the archival copies of The York News”, a school paper where she was the much appreciated key adviser from 1962 to 1967. It was in February 1965 during her time at the school that she penned the poem entitled “A Canadian Flag” to honour the new design. Her poem was later recognized on Parliament Hill on the occasion of the flag’s 50th anniversary.
Ann Tarantour Lazear combined her leadership in the educational sphere with her artistic talent. She enriched the history of York Street Public School and our community and left a lasting impression of a woman with tremendous grace, vitality and commitment.