“Welcome Home!” the Aunts yelled from their porch as Billy got out of the car. All of the Aunts and other family members gathered around, hugging the young man just back from the war. The excitement and relief to have their Billy back home was palpable. After losing Paul, the eldest, to enemy fire over France, having Bill home was the epitome of joy and hope for the future.
“We are so happy to have you back, Billy.” A celebration was in order.
That was in 1946, a long time ago.
Now the house where the Aunts lived is being sold again. There were several Aunts living in that house on Montrose in Toronto back in the early days. Aunt Lidwina, a nun, made frequent trips home to Montrose. Her sisters, Aunt Agnes and Aunt Mary, who both worked, kept the place in good running order. And of course Aunt Gert, the chief cook and bottle washer, did all of the cooking and most of the cleaning. The three women not only worked hard but they also looked after several family members after they had been put out on the street, literally.
“Come up the steps,” the realtor was saying to the young couple. “You’ll notice how the window there looks right onto the street. The glass, of course, is beveled.”
“How old is this house, Anne?” The young woman asked the real estate lady.
“Well, Diane, it was built in 1905. It has a very solid foundation as you can see.”
And the three Aunts that lived in the house were a solid foundation as well. Some would say later that they were the rock of the family: When life got difficult the Aunts always knew exactly what to do. When the business of their sister Olive’s husband failed during the Depression due to the drink and other abominations of the time, they knew that they could not let Olive’s children starve on the streets of Toronto. The children would of course move in with them; as their dear sister Olive had gone on to meet her maker, her children needed a mother figure to help them navigate what was next in their lives. The Aunts carried this cross until all of the children made their way in the world.
The young couple Diane and Ben had been searching for just this sort of home, one with some history and also one that had been maintained over the years.
“Diane, as you can see the house has a lot to offer: the living room that looks out on the street, the dining room in the back, as well as the kitchen. The second floor of course has two bedrooms, one very large one and a smaller one across the hall, as well as the main bath. We can go up there if you like right now or would you prefer to look around down here some more?”
“I’d like to just look around here before going upstairs. The third floor is bedrooms as well, I suppose, Anne?”
“Well. it depends. I would think you could use the third floor for any number of things, like an office or a nursery. I bet you and your husband will be filling this house in no time with lots of children.”
“Not for a while, Anne. Children aren’t on the radar at the moment.”
The children always sat quietly and behaved themselves when it came to visiting the Aunties. Seen and not heard was the rule around the Aunties; actually it was the rule around adults no matter who they were. The children loved visiting the old house though, with all its rooms and hiding places. Aunt Agnes also had a beautiful old roll-top desk that any child could get lost in. It had all the different tiny drawers filled with paper clips, elastics, letterhead and pens. Fascinating for any child, the roll-top desk offered hours of entertainment.
When the war was on the Aunties once again came to the rescue of one of their nieces, Joanne whose husband Arthur was going off to war. Arthur had joined the Navy and so Joanne and her first-born Mary Clare, still an infant, would move in with the Aunts while Arthur was away at sea. This arrangement would no doubt give Joanne a sense of happiness and warmth during a time of fear and sadness. Without the Aunts there to comfort Joanne, who knows how she would have managed with a new baby? The Aunts adored Mary Clare and, as most babies do, Mary Clare gave everyone on Montrose the sense of gladness and hope that their lives would one day return to normal.
“Would you and Ben like to discuss things alone, Diane?” Anne stepped back from the young couple as they whispered in hush tones about the purchase of such a grand and wonderful home.
“Well, Anne, I think we would like to make an offer.”
“That’s great! Let’s do it.”
The Aunts entertained the extended family in their home for many years. The nieces and nephews and their children would visit every Sunday and enjoy the roast beef and roast potatoes with Joe’s Tomatoes, a family tradition, that Aunt Gert whipped up in her kitchen. Aunt Gert ran the kitchen and was always cooking or baking something. Visitors inhaled the wonderful aromas of her fresh apple pies or chili sauce or roast beef that would often be wafting through the house as they arrived. The children who lived there or who visited would always be grateful for a place of recluse, a place that offered up its rooms to little boys and girls in the hope that they would find some solace there.
Diane and Ben bought the house on Montrose. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this story ended with “and Ben and Diane’s grandchildren would come to visit every Sunday”? But it doesn’t. Diane and Ben made a great investment, and these days that is what the young folks are looking for in their homes. Flipping their home and buying another bigger home. Sad to say, Ben and Diane did the same with this house on Montrose; for them it was just that, a house.
For the Aunts, Montrose was their home, a place to feed and house and share with all of their family, through good times and bad. For the Aunts their investment was in their family, not their house. This home on Montrose will be recalled for generations as the home the Aunts built, a place to recover from the hardships of the Depression, of the war, of tough times. It is also from this house – this home – that each member of the family drew their strength, their faith in each other and humanity and where traditions were nurtured and lovingly preserved in the hopes that future generations would carry on the practice of those wonderful Aunts: Agnes, Mary, Lidwina and Gertrude.
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