Ed Pegg's history of the Earth

A little rough around the edges but I love the music/lyrics:

Entrance to the town of Weston, Ontario

ca. 1942, looking northwest onto Main St. S. at St. John's Rd. click to enlarge

The town of Weston saw its start in 1914. The above photo marks its southern end. How do we know that the crossroad is at St. John's Rd.? Because the Peter Manson auto service station (up a bit, on the left) is just south of Lippincott St. W. (There is today still a car service station at this spot!) I had come across folk who claimed that Weston extended its boundary to Edmund Avenue (one block further south) but when I researched the matter I could only find one attempt by the residents of Edmund Avenue to have this happen and that request was subsequently denied by the Township of York. I forgot when this happened and couldn't locate on my computer the newspaper article that reported it. In a new search today, I found a similar story dating to October 1920.

Of course, the residents of Edmund Avenue could have asked again but I deemed it unlikely as I had a 1924 and a 1935 map that still had the St. John's Rd. boundary. In my new search I did find a resolution to all this. On page 34 of the 11 November 1930 Toronto Daily Star was an article on Walter Pollett running for Weston's 1931 mayoralty:

"Mr. Pollett was elected to the [Weston] council a year after he became eligible, since previously his home on Edmund Ave. had been in Mount Dennis. Seven years ago this month a portion of Mount Dennis bounding the southern part of the town of Weston was annexed and Mr. Pollett was one of the most active supporters of this step."

So the boundary expansion happened in November 1923. The 1924 map might have missed the news, being too soon after. A close look at the 1935 map could find no year that was part of the map itself. Perhaps the 1935 was a library misidentification:

south Weston (date unknown, note the misspelling of Elsmere) click to enlarge

Looking further, I found a 1923 map of York Township that I had not previously come across. This map clearly excluded Edmund Avenue from the township, hence placing it in Weston:

York Township (1923) click to enlarge

So, as a small slice of Mount Dennis was added to Weston, would there have been any effort to move the entrance-to-Weston sign south? No. The section that was annexed is entirely on the west side of Weston Rd. One block later we reach the old-border line and Weston is now on both sides. Reference the more recent Welcome-to-Weston sign that is only a few meters south of the same St. John's Rd. — but now renamed — Clouston Ave.:

Welcome to Weston (2019) click to enlarge

The tortured history of St. John's Rd. and Clouston Ave.

When did St. John's Rd. become Clouston Ave.? The answer is slightly more complicated than I expected. Might's (greater Toronto) city directory for 1928 suggests that Clouston Ave. is entirely in Mount Dennis: west from Jane St. to Weston Rd. and west of Centre Rd. to the Humber River. That, one might think, leaves St. John's Rd. as the connecting, in-between part. However, St. John's Rd. is the old border of the town of Weston, where the properties north of the road were part of Weston and properties south, part of Mount Dennis. It seems that in 1928, there's a St. John's Rd. East that is the same roadway as Clouston Ave. (as far as the railroad tracks) but only for the north side of it. There's a St. John's Rd. West running west from Main St. S. to the Humber River that, because of the annexation of that part of Mount Dennis, is on both sides of the roadway until we get to Centre Rd. At that point, St. John's Rd. West uses the same roadway as Clouston Ave., but only for the north side of it.

I don't see a Might's reference to Clouston Ave. prior to 1928, which makes the south Weston map (shown above) problematic because it sports a pre-1924 Weston town border. Have another look at that map. Do you see the dashed/dotted line running parallel to Edmund Ave. but a little south of it? When I look closely, I imagine those dashes continuing up the left side of Centre Rd. Maybe the map is closer to 1930 than to 1920 but they neglected to pull down the red town-border to run along those dashed lines.

In 1937, Might's directory noted that the part of Clouston Ave. from Jane St. to Weston Rd. now ran from Weston Rd. to only the railroad tracks. Also in 1937, the name of the part of Clouston Ave. from Centre Rd. to the Humber River became St. John's Drive. This change was still being declared in 1949, but the last actual listing I have found for a St. John's Drive is 1945. To further complicate things, in 1950 the section of Clouston Ave. east of Weston Rd. was renamed Gibson Park.

There's no further mention of Clouston Ave. in Might's, 1951-1955. Then it reappears (1956-1960) with a bracketed Weston and the description: west from St. John's Rd. West. Wait, isn't this St. John's Drive? Well, no. The building names leave little doubt that they are describing Gibson Park (which has its own separate, tandem entries). There is no Gibson Park mention in 1960. Then in 1961, Clouston Ave. reappears with the proper east-of-Weston-Rd. location. Someone figured out the error! They also note that this Clouston Ave. is the south side of the street as the north side is St. John's Rd. East.

Finally, in 1965, St. John's Rd. East and St. John's Rd. West were renamed Clouston Ave., likely in preparation for the 1967 amalgamation of Weston and the Township of York. I grieve for St. John's Drive which died without anyone noticing. I expect that it is buried somewhere in St. John's Cemetery on the Humber!

Sergio Reis (choreography)

Kolkata (first time in India)

Russia invades Venice

Meanwhile (current events)

Take Five (cover)

The Bird

Sixty years ago today, I penned this entry in my then-diary:

Since yesterday I've been writing short poems - pretty good ones - if I do say so myself. It's usually about a person. One I especially like is:

Brother Adrian

When the boys go out to play,
Brother Adrian stayed away.
"Have to study," he just said,
"By tonight I will have read
Books of every type and kind,
For I simply have to find
How in French to write the words,
'Reading books is for the birds!'"

A little context: I was at that time in grade ten at De La Salle College "Oaklands" which was run by Christian Brothers, a Catholic teaching order. Brother Adrian was our then-new-to-us (two weeks prior) French teacher. When I read this doggerel a couple of days ago it brought to mind a Brother who had been nicknamed "the bird" by his students, based supposedly, as suggested by my friend Alfy who also went to De La Salle back then, on his behaviour. Now, neither Alfy nor I have a direct recollection (sixty years can do that) of the bird's identity but it makes sense to me that it might have been Brother Adrian, inspiring the poem's raison d'être by way of its terminal double entendre.

That would indeed have been clever but a little subsequent research suggests that "the bird" was actually Brother Michael (O'Reilly), not to be confused with Brother Michael (Dillon) [the former "junior", the latter, "senior"]. It appears that Michael O'Reilly's three-month stay (5 Sep 1966 - 5 Dec 1966, our home room teacher for the start of grade eleven) was scrubbed from his RIP assignment list. Little wonder. We surely were his class from hell!

Janice, the jumping spider

The world