In these rather unhappy days I chose pictures from the last week of March that made me feel happier. I hope you enjoy them! Joanne Doucette
This picture is of Charles Coxwell Small, the Family Compact member who owned all the land from Coxwell Avenue to Woodbine Avenue and from Ashbridge’s Bay to Danforth Avenue. He used a wheelchair because he was partially paralyzed as the result of a stroke. His workplace, the old courthouse on Adelaide Street east of Victoria Street, made itself accessible with ramps so that he could continue in his job. We’ve changed a lot as a society since the mid-nineteenth century and I’m glad of that too. As a person with a disability I need ramps and elevators and, basically, any place with stairs is off limits to me. The world is a happier place for inclusion, equality and diversity.
This story is about an immigrant family who went from living in a tarpaper shack in a Shacktown (like that of Gerrard-Coxwell’s neighbourhood). They worked hard and “made good” going from their humble home to a comfortable well-built house. When I was growing up outside of Toronto an immigrant family moved into a chicken coop next door to us. It was a tarpaper shack too, a smelly one at that. But the whole family worked hard and over time the tarpaper shack too became comfortable bungalow. Happy memories!
One of my happy spaces and a happy place for many of us.
And it makes me happier thinking of hard-working people who had a stroke of luck. A family in my village also won the Irish Sweepstakes. My mother always said, “Money can’t make you happy, but it sure can make being miserable a whole lot easier.”
Our local merchants have made my life happier over and over again.
And even on the darkest days, there are rainbows in the sky and on the sidewalk. I took this photo on Woodfield Road.
The Midway Historical Society of Toronto 