MEMORIES OF THE BEACH
MEMORIES OF THE BEACH Reflections on a Toronto Childhood
Lorraine O’Donnell Williams
Copyright © Lorraine O’Donnell Williams, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Shannon Whibbs
Design: Courtney Horner
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Williams, Lorraine O’Donnell, 1932-
Memories of the Beach : reflections on a Toronto
childhood / by Lorraine O’Donnell Williams.
ISBN 978-1-55488-389-9
1. Williams, Lorraine O’Donnell, 1932- --Childhood and youth. 2. Beaches, The (Toronto, Ont.)--Biography. 3. Beaches, The (Toronto, Ont.)--History. 4. Toronto (Ont.)--Biography. 5. Toronto (Ont.)--History. I. Title.
FC3097.26.W54A3 2010 971.3’54103092 C2009-907461-3
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Photograph (l–r): Bll Williams, Velma Williams, Irma Glynn, Nina Cressy, Florence Byrnes, Frank Byrnes.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Published by The Dundurn Group
Printed and bound in Canada.
Unless otherwise indicated, all photos are credited to the author’s private collection.
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To my mother and father, who gave me the gift of life to live this life, and to my dear husband John and our children, Theresa, Megan, Harland, Maureen, and Barbara, who have made life so fulfilling.
It’s by remaining faithful to the contingencies and peculiarities of your own experience and the vagaries of your own nature that you stand the greatest chance of conveying something universal.
— David Shields, “Reality, Persona” in Truth in Nonfiction, edited by David Lazar
Contents
6. The Boardwalk, the Beach, and the Lake
9. Kissing and Other Games
10. What Does a Bookworm Look Like?
11. Being the Only Girl
12. The War Effort
13. Happy Valentine’s Day
14.The Fine Things in Life
15. Some Days the World Can Collapse
16. Diane Reappears
17. Battles Foreign and Domestic
18. Life with the Soaps
19. Where the Boys Are
20. Betrayal
21. Educating the Babysitters
22. Those Happy High School Days
23. The Sounds of Sister Constance
24. What Does an Older Bookworm Look Like?
25. My Cinema Paradiso
26. Something Special About Yonge Street
27. Most of the Other Uncles
28. Lessons in Living from Uncle Arnold
29. The Beaches Library Drama League
30. Beautiful Moonlight Madonna
31. More Lessons from My Uncle
32. The End of the Beginning
Epilogue
Acknowledgements