A Chapter in the Life of a House
There are chapters for everything; chapters of our lives, chapters in a book and chapters in our careers. This story is a chapter in the life of a house; the House at 53 Elgin Street, Chapleau, Ontario.
Quite likely, you have lived through a similar chapter, or chapters, in quite similar houses, in quite similar towns as you travel through your own journey.
A chapter for a house begins with a new inhabitant or set of inhabitants as it did in the case with the House at 53 Elgin Street. The chapter ended last week, as we drove away with a small set of belongings on Sunday September 1, 2019.
This particular chapter began on May 31, 1965 when the House at 53 Elgin Street was legally transferred from its previous owner, Michael Mione, to the new owners Lorne and Jacqueline Riley, formerly of Cartier Ontario, with 3 kids and one infant in tow.
As with any house, the House at 53 Elgin was quite unassuming; it didn’t say or do anything special; it wasn’t haunted, it didn’t flood or catch fire; it just sat quietly keeping its inhabitants warm and dry for over 5 decades before being passed on to another family for another chapter.
I imagine it did watch and listen closely though, as I did, when I became familiar with this particular house near Christmastime in 1978 and I began dating one of its inhabitants, Loreen.
Not from the house, but from the inhabitants, I learned of many of the stories that happened before entered it. Later, I came to have my own stories as I grew closer and closer to the Riley family and to the House at 53 Elgin Street.
One of those family stories was the one where the artificial Christmas tree fell down, for apparently no reason, while Loreen, Erin and Patty were playing in the rec room. The location, if not the actual tree, is the same as in this picture which also features the full and beautifully decorated Riley family at Christmas, 1981, with yours truly taking the picture.
Back to the Christmas, long, long ago… sure enough, upon closer inspection, the tree was listing to one side in a slow but determined fall that was speeding up as they watched in horror. They realized what must be done and attempted to right the tree but to no avail; it just continued its falling motion until Loreen decided that there was no option but to summon their Dad hoping that he would not blame them for knocking it over when it wasn’t even their fault. Perhaps the House at 53 Elgin wasn’t as innocent as it let on to be.
When Lorne Sr. got to the rec room and saw Erin and Patty attempting to hold up the fallen tree at the base, he burst out laughing providing a great deal of relief to the situation.
Another infamous story revolves around exactly how this hole ended up in the rec room door that was still there when we left the house last weekend.
This time, Lorne Sr. and Jackie were out visiting while the kids were home minding themselves. Well if you knew the family back then, you would know that Lorne Jr. was a little bit of a prankster, or at times, even a little bit of a pain in the arse, as my Uncle Louie and many others, used to say back in the day.
There was some altercation developing between Lorne and his sister Loreen and she was becoming quite frustrated and wanted to get some form of revenge or satisfaction for whatever was going on. Loreen proceeded to chase Lorne down the stairs and seeing that she wasn’t going to catch him, she decided she would throw one of her Dad’s work boots at Lorne on his way into the rec room. Well lucky for Lorne, but not so lucky for the rec room door, Lorne just barely closed the door as the boot was sailing through the air. The door ended up being no match for the steel toe of Lorne Sr’s work boot and the damage was inflicted. To this day, Loreen still says “Who knew doors were hollow???”
There were many more stories before I came along either too difficult for me to remember or too incriminating for me to tell, so I will move on to where I became familiar with the House at 53 Elgin Street.
Not long into the New Year of 1979, I had been dating Loreen long enough to accept an invitation for dinner with the family. The picture below shows a spot in the living room, just off the kitchen, where a rocking chair used to sit.
As Jackie was finishing dinner preparations, I was either invited to sit in the rocker or I chose to do so on my own, but let’s assume the latter so as not offend whomever may have otherwise invited me to sit there.
Well the sitting part went well but as soon as I leaned back in the chair, the leaning back part just wouldn’t end. Unbeknownst to me, the actual rocker base was missing from the chair and you really had to be a far more experienced chair operator of this particular chair than I obviously was. It just kept leaning back and leaning back until the back of the rocker was flat against the floor and I was staring up at the ceiling and the entire Riley family looking down and me and doing a not so good job of not laughing at my predicament. I remember thinking something like “Well this seems like a fun-loving family; Can’t be all that bad to be a part of it I guess”.
The next story happened at a very similar Riley family dinner at the House at 53 Elgin only a few weeks later and it involved this door at the end of the hallway that led to the washroom on the main floor.
Again, just before dinner, as we were preparing to sit down, I chose to use the washroom to (take care of some business and) wash my hands before dinner.
Well, it turns out that you had to be a pretty good operator of the washroom door in the Riley house as well. I kept turning the door handle trying to get out, but the door handle just kept spinning. I wondered if it would be better to continue fruitlessly, or to break down and call out for help. I eventually decided to bite the proverbial bullet and yell for help to be released from captivity rather than to aimlessly keep turning a doorknob that does nothing.
Sure enough, one of the family members who knew exactly how to operate the bathroom door handle, freed me and led be back to the kitchen where the rest of the family was again howling at my misfortune. Yup, a fun-loving set of inhabitants indeed!
There were many more stories like the one where I brought a couple of orphaned bear cubs in a duffel bag and let them roam around and visit in the basement bedroom for a bit. And another story, before my involvement when Patty sleep-walked into the closet and started banging in the middle of the night to get out and scared everyone half to death; but lets move to the conclusion of this chapter of the House at 53 Elgin.
Time marches on and as they say, the only thing constant is change. This summer, approaching her 89th birthday, Jackie, the sole remaining inhabitant decided it was just too much to keep the house up. With the help of the other family members during the previous few weeks, Labour Day weekend became the time that we would pack up Jackie’s personal effects and part ways with the House at 53 Elgin thereby closing this chapter of its life.
This picture was taken after we went through the key rack and prepared the keys for the real estate agent and eventually the new owner.
After we identified all of the keys that we could for the locks and doors that were around the place, there were still dozens of keys remaining. Keys from shed and house door locks that had been changed, bike locks for bikes that no longer existed and keys for Lord knows what else.
The house stood still while we checked the keys in the locks; it said nothing about the other keys and made no apologies for the ones that were unidentifiable or for anything for that matter. It just stood quietly by while we did our final cleaning and packing and made the final preparations to vacate the premises so it could get on with its next chapter.
This is a picture of Jackie, still the owner of the House at 53 Elgin during this chapter of its life. I was there too, of course, taking the picture. Shortly after the picture was taken, Loreen, Jackie and I enjoyed the last dinner that we would share with the house. It was quite uneventful. I didn’t fall over in a chair or get locked in a room and the house didn’t make any Christmas trees fall over. It just stood quietly keeping us warm, dry and safe while we shared more stories of the past and planned for the future as has happened in this kitchen for the 54 years of this chapter.
The House at 53 Elgin is a good house. Its life goes on while this chapter has finished. As with all relationships, the memories are still very real and they will continue with us as we go through our own chapters in other houses with other keys, in other kitchens and with other people.
We wish you well House; thank you for keeping us warm and dry and safe for all those years and for sharing a chapter of your life with us. It is a favorite chapter in our lives too.
The next morning, we packed ourselves into our rented half-ton and looked back at the House at 53 Elgin Street as we drove off for one last time.
