1940's - Nila Stringer

Nila Stringer wrote a piece for the Houndsfield Heights-Briar Hill Community Association History Book.

Here is the text she entered there:

1940s Anecdotal stories of growing up in Hounsfield Heights

Shooting Stars and Crocuses by Nila E Stringer

Ours was one of the 16 A St., post-war urban pioneer families of the new district of Hounsfield Heights. My parents, Howard and Lila Stringer, were frequently chided by their urban friends and relatives about moving way out of town, near Cochrane; that was considered miles out of Calgary at the time. Fourteenth Street was a very steep single dirt track and tough to navigate in the mud, for the old forties, two-wheel drive vehicles, the ice block truck and the horse-drawn milk wagon. That was the sum total of our services.

My parents bought a lot and a half for around $150. The house would eventually face the mountains with spectacular views of the city centre, the south hill and the west to the Rockies. My father was a post Air Force university student in the USA, when my mother and I, aged three, moved into the concrete basement with no windows and waterproofed flat roof. Two by fours alone framed the rooms; we had apple boxes for cupboards and saw horses and a wood slab for a table. My mother was a Calgary General nursing graduate who continued to work nights and, with the help of friends and neighbors, commenced the interior finishing including the insulation and wall board. My parents took out a $25,000 mortgage to complete the exterior of the upstairs of the house. That mortgage allowed for the outer wall of the house, the roof, concrete steps, heating and roughed-in plumbing. The remainder of the construction continued as the money became available which meant that we were basement dwellers until I was 12 or 13 years old. My folk’s first couch was an old second hand one for which my mother made slip-covers and she wallpapered the walls using the brushed blue method. We always had a piano and I remember the adults having some great times, rolling up the rug and dancing in the basement living room as my uncle played the piano. The neighbors would be at the parties as there was only one or two houses at that time.

The Hap (sic) and Marie Manning family, were friends of my parents prior to the building their homes side by side in 1945 and 1946, as Hounsfield Heights “urban pioneers”. Aside from our two families, there were about five large, older farm or acreage homes scattered over the hills and one old brick mansion was at the end of our street. There were five children on our street at the start; two McCready’s; Ken and Marie; two Manning’s; Lois and Ardel, and me, the preschooler. Before long the Pilling family built across the street and that raised the child count by six; Arta, Earl, Bonnie, Wyona, Darla and Rita. Things were looking up when more kids moved in.

One fondly remembered pasttime included picking crocuses on the hills and shooting stars in the boggy ground of the lower end of the field between 16A and 17th Streets, an area with a high water table which kept it unfit for building. This little piece of natural green space has fortunately remained, thanks to the vigilance of members of the community. This hill also provided hours of safe tobogganing over the years. In the early beginnings of our neighbourhood, we could see horses tethered out on the hills and farms in the distance but, as the community grew, the horses disappeared and the green space for crocuses and shooting stars naturally diminished as well. Our house had a garage and tucked into its inner sanctum was our main entrance. This was the only paved area where I could ride my trike or my pedal car and I was always envious of the kids in other neighbourhoods that had sidewalks and paved streets. It was several years before sidewalks and pavement came our way. By the time, our neighborhood was paved, I was long past a trike and a pedal car and the milk came by truck, but still in glass bottles. I remember that well because I dropped a full one on that same concrete garage floor, much to the dismay of my mother.

The elementary school was called the University Demonstration School located at what was then University of Calgary and what is now the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology Campus. I attended SAIT’s open house and was delighted to see that the beautiful of wood of the doors and frames, display cabinets, stairs, hall passages and auditorium in the old original build had been preserved. The murals above the stairs have been revitalized, cleaned and retouched by their original artist as well.

Kindergarten was at an old cottage school where Queen Elizabeth High School is at present on 5th Ave and 18th St; a long walk for a five year old. There were three of us who walked to kindergarten from 16A St at that time, Lorie Drew, Bonnie Pilling and me. One memorable kindergarten day occurred, when there was a huge snowstorm and our mothers had obviously collaborated on a means of getting us home safely, by sending a cab. We were not told about the plan though, and were scared by the change in routine, and by being called out of class by Mrs. Ledbetter, and then have to get into a car with a stranger! Most families had one car in those days, if they were lucky. The closest transit service was 15th St and 5th Ave.

At one early point in the neighborhood’s development, some ambitious parents on the block behind us, built a home made ice rink with one light bulb hooked to a pole. I’m not sure I could even skate when my mother dressed me up in a costume and skates and send me off with neighbor’s kids to join the fun. The closest commercial or municipal skating arena was the outdoor Crystal Palace Ice Rink and indoor pool on the corner of 10th St and 4th Ave, downtown. As preteens and teens we could skate to music there and meet the kids from other neighbourhoods that attended our school. It was a long, cold walk home after dark tough. Our closest grocer was on 14th St, almost at Kensington. I would be sent there, at age six, to buy bread or milk. It’s a sad statement that what was considered safe in those days is not so in today’s world. It must have taken me an hour to make that trip knowing how kids dawdle.

Another neighbourhood event that intrigued us as elementary school children was the birth of baby brothers and sisters. My baby sister, Terry, was born when I was seven and I remember playing outside with the neighbours’ kids when I coaxed them all inside. I trooped them all in to see the new baby in her crib that just fit behind my parents bedroom door. I remember an unusual feeling of power over the horde, because “I” had to tell them to be quiet and not to wake her up. I look behind that bedroom door now and wonder how any crib could have fit behind there. I also remember going up the street to see the McCready baby boy, Stuart, in his bassinette at the old red brick house. That house and yard was like a magnet to all the neighborhood kids, it had a five or six-foot good solid brick wall around a large yard with shrubs and huge trees that made wonderful grounds for imaginary games with monsters, dragons, cowboys, Indians, run sheep run, kick the can, hide-and-seek, and anything our pre-TV imaginations could muster. Unfortunately it was just a bit too far from home for me to hear my parents call me for meals and I often got into trouble for not coming right away. Time means very little to a kid having a wonderful time. Mr. and Mrs. McCready must have often felt inundated with noisy children climbing in the trees and bursting out of the shrubbery, but I do not remember ever hearing them complain or shooing us home.

When my father returned from University after the war he taught at Hillhurst School. One precious memory of mine was being allowed to attend his class of high school students one day, at the age of five. I was in awe of them. However, one of them was my occasional babysitter so there was a familiar face. My dad gave up teaching before my sister was born and went into business. My mother continued to work nights at the Calgary General Hospital until my sister was born and a lifelong friend, Mary Cooper, who came from the country into the city to attend Western Canada High School during the day, looked after me at night. Calgary did not have many high schools at the time. Queen Elizabeth Junior and Senior High School was built just in time for many of the children of Hounsfield Heights to attend. The junior high went into action first and grades ten to twelve were added just as I was moving up to the next grade. Prior to then, the high school kids had to travel to Crescent Heights to go to school.

When the Louise Riley Library was built, I was in heaven. It was a library within easy walking distance and my parents never discouraged my many trips there. Prior to that, the closest libraries were either Kensington Road or Center Street, both of which required an accompanying adult or a car to reach.

The early 1950’s polio epidemic was a genuine threat and an extremely stressful and fearful time for all parents and families. My mother was not working as a nurse at the time but certainly was the neighbourhood authority in many emergencies. She knew the people who had contracted the disease and the families that were quarantined. As a child, all I remember was having my activities severely curtailed and my mother being fanatical about hand washing. I could not go to friends’ homes and we did not attend public events or go to the public places often. I was too young to really understand the threat but I was irritated by having my activities curtailed. What kid wouldn’t be ticked off? Happily, all that care and attention worked. We did not contract polio, thanks to the diligence of our parents.

In 1954-55, the hills, that we tramped across daily to the University were bulldozed to build the Jubilee Auditorium. One of the most frightening events for me was having to run between huge dirt movers, and caterpillar tractors to get to school. I was never sure if the drivers could see us or not and the noise was terrific. I marvel that there were no severe accidents during that time; a tribute to the men who must have been frustrated by having children darting across their work area. We ran that gauntlet twice daily for months. Exciting, but terrifying at the same time as we climbed the huge mounds of dirt and dodged the machinery.

Before auditorium construction started, I remember, one Spring, being unable to go to school on the regular path because of an extreme thaw and major runoff that caused the little brook to flood so we could not get across. That meant that we had to walk north to 16th Ave, along it till we were past the stream and then across the hills west of 14th St to get home. We had all thought we already had a long enough walk! I rode my old balloon tire bike to school after I turned eleven, and age that my parents deemed old enough to manage a bike, and once a week I rose to the other side of the university for music lessons. Those were the late evenings coming home in all kinds of weather.

By the time my sister was old enough to go to kindergarten, she still had to walk to 5th Ave and 12th St to an old cottage school. My mother often used to send me to meet her because it was a struggle for the little tads to get up the hills in their big snowsuits and boots and they often stopped to play on the toboggan hills. It worried mom when Terry did not show up at the regular time. As a teenager, likely going through the subhuman phase of development, I was not thrilled having to walk down the hill again to fetch my mischievous little sister after having just walked up the hill from Queen Elizabeth High School. Fortunately, for my sister, by age six, she was able to attend the new Briar Hill Elementary School that was very accessible from our neighbourhood.

My parents did not have a car when we first moved to Hounsfield Heights and the purchase of our first car was a wonderful event and not without incident. One day, soon after its arrival, our neighbour, Marie Manning, spotted the driverless car backing down our steep driveway and up the street to pause in front of her house. She ran out outside to try to catch it. But the errant vehicle turned to the right, then headed over the bank. It just missed the Pilling house and ran on down the hill, where the shooting stars grew, with Marie in hot pursuit. My mother was home and heard someone holler but did not realize what was happening initially. Fortunately, there were few houses at the bottom of 17th St and the car came to a stop before causing too much damage. It gave us a great story to tell for many years. Marie took most of the ribbing for believing she could catch it and stop it, but her heart was in the right place. She knew the value of that car to the family and what a loss it could have meant if any injuries had occurred. It is a “Norman Rockwell vision” though, to picture a 50’s housewife in housedress and apron running through a field, after a car without a driver.

My sister and her husband now live in the house on 16A St., and although there have been disappointing changes in the neighborhood it terms of the loss of wonderful old neighbours, compromised panoramic views, increased population density, and traffic, this inner city neighborhood remains a pretty nice place to live with its access to the town center and amenities. Keeping the home in the family also allows me and my children to visit the home and neighborhood of their grandparents on a regular basis. My children did not know their grandfather and we did not have their grandmother with us for long either, but visits to the house always bring back memories that keep those family members forever in our hearts.

My brother-in-law is teaching at SAIT and twice daily he retraces the steps that I took fifty-two years ago, to attend my elementary school. To some it is a relief to walk mud-free on concrete over flattened hills. But for me, I’ve really enjoyed remembering the families, the neighbors, the childhood friends, the horses on the hills, the brook and especially the crocuses and shooting stars with great fondness and I don’t even think about the mud. I think that walking over grassy, wildflower-filled hills is better. Wouldn’t you agree?