On December 30, 1941 Winston Churchill visited Ottawa and made a passionate speech which greatly motivated Canadians. Below is a brief video I found on YouTube documenting this visit. My father, Leon Lipson, was somewhere in the crowd on Parliament Hill depicted in this video. He was a few days short of his 19th birthday (born Jan 5, 1923). He was so inspired that he was motivated to write a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, which appears below as well. Such an interesting piece of history!
ON April 3, 1957 Elvis Presley gave a concert in Ottawa, after having performed the day before in Toronto. While in Toronto, various news reporters tried but failed to get any sort of exclusive interview with him.
In Ottawa, my uncle Mac Lipson did manage to get an interview, and it is famous as one of the only audio interviews of Elvis outside of the USA. This interview appears all over the internet, including official Elvis websites.
Mac worked for CKOY radio at the time, although it seems this interview was also “claimed” by the CBC — presumably he was allowed to freelance his services to the CBC as well (or maybe just for this interview.)
I found a bunch of photos of the Ottawa concert, (which occurred 2 days after my 4th birthday 🙂 )
The famous audio interview by my Uncle is also below…
Elvis interviewed by Mac Lipson in Ottawa April 3, 1957
When we moved to Ottawa in 1965 we rented a house right on the border of the very upper-class Rockliffe neighborhood. Our side of the street was regular Ottawa, the other side started Rockliffe.
Rockliffe was interesting… Many huge mansions, and many international embassies and ambassador residences. To maintain a country feeling the streets were not paved, just crushed stone embedded in some sort of tar. No sidewalks at all. Busses did not enter Rockliffe, and it was illegal to hail a cab there (it had to be ordered by phone). None of that really affected us but it was interesting. In the autumn we could rake up all the leaves and burn them on the side of the road, but that was prohibited in Rockliffe!
The only schools nearby us were private and expensive. Besides, they were unlikely to accept Jews even if they hid that reason. So I was registered in the nearest public school, which was few miles away, which meant I had to walk several blocks and catch a public bus to get school. I was 12 when we moved, in grade 7.
The York Street public school that I went to was completely different from anything I had experienced. It was in a fairly poor area, and I quickly discovered that many of the kids would spend their lunchtimes shoplifting from nearby stores — and then bragging about what they got at recess time! Some of the boys also carried knives. I was in shock. I was likely the only Jew in the school as well. (Luckily we bought a house in the much more affluent and normal west end of Ottawa within a year, so I only had to endure this school for grade 7).
Truth is, I was exposed to some good things in that year. I had a great science teacher and since I loved science, I felt very comfortable in his class. I also made a couple of friends in that year, and joined a boy scout troop. The school also had a woodworking shop and I took that class and created a nice lamp 😁
Often during my lunch hour I would take the short walk to Rideau Street, where I would get an egg salad sandwich at the very Jewish deli called Rideau Bakery. Then I’d go to the old public library across the street, where I’d browse and read science books.
Our rental house at 10 Maple Lane, OttawaYork Street Public School, OttawaRideau Bakery and deliOld Ottawa Public library, Rideau streetThe lamp I made in woodwork class Boy scout, 1965 😂
Starting my first year of high school, I worked helping to beautify our cottage property. Although my parents paid me something, it became a work of passion for me.
The cottage property had a large scooped-out descent to the lake, somewhat treacherous to get to the shore. I planned out a series of patios and a small staircase, as well as a large rock retaining wall. We had a crew with a bulldozer lay some felled tree trunks to form the base of the retaining wall, and also had loads of earth, sand and concrete blocks delivered after I had done the basics, which included back-filling the gully with all sorts of landscape debris. I dragged tree stumps, branches and all sorts of stuff to be buried in the patio.
Once the basic structure was ready, it was a huge job to cover the ugly tree trunks forming the lake-side of the patio wall with a rock wall. Not wanting to bother with concrete (and liking the more natural look) I decided to simply slant the wall and let it support itself. Getting the rocks was a huge job — I took all that I could from the lake, but many more required hauling with a wheelbarrow from all over our property and the surrounding hills. Then it was a matter of placing each rock in a way that it fit securely to form the wall.
I added a rock fire pit for nightly bonfires next to a huge rock slab that couldn’t be moved, a rock and log staircase, and a small concrete block wall to create the two now-level tiers of the sand-filled patio. I also found and transplanted some small pine trees from the back lot to areas where we would appreciate them, and created a small rock-and-moss garden with transplanted wildflowers and moss.
In 1967 the Queen visited Ottawa for Canada’s centennial celebrations. I went down to the area where her car was said to pass on the way to parliament hill, and got in place to get a good shot.
I waited until the car was perfectly framed, and took the one shot that I had time for. My camera was manual and by the time I advanced the film for another shot the car had moved too far.
Being that this was way before digital photography, I had to wait a few days to get my film processed … And was devastated to find that someone in the crowd had waved just as I took the shot, and ruined what could have been a great photo!
At least I have the memory of being there, and the queen is visible even if Prince Phillip has no face 😂
The photo is also a somewhat sad commentary on a changing world… Note the lack of any major security, and the Queen and Prince standing in an open convertible!
Below my failed shot is a photo I found online that shows them probably an hour later in the parliament building.
Our cottage had a wood-burning stove in the living room, used both for atmosphere and for quickly warming up the place after the cold nights. We also made almost nightly outdoor bonfires in the fire pit I built.
This required lots of wood. We also had tons of felled trees from when we had the space cleared for the cottage itself. And the guys who felled those trees used their chain saws to cut the trunks into manageable lengths. But in order to use them, they had to be split into quarters or smaller.
I was not one to do much manual labor, but I guess I rose to the occasion. I spent a few hours each morning splitting logs with an axe. Then I created a huge split-log pile behind the cottage. Soon there were so many split logs that I worried about fire hazard, so I arranged them in walls so that there was plenty of air around them. This became our “log fort”, and provided an endless supply of wood for all the years we were there… and much was still left when we sold the place!
I’d always loved photography, but when I started high school I joined the photography club and discovered the fascination of darkroom work — developing film and printing my photos.
Withing the first two years, I actually did a bit of “semi-professional” work (in that I charged a small amount for my portrait services). I convinced a local boy scout troop to let me do portraits, and sold a few to their parents. I also did a few school teacher portraits, and (although I no longer seem to have them) several small jobs photographing other cottages and gardens at Battle Lake where our cottage was.
Although I barely remember even attending my high school graduation, I do have the official school photo taken for the yearbook.
Recently (2021) someone (thanks Susan Ostergaard!) found a photo of our whole graduating class (which I enhanced as much as I could). Although I was sure that I wasn’t a part of that posed photo — there I am, far left, top row!! Amazingly, I can remember a lot of names after over 50 years 🙂
Official portrait in school colors purple and gold
I’m top row, far leftPosted on Nepean Facebook group, a handwritten record of most of the names of the students in the photo, in order. Thanks to Heather Scott for both attempting the list (in 1971) and posting it (in 2021)!
When we lived at 562 Denbury in Ottawa I took on most of the landscape duties like cutting the lawn. I also planted some flower gardens, did the annual lilac bush pruning, and the year I graduated high school I decided that our front lawn could use a tree. We purchased a small (5′) silver maple sapling from Sears, and I planted it in the front lawn.
That winter a bad storm bent that sapling almost in half and I had to stretch it back up and add some stakes to try to save it. It did survive, but a small bend remained in its lower trunk.
Amazingly, I visited the house in about 2019 and found that not only was it still there, but it was now the tallest tree in the area, towering over our house! My high school graduation monument — 48 years later!!
