Welcome, Guest

• Forgot your password?
• Apply for membership

1. • CommentAuthorMonominto
   • CommentTimeMay 11th 2008

    
   Upscaling was taking place long before Sear's came along, I remember that well. True though Eaton's was known to be a Blue Collar shopping place for many years, with fantastic customer service.
   
   It was the kids that ruined it. no question.
2. • CommentAuthorweekit2
   • CommentTimeMay 12th 2008

    
   All this talk about Eaton's sure is nostalgic for me.
   The great Santa Claus parade,the christmas store displays,which I understand are now at the children's museum for anyone to see.
   I worked at the mail order for several years.It was always busy.
   My mother bought our school clothes on the budget,and,in those days, there was no instant credit.
   You picked out what you wanted,then went to the budget office,then if they approved the purchase you went to the various departments and got your stuff.Took all day sometime.
   What a difference from today!
3. • CommentAuthorMonominto
   • CommentTimeMay 12th 2008

    
   no kidding, you must have some terrific memories of those days.
   When Eaton's gave up the Santa Clause Parade, that, according to my dad, was the beginning of the end for Eaton's.
   
   And now just try to tell the children that at one time: there was only ONE Santa in all Winnipeg!! LOL
4. • CommentAuthorSam
   • CommentTimeMay 13th 2008

    
   Actually there was at least two Santas. Don't forget the Bay had their Santa as well. The Bay also opened the store early in the mornings around Christmas time for the employees carol singing which was broadcast on local radio. That was before they massacred the main floor and demolished the main staircase to the mezzanine where the choir assembled for the carol singing.
5. •  
     CommentAuthorjim
   • CommentTimeMay 13th 2008

    
   O yea the stairs they were neat to slide down the bannister as a kid.
6. • CommentAuthorMonominto
   • CommentTimeMay 13th 2008

    
   I remember those stairs too, up to the mezzanine area. I also remember that huge fish tank up in the pet department, must have been 10 ft square, now which store was that in?.....
7. • CommentAuthorSam
   • CommentTimeMay 14th 2008

    
   Both Eaton's and the Bay had a pet department with large aquariums full of gold fish for sale. Eaton's was on the third floor as I recall. The Bay's pet department was on the main floor for the longest time on the Vaughan street side. Both stores sold canaries and budgies too.
8. • CommentAuthorMonominto
   • CommentTimeMay 14th 2008

    
   Yeah, dad's told me about his father purchasing a budgie at Eaton's pet department for his mom, brought it home in a matchbox in his overcoat pocket in the middle of winter and it survived! LOL
9. • CommentAuthorMonominto
   • CommentTimeJun 15th 2008

    
   Dad remembers living on Sherburn Street and just beyond to the west was open fields right out to Stevenson Airfield, he and his buddies would walk all the way to Assiniboine Park every weekend; just for something to do.
10. • CommentAuthorrgalston
    • CommentTimeJun 15th 2008 edited

     
    My Grandfather, who grew up in the 1930s and 40s, has told me about the rooftop daycare that Eaton's operated at the time. My Great-grandmother would drop her boys off up there and go shop and have coffee in the Grill Room. There was a play structure up there.
    
    About the guy who lived in a mud hut at The Forks. I haven't heard that story, but I know that homeless men (and women?) have been living and hanging out on the banks of the Red River for over a century. From The CN Yards (Forks) to Point Douglas was known as Winnipeg's "hobo jungle," and I've heard one old timer talk about going down there to camp out and go on week-long drinking benders there during the '40s and '50s. He said lots of guys did that.
    
    Then there was something I read from a girl that grew up on Jarvis and Main in the 1890s, who remembers a guy called "Sacks-in-the-bush", who lived on the riverbanks and would come up to Main Street to panhandle and (according to the neighborhood kids) steal house cats.
    
    It makes sense that they would have gone down there, since it would have offered respite in the hot months, when it became too hot to drink on loading docks in Chinatown, or in bars on Main Street. It's fascinating to think that some would live there permanently.
11. • CommentAuthorMonominto
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2008

     
    Dad remembers too, the horse-drawn milk wagons, Eaton's delivery wagons from downtown with "polished" horses; everything gleamed! The vegetable carts driven by the Italians, knife sharpeners, all sorts of really neat stuff.
    Once school was out, the shoes and socks came off, the shirts were gone, and the kids ran around in shorts all summer long. Just had to make sure that they were home for lunch and dinner time.
12. • CommentAuthorrgalston
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2008

     
    Monominto -- You said your father grew up on Sherburn Street. I have friends who live there now, between Portage and St. Matthews. Is that around where your dad lived? It's becoming quite the nice street again.
    
    I always marvel at how horses and wagons, peddlars, animals, etc. were a part of neighborhood life in Winnipeg (and other Canadian cities) up until the '30s and '40. This probably has much to do with the prolonged Depression followed by the war.
    
    My own grandfather recalls his grandfather raising chickens in his backyard on McMillan Street in Fort Rouge in the late '30s; how he would kill them by grabbing them at the neck and whipping their bodies around.
    
    Yet at the same time, of course, Winnipeg was in most was more of a big city than it is now.
13. •  
      CommentAuthorMasterofChant
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2008 edited

     
    Moderator

    Posted By: rgalstonMy own grandfather recalls his grandfather raising chickens in his backyard on McMillan Street in Fort Rouge in the late '30s; how he would kill them by grabbing them at the neck and whipping their bodies around.
    
    Yet at the same time, of course, Winnipeg was in most was more of a big city than it is now.

    
    
    There's no correlation between keeping chickens and being metropolitan ;)
    
    Of course, whipping them to kill them isn't what most New Yorkers (for example) who keep chickens do with them -- eggs tend to be the desired outcome instead of meat.
14. • CommentAuthorrgalston
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2008

     
    Of course not. I think it's Seattle (maybe Portland?) where you are allowed a maximum of five chickens at a time. I would happily raise chickens: far more humane and practical than the large dogs people seem to think is normal to raise in the city.
15. •  
      CommentAuthorjim
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2008

     
    I remember when Lindenwoods didn't exist just a cow patsture, how fast it happens . This city has grown sometimes to fast development out of control. Funny that is what they said about East Kildonian .
16. • CommentAuthorMonominto
    • CommentTimeJun 19th 2008

     
    What's really needed for Wpg is real planning, by those who know how.
    
    Dad used to work at the old TCA shops out at Stevenson Airfield, walked or biked there for years, and I'll get the actual address for you, rgalston.
17. • CommentAuthorMonominto
    • CommentTimeJun 23rd 2008

     
    Dad used to live on Sherburn, 683 I do believe.
    
    He also remembers a young lady named Elinor Toffin (hope that is the correct spelling) who used to live on Gertrude Street in Point Douglas just a short distance from Brown and Rutherford.
    
    According to dad, she was a DOLL!!
18. •  
      CommentAuthorJimmytufish
    • CommentTimeJun 23rd 2008

     
    Gertrude Street??? ...in Point Douglas????...are you talking about Winnipeg?
19. • CommentAuthorMonominto
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2008

     
    whoops, sorry, got that wrong....... Stevens Street. MY BAD!!

    Thankful People: Jimmytufish
20. •  
      CommentAuthorJimmytufish
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2008

     
    ahhh...for a while I thought that there may have been two of them.