So where was Milt Phillips garage? So what was in that empty spot next to the Brown stone home on Mill Street in Carleton Place that is now an empty parking lot? Here are Ray’s words: Originally the building was Don Switzer’s Chrysler dealership during the the ’50’s. The Switzer family lived in the former Brown residence. The dealership later became *Milt Phillips Motors where I worked while in grade 11 and 12 along with the office manager, Leo McDiarmid , the sole survivor of the four McDiarmid boys who went joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW I. first met Milt Phillips when he was my neighbour on Herriott Street. At that time he was a Sargent in the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps stationed in Ottawa. His family and mine are entwined through my sister who was/is good friends with his twins-Lynn and Lee. Sadly, my former boss *Milt Phillips passed away recently in his ’90’s in February. Ray Paquette Author’s note– I learned a lot about Milt Phillips from Wally Cook when I was fighting to get the North Industrial Park name changed to the Dunlop Industrial Park. These men that were once involved in our running our town were amazing and should never me forgotten. I once asked Wally if they ever had closed/off camera town council meetings and he shook his head and began to laugh, “Heck, we only had one because McKittrick was sick and we didn’t know what to do.”
Linda;
Merrill Fisher, a good friend then and now, sent me these pictures of the dairy. Can anyone name all those on the steps of the dairy in 1955?
Central School– Bridge Street Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum
t was no secret that teacher Miss Lowe at the Central School in Carleton Place was mean. Well, she wasn’t mean in the dictionary sense- she was just a very tough disciplinarian. One day she instructed a couple of scalawags to stay after school in order that a mystery might be solved. Even though the clock had struck 4 no one was going anywhere until someone fessed up who stuck the bent pin on Mickey Lee’s seat.It had began innocently enough when Mickey had stood up to read about “Casper and the Setting Sun”. Leaving his seat mate, Norm Strong, meant Norm could tend to the business of constructing a bent pen pin and some cardboard into some rough torture device. As the end of the reading came near, Strong decided his creation should be placed directly on Mickey’s seat. When Mickey sat down he made the fact known in quite the Academy Award manner. As usual, no one could give Miss Lowe any information about the matter.After school, the boys expected to feel the wrath of Miss Lowe, but bad or good luck, a fire suddenly broke out in Sam McGonnigals’ / McGonnegal livery stable, which was a short distance from the school on Victoria Street. As the smoke from the burning hay and straw was seen gaining momentum in the sky Miss Lowe had no choice but to quickly dismiss her students.
Jim McKittrickWhat I remember about Central school was theTombola held in the school yard I went to school on the north side of town Carolyn
Michael LotanWent to Central School 1 – 8 Mr MacAdam was the principal. In those days the had the “strap” for problem kids. No one talks about that any more.
Boys to the right side girls to the left side I got into trouble going to the girls side and lifting their skirts I was a bad
–Dan Williams A little story about pole vaulting in Carleton Place. When I was just a wee lad we used to go to the bush and cut our own poles, we made stands and bought bamboo at the Eades’ store for a crossbar. We got shavings for the pit at the shavings at the corner of Lake and Beckwith. We would set this up in someone’s back yard until we decided that the back corner of Central school play ground was better because we had a longer approach. We didn’t have a box so we just dug a hole in the ground. Eventually we convinced the public shools to include pole vaulting in our field days.This wasn’t easy and I recall one attempt when I got my feet over the bar but didn’t have the steam to make it completely over. Not knowing wether to let go of the pole and drop straight down or hang on and go backwards I wished they had told us it was too dangerous. Anyway I lived to jump again.We finally had real equipment at least, even if it was just bamboo. Eventually we made it to high school and had acces to fiberglass and metal poles. The great thing was we could use them after school and even weekends and holidays. We were never supervised. We just did it. Myself, Wayne Robertson, Shad Hurdis, Lindsay Hedderson, Bob Townend, Duck Lancaster and a few others used to spend hours at the pits between Lake ave and the track. Eventually we all made the school track and field teams and competed against each other. Just as we had been doing for years. It was the best of times. I apologise for missing some names but I’m getting older now and the memory isn’t what it used to be but I’ll never forget the hours I spent with my buddies just having fun.
Once upon a time I found out from the locals that the front of my home in Carleton Place was featured in the opening of theHi Diddle Dayshow. Hi Diddle Day was a CBC Ottawa production designed to entertain and inform young viewers for years. The uniquely-produced series starred a number of puppet characters (created, manipulated and voiced by Noreen Young) who “lived” in an unusual household.
Noreen Young, producer Audrey Jordan and the rest of the Hi Diddle Day crew always felt that Gertrude Diddle and her menage were different. Moulded from latex, they were capable of much more than “lip-syncing” to the words put in their mouths by puppeteers Young, Johni Keyworth and Stephen Brathwaite. The puppets indulged in enough horseplay to keep the very young giggling while, through situation gags and punning jokes, and they also appealed to the more sophisticated youngsters and older teenagers like myself.
Anyone that knows me knows how much I worship the ground puppeteer Noreen Young walks on. I have been honoured to participate in the late great Puppets Up! parade in Almonte, Ontario and try to follow her every word like:
“Linda, your Elvis puppet is looking a little ragged. His hair is “off” and he needs an eye!”You know things like that.
The setting of Hi Diddle Day was a remodeled Victorian house in Crabgrass, in a typical small Canadian community (Carleton Place). In the house lived Mrs. Dibble, and a host of zany puppet characters. Other puppets were Basil the Beagle, Durwood the Dragon, Wolfgang Von Wolf, Granny, Chico The Crow, a French-Canadian moose called Ti, Lucy Goose and others.
Being an extreme puppet lover I was thrilled that my home on Lake Ave East was home to Hi Diddle Day. When my youngest son vacated the house for his own new home Mom converted his room into a Puppet Room. She took apart his gun case and fashioned it into a puppet theatre filled with vintage puppets– mostly from the Hub in Almonte. Her grandchildren still look at the room today full of strange puppets and do not want to go in there— and their poor grandmother wonders why. I believe the word creepy has been used.
This week Gord Cross, who has been sending me in some local stories, sent in one that had me screaming in the house. I have a hard time moving these days but I can still scream.
When I was young and lived at 16 Rochester St. we knew your home as the Raeburn house. During the 50’s a picture of it was used in the CBC TV show “Uncle Chichimus” (this sounds right but I am not sure of the spelling). The show was in black and white, of course, but the Marching Saints Marching Bandwere invited to the show once and I, as the band leader, was invited to interview with the puppet Uncle Chichimus. I was amazed to see that he was red and green with lots of paint chips . The band was lined up on one side of the room and played a number.Hopefully, someone may have a picture for you because that would be an interesting sidelight about your home.You might have to poll retired members.
Granted I was 2 when the program began but I knew nothing about this and was really intrigued that another puppet had graced my home. Uncle Chichimus was an intellectual puppet down on his luck and scorned almanacs. Knowing a good thing he moved in with puppeteer John Conway and Hollyhock, the mop-haired secretary housekeeper. The program, which originated in Toronto was seen in Ottawa five times weekly. Weatherman Percy Salzman used to drop in to do the weather and they would all talk about what was on TV that night. The director of this show was none other than Norman Jewison. Yes, that Norman Jewison who went on to make Hollywood films like Moonstruck, The Hurricane and, Jesus Christ Superstar among many. Please note that Uncle Chichimus is not noted on his Wikipedia page.
Percy Salzman
To make this story way more interesting Uncle Chichimus and Hollyhock were kidnapped in 1954. In what became front-page news in Canada Toronto’s CBLT-TV studio switchboards were jammed with calls by worried friends and admirers of the popular puppet stars. John Conway, creator of Uncle Chichimus, publisher, and world traveller decided to act as a detective to find his two puppets. He offered a $300 reward for the return of the two missing 24 hours after the daring kidnapping on the downtown streets. The CBC coughed up an additional $25 reward the next day. About 200 children called the studios offering their dolls or puppets as replacements for the two “stars”. Who would guess people would steal puppets? Apparently, it is a common thing as in Was Wayne Rostad’s Puppet Ever Found?
Conway had insured the puppets for $150 each and said that it would take about four days to reproduce them. No ransom demands had been received by the puppeteer. Conway, whose studio was on downtown King Street West, left his station wagon parked in front of his offices. On the rear seat was a duffle bag with the pair enclosed. Conway, unfortunately, forgot to lock his car door, and when he made a search of the car the next morning, the bag and its contents were missing.
CBC-TV officials were concerned over the disappearance and featured the kidnapping on the News Roundup films. The kidnapping had occurred on the eve of Chichy’s, Hollyhock’s and Larry Mann’s departure via a recently-acquired sailing vessel from Lobster Landing, in the Maritimes. Departure had been delayed when corks, used in the hull to stop leakage, kept coming out.
Uncle Chichimus was actually the first personality seen on CBC TV when it began broadcasting. He was revived for a for a 26-episode The Adventures of Uncle Chichimus in 1957. Later he and Hollyhock jumped ship to CJOH in 1961 as nothing seemed to be the same after the abduction as part of a new show called Cartoonerville. CBC replaced their time slot with a show called AdLib– and trivia buffs should note that: no, it was not the game show AdLib. This is CBC we are talking about, and the AdLib we are talking about was set in a rural setting. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Since then, the surviving puppets have been put into mothballs at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, and the collection is reputedly complete. John Conway became a teacher in the Glebe. The original puppets were never found and it does not look like everything ended up happily ever after.
Mrs. Gertrude Diddle Mayor Gertrude Diddle, the star of the 1970s CBC children’s show Hi Diddle Day, became an object of fascination for Ronnie Burkett, a devoted fan of the show. “She was the most outrageous, gayest, campiest puppet in history at the time.” Her creator Noreen Young would later meet Burkett, promising to leave Mrs. Diddle to him in her will. But Burkett was far too impatient to wait for Young’s demise and so one day the puppet arrived in the mail. “She’s my muse. She can’t be topped.” He says he’s always had a version of Mrs. Diddle in his shows. A regular on the show was the mailman, Mr. Post, played by Bob Gardiner. Musician Wyn Canty appeared occasionally as music teacher. There were also guest appearances by experts in the fields of music, art, science, entertainment and sports. The show was originally seen only in Ottawa, Montreal and the Maritimes. By 1970, its popularity led CBC to turn it into a national children’s series.
Carole Ann BennettMy mother took me to see a live show I believe being broadcast from Ogilvy’s Department Store around 1952 or 53.I think that Chich was coloured green and Hollyhock was yellow!-Lost Ottawa
Skip LaytonI was on this show with my art class, and won a pencil sharpener,shaped like Timothy, the mouse who rode around in Dumbo’s hat. I still have it. Fun memories. I remember being startled that Chichimus was green. Guess it looked better on B&W TV.-Lost Ottawa
The Soviet Union successfully launches the Sputnik 3 satellite on May 15th. The satellite carried twelve experiments into space and its mission was to study the composition of the atmosphere and cosmic rays while orbiting the Earth. At the time, Sputnik 3 was the largest satellite ever launched and it weighed nearly 3000 pounds. The cone-shaped satellite remained operational for 692 days before it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in April of 1960, disintegrating upon re-entry.
I grew up, ages 7 to 12 years old, living in the apartments in the former hotel that is prominent in the first photo (Snedden Hotel). During our youth, we spent a lot of time at the station and not on rare occasions earning the wrath of Mr. Mitchell for climbing the Norway Maples that lined Miguel Street.Mr. Dunphy was in charge of the Express/Baggage as assisted by Mr. Simpson in Express and Joe Hawkins in Baggage. *Mr. Raeburn was the Station Master (he lived on Lake Avenue east in your current home (Springside Hall). Ted Lemaistre worked the telegraph and assisted Mr. Raeburn.Trains ran through Carleton Place beginning at about 2:30 a.m. with the Trans Continental from the West ending the day about 9:30 p.m. with the final Toronto Pool train.The Ottawa newspapers arrived in Carleton Place aboard the 4:30 Toronto Pool Train and all the carrier boys congregated in the express area to get their papers for distribution throughout the town. Later Mr. Paul won the contract from the newspaper and delivered the papers to the back of Ernie Foote’s Photography that was on Bridge Street about three doors south of the Queens Hotel.
The Words of Gord Cross
I, too, lived in this building for a year or so. When we moved to CP in 1944 we rented the house at 16 Rochester St. Dad was the salesman for Canada Packers in the area. In ‘48 the owners of the Rochester house decided to move back so we had to get out in May. There being no rentals available we rented a cottage at Lake Park and my sister Gwen and I rode our bikes to school each day. I was in Central and she was at CPHS. That fall we moved into this building then later into the Pye house on the other side of the tracks almost opposite to the station. While in the apartment I played with a new bunch of kids, often being chased away from the station where we enjoyed the luggage wagons. One of the group was Deanne Buffam who years later came to Renfrew as Deanne Dunlop (her daughter was actually our doctor’s nurse, and moved into the home adjacent to mine. Small world.
Snedden Hotel on Moore Street (Franktown Road)– the building across the street used to house a rag business and was The Grand Central Hotel.. Photo-Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museumcomment symbol icon
Bill RussellTammy Marion Mike and Kit. Played slot cars in the huge front room on many occasions with Kit.
Ruth SawdonYvonne Robillard That would be them, I babysat the boys when they lived on Moore St. in the long row house beside the dairy. Their dad, Johnny Morgan was a brick layer. Really nice people.
Sarah PhillipsMy parents lived here when they got married and always refer to the building as ‘Morgans’
Anne CramptonRemember when Rick Rick Heather Deschamps lived in that house, long ago.
Tom MontreuilMorgan sold it years ago .miss Morgan passed a couple years back and sadly Chris had a heart attack and left us a short time ago spent a lot of time in that house as a young lad with Chris miss him was a great freind
Dale CostelloLived in this home as A very young lad. Also delivered the Toronto Star and The Star Weekly. Not sure if I made a profit or not as street hockey was number one nightly.
As a follow up to Ray’s comments on the side door – prior to my grandparents moving to Down Street, they may have occupied the same lower apartment. My mother shown here, is off to nursing school in Connecticut circa 1925 sitting on the same side door steps.
Andrew Elliott
Did you know that this building still has the original painted sign on its side, but only when the sun shines in a certain angle? We have a photo of this that shows up in one of the photo collections at Library and Archives Canada. This place deserves some recognition and some tender loving care! 🙂
lindaseccaspina 