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Evelyn Clare (the Clare to perpetuate the Clary name), was born at the Palermo farm on March 5, 1891. She would be eight when they moved to the Bronte farm, In graduating from the Bronte Public School she won the highest marks in Halton County in the High School Entrance exams. After Oakville High School she became something of a pioneer. In an era when nursing, teaching or marriage were practically the only options open to females, she went to a school of telegraphy and learned to be a telegraph operator. She lived with our grandparents at 540 Broadview Ave., and got a job at the Spadina Ave., branch of Great North Western, now Canadian National, Telegraph.

A Big Trip

In 1912 she enjoyed a lengthy trip to Western Canada. With our grandparents, she visited the homes of some of our uncles, who had taken up farming there, and made lasting friendships with many of our western cousins. It has been rumoured that one purpose of this trip was to entice her away from some of the Bronte swains, with whom she had been friendly. It was a wish of our parents that we should not marry into the local families. Bronte was a rather rough little village with a very high level of intermarriage and a rather low level of education and occupation, and neither of these levels was what they wished for us. I have heard also that the older boys in the family helped save their sisters from this fate by hiding in the raspberry patch adjacent to the cemetery and scaring the daylights out of boyfriends returning from dates, most of them running flat out past the graveyard. The purpose of the trip was accomplished and a new romance was begun, this time with her future husband, Frank Beasley. He was the older of two sons of Andrew Jackson Beasley and Selena Pisher, both of English parentage, who lived at Courtright, Sarnia, and then Toronto. Frank was also a telegraph operator. He had met our brother Russell while working at the Oakville railway station when Russell was at the Bronte station and they visited back and forth. Then Frank joined the Great North Western at the Parkdale Branch in Toronto. Evelyn was in his area, and noticing that she was a slow "sender", he decided to pay a visit and find out why. From then on the slow sending didn't matter; he decided that she was the girl for him, They were married at the Lakeshore house on a perfect June 2, 1915. What a wedding! I will give-you a five-year-old's version of it, for it had such an impact on me that I still remember it clearly. (Be sure to study the group photograph taken on the lawn after the ceremony.) It tells the story graphically.

A Big Wedding

To begin with - an event in itself - a seamstress was imported from Toronto to help with the trousseau. The big all-purpose - certainly sewing - room upstairs was the proverbial hive of activity for what seemed to me was weeks, but was probably a few days. Then, as the day approached, the younger ones of us were dispatched, probably to get us out of the way, to the graveyard and environs to gather great masses of lily-of-the-valley which grew wild there. We made the house a veritable bower, the bride was ready except the traditional orange blossom halo to fasten the veil. Aunt Amy was bringing it from Toronto. Horrors! She arrived without it. So she snatched up bunches of the lily-of-the-valley and made a very attractive one. Notice it in the picture, Then the groom arrived. Until then my world had been peopled by bland-faced, blue-eyed, straight-haired blondes. Here was a creature from another planet, with a sharp profile and a mass of dark, bushy hair,come to take my sister away, Terrified, I crouched behind the big morris chair. Amy, who had been commissioned to look after me, dragged me out and held me erect with such a vise-like grip on my wrist that I thought my hand would drop off. That's about all I remember of the ceremony.

There was yet another hitch. When all was in readiness, it was noted that Uncle George and family had not yet arrived from Ash (on the Town Line, now Tremaine Road, near Milton). So we waited. krentually they made the scene, the four of them, Uncle George, Aunt Pina, Melvin, a little older than I and Penny a. little younger. As they had come by horse and buggy, all were tired, hot and dusty and carrying a change of clothes for each of them, in a huge clothes basket. So they were ushered upstairs and we waited while they washed and changed. From then on the ceremony and the lovely reception on the lawn went smoothly. Bernice, in a pretty yellow figured dress, was bridesmaid and Harold best man. I don't know why not Russell, as he was Frank's friend as well as Evelyn's brother, but I can guess that he was too shy. Once more during the day I distinguished myself. When it came time to serve the cake, Melvin and I were discovered in the back kitchen industriously eating the tiny silver bullet-like candies with which it was - or had been - decorated. I have never been allowed to forget this episode. The honeymoon, as custom then decreed, was in Niagara Falls, after which the young couple lived with the grandparents at 840 Broadview.

The First Grandchild

Next in the natural course of events was the birth of the first grandchild. Bertram Clare Beasley was born on his mother's twenty-fifth birthday, March 5, 1916. I was then six and not yet in school. So, much envied by the older ones, I made the long adventure-packed trip by Radial car, Oakville jitney, train and streetcar with Mother, who was going to help care for the new baby. I also had a baby - my doll - resplendent in a new coat and bonnet made for the occasion of cream-coloured serge left from Evelyn's going away suit. It was my first look at a new-born baby, and a shock it was. He was very big and very red and more inclined to cry than to play, and considerably less attractive than my doll.

When Bert was a few months old, the Beasleys moved to a flat on Garden Avenue for 8 years and then to their first house, on Waverley avenue in the Beaches district. Here their second child, Harold Wilson Russell, was born on February 26, 1918.

They wanted to honour Harold and Russell, who were both in France at the war and, of course, might not return. But the two names did not sound right together, and so they put Frank's middle name between them; hence H.W.R. Beasley. Actually, he was supposed to be a girl and to be called Anne, and so he was called Harold-Anne for a while. I visited them when Bert was a toddler and Harold in the carriage, and when Evelyn took us out for walks she was indignant that people supposed. I was her eldest child. but this was natural, as I was small for my age. and Evelyn was nineteen years older than I. The long-held wish for a little girl was finally granted when Beverley Beryl Elizabeth arrived on September 17, 1930, when they lived in an apartment on Withrow Avenue in Toronto. Evelyn was fond of both names Beverley and Beryl and couldn't bear to leave either out, but thought the alliteration of B.B.B. sounded silly, so stuck the Elizabeth in, for grandmother and great-grandmother. Daisy Crosby and Amy lived with the Beasleys that summer, while taking summer courses, and they played so much bridge they thought the baby should have been called Bridget. Maybe that is why Beverley plays so much bridge now!

Constantly On the Move

The Beasleys seemed to be compulsive movers. They lived variously on a second Waverley Road, this time on Hamilton-Beach, Withrow Avenue, near Aunt Amy's house in Toronto, Hammersmith Avenue, again in the Toronto Beaches, Sammon Avenue in Northeast Toronto, Brentwood Road in The Kingsway, Toronto, and three houses in Bronte, the one on Millionaire Row on Triller across from the school, the "cottage" and finally the one on Bronte Road that they bought from Frank Rivaz, (Amy 's father-in-law). This was their longest stay, till Evelyn's death in July 1970, after which Frank sold the house and moved to the apartment on Marine Drive, and spent several winters in California with his half-sister, Mrs. Irma Zens. An interesting sidelight is that he sold the house to Jim Joyce, son of Percy Joyce, Evelyn's beau of many years ago. Jim's wife is Anna Wiffen, Evert Tyrrell's cousin. Small world! The Beasley's and Taylors had bought a four-grave plot in Mount Zion, a peaceful, wooded cemetery in Copetown near the Taylor's home in Rockton. They said jokingly that when they were all finally there they could have a some good uninterrupted games of their beloved bridge. Evelyn was the first of the foursome to go to rest there.

During their years in Bronte, Frank and Evelyn took an active part in church and community affairs and the social life of the village, and had many friends. Plans were all made for a big celebration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1967 but Evelyn's illness forced a cancellation.

In their early years in Bronte Frank had one of the first Ford cars, which he drove to Oakville and then commuted by train to work in Toronto, He also had one of the earliest radios, a crystal set which he built himself. I enjoyed baby-sitting then, as I got to have the radio, with its headphones, all to myself. A real thrill in those days. Another novel feature of the house hold was the communication system which Frank set up, and the little boys and I became quite proficient at the Morse code.

Frank Joins Bell

After his stint with the Great North Western, Frank joined Bell Canada, where he stayed for forty-four years and seven months till his retirement early in 1969. In the early stages he was a trouble-shooter, measuring problems in open wires and cables and despatching workmen to the appropriate areas. Later, he was in the construction and programming branch, in charge of all offices north of Toronto, engineering extensions to existing offices and assigning equipment to new offices.

Frank still keeps house for himself in the Marine Drive apartment, with frequent visits to Beverley and family at Sault Ste. Marie. He is now recovering nicely from a heart attack suffered there on Easter Sunday this year, 1982. Now I will trace the careers of the three Beasley offspring and their progeny.