BOCA INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY

Saturday, December 31, 2011, 5:30 a.m.

Some one once asked me where I grew up. The answer was Harrogate, England until I was 5 months old, Pendleton, Ontario until late 1945, Cartierville on the north shore of Montreal until age 6 and then the Village of Saraguay for the next 15 years. I have a lot of good memories of my days in Saraguay but also some bad ones. I will only talk about the good ones today. Saraguay was a village of some 200 families stretched from the border of Pierrefonds on the west to Cartierville on the east. In 1914 the western section of Cartierville, then considered farming land and part of rural Cartierville was separated from the rest of Cartierville to form the new village, largely the result of the development of a cottage village at the west side and the many large estates owned by Montreal Stock Brokerage families and large flour millers which began on the eastern side of the village as summer estates. There were the Gordons, the McDougalls, actually four families of them, and the Ogilvies, father and son. Mixed among them were the Cape family, large construction people still active today and a variety of smaller houses, a number of which were chauffeurs and groundskeepers for the various families. Another MacDougall family lived west of Saraguay and the Pitfields, related by marriage also had an estate there along with a large shorthorn farm that turned the creek black. There were private roads to the city and a polo grounds along with a clay pigeon shooting range, one of our favourites. There was also a time when the Patton family, which lived on a private island across the river, used to have a private ferry they used each day to take them across the river to our side and then they would go by carriage to the city. That was 50 years before I moved to Saraguay so a lot had changed with the addition of Gouin Blvd. Gouin, through the estates was dotted by giant oak trees that reached for the sky and provided a canopy of shade for the road. I remember them well from the days of  Hurricane Hazel when 17 of them came down across the highway. I was on my way home from caddying that day and had to find coverage in a friend's house. As we looked out the windows we witnessed two trees coming down in the front yard, a result of lightening strikes.

Dad was Secretary-treasurer of the Village of Saraguay for some dozen years, faithfully putting out tax notices each winter. My mother was his tax collector and secretary. It was a family thing but it paid a hundred dollars per month, handy for a growing family of 4 kids. On the 50th anniversary of the village, the area was absorbed by the City of Montreal. The daily cost of maintaining a water system, the road surfaces and a waste disposal resevoir became too large to be absorbed by the people resulting in a need for more capital support. In 2014 we will say that was 50 years ago....yet it seems like yesterday as do the fond memories of living in the village, playing tennis and football, or the summers on the river. It was our village and remains that to this day.

Maybe one day before I die I will hear from some of those people I once played with as a child and of my closest friends from that era, I have already outlived several of them. Life is a journey from cradle to grave....I hope it will be a long and pleasant one for all.