Anne Yuill's childhood memories of Edmonton

Anne Yuill fondly remembers growing up in downtown Edmonton in the early part of the twentieth century.

Living as I did in the C.P.R. Building in downtown Edmonton , some of my playing fields were a bit different to those living in houses. My early days of course were on the stone covered roof of the building. There must have been sand or dirt in a pile for me to play with as I recall making a few mud pies. As I had a great passion for tasting everything. I tried my wares and found them to be not as tasty as I imagined. These tasting sprees seemed to occur when mother was not right at hand. There were many things that I ought not to have sampled but my worst experience (to me anyway) was the sampling of what Mother had put in a small stoneware jar. The light was a bit dim where the pantry cupboard was located so I couldn’t see the contents exactly. As Mother had always put her lemon cheese filling for tarts in that jar, I took out a large spoonful – what I got was a large spoonful of roast fat. I hated anything greasy or fatty so I guess it was payback time.


As I got a bit older in the 1920’s I joined the rest of the downtown resident kids in play at the market square which was located at the east side of the block on which the Library is located today. In the daytime part of it was a parking space for the farmers’ horses and wagons and a few cars. At night it was vacant so we could play scrub baseball or other games such as Run Sheep Run or Kick the Can. The first mentioned game was divided into 2 teams with a captain on each team. The captain would draw a map in the dirt with a few false or unnecessary moves to confuse the other side. If the team that was hiding got back to GO before the other side found them, they were the winners. Jacks was another popular game for girls. Apparently they are still available but they are made in plastic now and not nearly as easy to play. Sometimes we would take each jack and twirl it to run on the floor just like a spinning top and try to get them all spinning before the first one stopped. Boys played marbles – especially in springtime. Actually I was better at marbles because I had a good eye and thumb that helped me to clean up on the boys sometimes. I remember going home with all the marbles several times. I didn’t always shine at sports though. If there were 9 on the baseball team I was 10th best and the same thing at basketball. I did get to “ump” the boys’ baseball games on several occasions much to their dismay.


As to hockey and skating, there were very few people who did figure skating in my day and most of the girls wore the same type of skates as the boys. We didn’t require much equipment either. I recall in the 1950’s when our boys were playing hockey at the rink in Barrhead, he told them they didn’t need to buy shin pads. He said all they needed was a couple of Saturday Evening Post magazines and the rubber sealer rings and they made great shin pads.


There were no televisions or computers in those days, so unless the weather was bad, we were outside. Sometimes we would take the large cardboard boxes that had contained toilet tissue or paper towels over to McDougall Hill. One person would get inside and the others would push the box over the hill and one would go tumbling down among the Saskatoon bushes. There was a path that sort of angled downhill in a westerly direction so sometimes in the winter we would take our toboggans down. Another of our winter jaunts was standing on the back runners of the ice man’s sleigh and horses and go for a ride down to the river to pick up ice. People had iceboxes then instead of electric refrigerators.


The Little Gem Confectionery was about the third business down from the Imperial Bank on the north side of Jasper Avenue going east from 100th Street. My friend, Gladys Schuler (now Burrows)_was usually there on weekends and during the summer holidays with her parents who owned the store. We became great friends and have remained friends all these years.. Sometimes I would take the street car over to their house on the Southside to 99th Street and 88th Avenue. I would pretend my doll and I were going on a trip and I would have the doll’s suitcase along and undress and dress the doll as I went on the long ride over the bridge. When the doll period was over, we started playing office at my home. Then we called ourselves Tillie and Bubbles. There was a comic strip at that time called Tillie the Toiler. Tillie never appeared to be doing much toiling ….. just sitting at her desk with a single rose in a vase. Other popular comic strips in those years that I remember were “Mutt and Jeff”, “Maggie and Jiggs” (also known as Bringing Up Father) and “Our Boarding House”.


When we grew up I became a legal secretary and Gladys became well known in downtown Edmonton as she managed the United Cigar store for many years and after it closed she was the hostess at the Beefeater restaurant downstairs in the Royal Bank Building on the corner of 101 St and Jasper.