|
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
Prepared for Life
|
|
Herbert Cooey insisted his children attend Central Tech
|
| |
| By Tom G. Kernaghan |
| |
If you bring a smiling visage to the glass
You meet a smile.
|
| |
|
|
| |
“I count this thing to be grandly true,
that a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common cloud
To a purer air and a broader view.”
|
| |
| |
William Kemp
C.T.S.
October/1924
|
|
|
|
| |
Herbert Cooey insisted his children attend Central Technical School,
in his opinion the best school in the city. Though their Bathurst Street home was considered
outside the school’s district, the three Cooey kids—Grace, Donald, and Hubert—raced off to
CTS, to become their father’s children—technically inclined and prepared for life.
Born in Toronto, on July 6, 1881, Herbert was a natural entrepreneur. He left school at
age thirteen and became a tool and die apprentice, both in Toronto and, briefly, in
Cleveland, Ohio. Quick to learn, he mastered his trade, and in 1903 opened his first shop
at Queen Street and Spadina Avenue. His business and technical acumen flourished. By the
end of 1907, he had built his first car and had designed efficiency improvements to the
combustion engine: pre-heated fuel and dual exhaust valves. In 1909, he moved his
machining plant to the northeast corner of Bridgman and Howland avenues. Here his business
shot forward when he brought his Cooey .22-calibre hunting rifle to the market, and
secured a large contract to manufacture munitions for the government during the First World War.
Though occasional economic slow-downs had touched the area, by the 1920s life in the north
Annex was grand and growing. Council minutes on June 2nd, 1924, just days after Herb penned
the above entry, reflected the growth of Toronto’s choice northern suburb. Issues of the day
included the expansion of the water works system, the growing need to deal with sewage in
the Village of Forest Hill, higher rates for commercial lighting to pay for the much the
needed expansion of the hydro-electric system, and the paving and TTC track allowance on
Davenport Road between Dovercourt Road and Bathurst Street.
Herbert felt optimistic and undaunted about his business. His firm was growing and he’d
acquired cottage property on Lake Joseph. And yet for all of his fearlessness, Herbert was
almost obsessive about safety when it came to guns, his or any others. In fact, a Cooey
company motto was “Safety First.”
|
|
Herbert Cooey as a baby in a photo taken at
The Dominion Photo Studio, 388 Queen St. W., circa 1882.
|
As a child I could hear his voice through Grace whenever she scolded my brother and me
for pointing water pistols at each other at the cottage. Never, under any circumstances,
were we to point any gun at anyone. Grace admired their strength, but understood and
respected the terrible power of guns, which makes this entry in the June 1927 C.T.S.
Vulcan magazine (her last) all the more amusing: “[Grace] will eventually take to hunting
wild animals with her father’s guns.” The Grace I knew was an animal lover, and, except for
fish, never willingly harmed an animal in any way.
On May 29, 1924, the Globe and Mail reported that Fred Bowen, a 24-year-old Trenton man,
had been accidentally shot to death by a 16-year-old girl in Niagara Falls, Ontario. If she
was aware of this at the time, Grace would’ve been deeply saddened by such a tragic mishap.
Having grown up in the wake of the First World War, she knew about the dark potential of
firearms mixed with malevolence, not to mention the delicate irony of her family fortune.
Years later, and not by accident, world war once again reared its ugly head, showing the
planet its darkest use of modern weaponry. Though she was an extremely proud Canadian,
Grace acknowledged her roots in Northern Ireland and England. So when the Second World
War broke out, Grace and her husband George willingly, and at their own expense, took
in two English girls—Alison Francis Napier-Clevering and Valerie Herron, after whom my
mother was named.
In the aforementioned Globe there also ran an ad for Dr. William’s “Pink Pills,” which
were meant to help women with their apparently inferior nerves. I know what Grace would’ve
said to this notion: rubbish. She would have said that while action often requires courage,
the same can easily be said about compassion and restraint.
Tom G. Kernaghan writes Through Grace’s Eyes, a monthly
column on Grace Eleanor Cooey, who was born and raised
in the Annex at the beginning of the 20th century.
(Through Grace's Eyes -- The Annex Gleaner -- July 2004 issue)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
