Another Orphan School Photo from 1919

While sorting and organizing my thousands of old photos, I came across another photo in my mother's cousin Doris Simpson's papers.  Doris was my grandmother's brother's only child and when she died in 1998 at the age of 89, all her photographs and photo albums came to me. Even though I do not know any of the people in most of her photos, I can't bear to throw them out without sharing them here. 

This is Lambton Park School, Toronto, 1919 at 50 Bernice Crescent, Toronto Ontario. Doris made a chart with her best recollection of the students' names. 

Back row: ?, Mr. Sproulx - principal, ?, Max Gilbert (wearing toque), rest unknown

4th row: Harrold Quarrington, ?, Florence Tipper, Alice Adams, Marion Mortimer, itola Quarrington, Ethel Chown, Frank Ellins?

3rd row: ?, Trudy Turner, Doris Simpson, Hazel Turner (with bow), Barb Douglas, Gladys Marrett, Kelly Taylor

2nd row: Diasy Chown, Janet Jamieson, Muriel Bell, ?, Dorothy Douglas, Lillian Marrett, Marjorie Summerfield, pauline Kerr

front row: Cliff Gilbert, ?, Norm Kirkwood, Robert Gilbert (holding sign), ?, ?, Billy Lee? , Jim Jemmett

If you have an ancestor in this photo and would like to own it, I will gladly send it to you free of charge. Just leave a comment on this blog post with a way to contact you.

Lambton Park Toronto School Photo 1919

The word prompt for the 17th Edition of Smile For The Camera is

School Days. It is September, historically the month when a new school year begins. We all have images of the days spent in school. The barefoot children gathered together with their teacher in front of the rural school your ancestors attended. Children at their desks, children at play in the school yard, and those obligatory school photographs - one for every year. Show us your family memories of school days.

I liked this idea of photographs of school days, because I have 3 family photos of class pictures from before 1920! It's really interesting to study the little faces of the children, check out their clothes and note the historical details.



So, here goes with my first photo, a picture taken in Toronto in 1919 at Lambton Park School (on Bernice Crescent in Toronto) with my mother's cousin Doris Simpson and her schoolmates. Doris is 3rd row from the front and 3rd girl from the left.

They look so cold and the young boys in the front row look so impoverished, their clothing is more ragged and assorted than some in the back rows. But WW1 had just ended and presumably money was tight. Some of the boys are wearing clothes far too small for them.

Don't you just love the little boys with their newspaper boy caps, looking straight out of the movie "Gangs of New York"!