Looking back at victory homes in NOTL

The federal government is expected to begin a consultation process this month to develop a catalogue of pre-approved home designs in an effort to accelerate the home-building process for developers.

When it was announced in early December, Housing Minister Sean Fraser likened the project to one from the post-Second World War era, when the Central Mortgage (now Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., or CMHC) developed simple blueprints to help speed up the construction of badly-needed homes for returning soldiers and their families.

That comparison brought to mind the continued existence of about 25 small homes on both sides of Nelles Street and the north side of Castlereagh Street, on the block where both intersect with King Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were also a couple of such homes on Davy Street.

Back in 2019, NOTL Museum volunteer researcher David Hemmings looked into the history of what was referred to as Victory Estate. The story behind the homes, most built in the late 1940s, is a fascinating and oft-overlooked snapshot of the town in the latter half of the 20th century.

“In the early days they were effectively rented out for a period of time,” Hemmings told The Local about the homes that originally sold for about $6,000. “After five years it moved to a lease with an option to purchase. By 1950 or so, most began to buy their houses from Central Mortgage, the company that built them.”

The details were all laid out in the Veterans' Land Act, 1942, including generous financing arrangements.

According to an advertisement Hemming shared that was published in the Globe and Mail at the time, “any ex-service man or woman with overseas service, or all who have served for 12 months in Canada, (were) eligible to make an application, providing they have been honourably discharged and have a reasonable expectation of living up to their agreement.”

Hemmings’ work discovered that most of this housing, built across Ontario, was prefabricated. Walls and roofs were built at a central factory then shipped to the final location for assembly. Once a street was constructed, it was neat, tidy, and uniform. The houses were generally one-and-a-half stories with a steep roof, shallow eaves and no dormers.

That’s an apt description of the homes built in NOTL through the program.

The last names of the original homeowners are like a Who’s Who of NOTL. If surnames such as Bjorgan, Clement, Cornfield, Garrett, Howse, Mills, and Sartor ring a bell it’s perhaps because many became prominent local citizens, continuing their commitment to serving by contributing to the town where they settled. And the next generations of their families often followed suit.

Coincidentally, the late James and Nancy Clark, the first residents and owners of the home at 308 King Street at the corner of Castlereagh Street, were the grandparents of NOTL Museum’s managing director and curator Sarah Kaufman.

“I don’t remember being in the house but my mother has many great memories of growing up there,” says Kaufman. “It was tiny, but my grandfather was a photographer and they had lived before in an apartment on Queen Street above his studio. When they moved there the house seemed huge to them.”

Kaufman’s mother Sherrie shared memories of running around the Niagara Common with her four siblings and playing on the steps of the museum. She described an idyllic lifestyle, with their elementary school Parliament Oak right across King Street.

“My grandfather was a veteran from the military police,” Kaufman explains. “First he was photographing soldiers for identification, then he was one of the escorts going across the ocean with prisoners of war. And my grandmother was a war bride from Croydon. She became heavily involved with the (Royal Canadian) Legion.”

Kaufman laments that the post-war homes are not protected with a heritage designation. The unique layout of the houses and the odd yet uniform sizing of each property, she feels, make them worth preserving as a monument to a different time.

Rick Mills, a pastor at Life Abundant Niagara on Concession 7 Road, spent his childhood at 14 Castlereagh Street. His parents Doug and Violet, the longtime town lifeguard known simply as Vi, bought the home from Violet’s mother Ivy Taylor, the original owner.

Mills’ grandfather Jack first came to NOTL when he was stationed at Camp Niagara. He died in 1948 of tuberculosis, and as a veteran’s widow, Ivy was eligible to apply under the Veterans’ Land Act.

“It had three bedrooms, two upstairs and one downstairs,” Mills says. “One bathroom, no shower. We had six kids in there, including two foster kids, and four of those kids were girls.”

Mills claims he was often still in bed when the first warning bell to start the school day at Parliament Oak went off, but he had enough time upon hearing it to get to class before the second bell. He goes on to list the names of his neighbours and estimates that at one time there were as many as 60 kids running around between the two streets.

“We were like one big collective family,” he remembers. “We had the only gas stove on the street at one time. Whenever the power went out everyone came over with their kettles to get them boiled. We shared eggs, milk, sugar, you name it.”

Until Vi died in 2020 the family still gathered frequently at the small home, which served as the base camp for events such as the Christmas Parade.

“Not having the house for the parade the last couple of years was really sad,” Mills admits. “My wife Cathy and I considered buying the house after Mom died, but we didn’t.”

Moe Bjorgan’s father Ken had left St. Catharines to fight overseas. He applied to the program when he returned from the war and he and his wife Flora became the first owners at 24 Castlereagh.

“It was a ridiculous price,” says Bjorgan of that house. “I think it was $5,400, and the interest rate was great and guaranteed for life. All the men on both streets were veterans, and they often got together, and so did the kids. And most of the families were pretty big, with six or seven kids.”

"We’d be playing ball hockey on the street, or British bulldog or kick the can,” he adds, laughing, “and we’d see the Simpsons-Sears truck pull onto the street around Christmas time. We would have a huddle and speculate on what that kid might be getting for Christmas. We would take our dune buggies and mini-bikes out on the Common, as it was wide open at the time.”

Following Ken Bjorgan’s death, Flora continued to live in the house until she moved into an assisted living facility just prior to the pandemic. There, she succumbed to COVID in June, 2020 at 99 years old. Like Rick Mills, Bjorgan family members also considered buying the old family home. Instead they sold the house after Flora’s passing for $445,000.

“Now they sell for 100 times what they were bought for back then,” Hemmings marvels.

Despite that, Hemmings is of the opinion that if a government program could have done what it did at the prices they offered, there must be some way a similar program can do the same to solve the affordable housing crisis, in Niagara and across the country.

Kaufman is sure most of the Victory homes facing the museum are currently being run as short-term rentals.

But the legacy lives on in her contributions to Niagara, as well as those of the Mills and Bjorgan families.

And of course, you have to factor in the likes of Al Howse, the current president of the NOTL Legion Branch 124, appropriately named the Nelles Branch, who grew up at 28 Castlereagh; and Harold Clement, the original owner of 331 Davy Street, who served in local government from 1963 to 1997 as a municipal and a regional councillor. Clement also sat on the boards of the Niagara Parks Commission and the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority. And is there anyone who didn’t know Vi Mills’ sister, Jackie Sentineal of Sentineal Carriages?

The post-war years were obviously a different time in NOTL’s history. But one has to hope that whatever comes of the federal government’s consultation process this month, some of these new by-design affordable housing units will end up in NOTL, and that they are effective in inspiring the same sense of community for the people who choose to live there as those who lived in the Victory Homes.