Brazil Street Read online

  Dickie and I used the term “Orphan Lake” when speaking of the rich. If you had money and lived by a lake in the country, you and your family had it all. It was a symbolic term for us that meant you didn’t want for anything. When we saw a kid who was spoiled, we’d say that kid had found his Orphan Lake. He was well-off, whereas we had to scrape for everything we had. A lot of kids from that era were not even close to having found their lake, as most families were poor and their parents had little or no education.

  One time, Mr. Pardy, a friend of Dad’s who worked at Canadian National Railways, was trying to sell a large piece of land inherited from his family. He asked Dad to go with him to assess it. It was located just outside St. John’s, somewhere in Torbay. Mr. Pardy was rich enough to own a car, so he and Dad drove down there to look it over. They decided between them that it was worth at least $3,500 per acre. With about three acres on the land, there was a small fortune. Not trusting lawyers or banks, Mr. Pardy decided he would sell the land himself. He was retiring, and he needed the money to pay off his house. The land had been in his family for close to fifty years.

  But fate stepped in, and a con man educated in real estate spoke to Mr. Pardy. Unbeknownst to Dad, he duped Mr. Pardy into selling it to him for $2,500 per acre. Mr. Pardy thought about having all that money in his pocket, and he didn’t hesitate. While the sale was being processed, my father asked another friend, a Mr. Dawe—who once worked with Dad on the CN coastal boats but had retired to build a house and was living in the city with his son—to look at the land. He was a jack of all trades, and Dad trusted him. My father asked Mr. Dawe to drop by to check out this piece of property next time he was in Torbay. Dad knew that he could have been wrong about the property’s value.

  A day or two later, Mr. Pardy came back to Dad saying that he had sold the land at $2,500 an acre. This offer would only stand for a week, which had nearly passed. Dad congratulated him on his new-found wealth, though he thought that maybe he had undersold himself. Mr. Pardy then gave dad a hundred dollars for his help. Both men knew that $7,500 was quite a large sum of money. To put it in perspective, Dad made about $3,500–$4,500 a year working for CNR.

  A few days later, my father was shocked when Mr. Dawe told him it was worth twice to three times as much as what Mr. Pardy had taken for it. He had appraised it for $15,000—still well under what it was worth. Later, Mr. Dawe heard that the shyster had sold it, after making three building lots on it, for more than $6,000 an acre, for a total of $18,000! A clean $10,500 profit for a week or two of work. But the deal was done. Such were the ways of uneducated men being taken when there was no lawyer involved.

  Dad was furious, but the deal was done and the money had been paid. Mr. Pardy, and I am sure the purchaser, made sure the appropriate papers had been processed quickly. The crook had told him that he didn’t like dealing with lawyers—they charged too much for their services—and Mr. Pardy agreed.

  Dad told me this story when I was about twelve years old. He wanted me to be aware of wolves who went around in sheep’s clothing. He said to always be aware of what I signed and to read everything before I did. I don’t think he ever had the heart to tell Mr. Pardy that he had been taken.

  I think about the saying “what goes around comes around,” and I often wonder if the con man got his just rewards. I learned a valuable lesson at that early age.

  Brazil Street and Brazil Square

  Over the years, people have had theories about the origins of Brazil Street and Brazil Square. Growing up there, I heard many. Some believed that Brazil Square was a continuation of Brazil Street, while others believed they were one and the same street. Definitely not so. Other people had both streets confused with one another as to which one was which, and where the people in boarding houses lived, and which was the regular street with only a few boarding houses. It confused people who lived in the city, let alone those who lived outside St. John’s. Here is what I know.

  As Jack A. White said in his 1989 book, The Streets of St. John’s, Brazil Street, on the north side of St. John’s, was for people living in the city who were called townies. Brazil Square, on the south side of St. John’s, was for out-of-town people who were often classified as baymen. Brazil Square was known by many in St. John’s as “Baymen’s Paradise.” Townies, or people from St. John’s, were those people inside the overpass located on Topsail Road, and baymen were those outside. Each side had something to prove to the other. Many a fight erupted over this sense of entitlement on either side.

  My father was from Harbour Breton, Fortune Bay, on the south coast of Newfoundland. He didn’t like anyone calling him a bayman. To him, the term was derogatory. He was a short man, about five feet seven inches, and built like a boxer. Dad was a quiet person and a good man who hated fighting, but like most men of his time, he was very proud of his heritage. He always said that we should not make fun of one another, as we were all Newfoundlanders born and raised here on this island. We should not call each other townies or baymen. He always accepted his lot in life and rarely complained about what he didn’t have.

  Whoever thought up those labels must have done it as a joke. They are still used today but on a smaller scale. My mother was from Port Royal in Harbour Buffett, on Long Island, Placentia Bay. This island, like so many others, became part of the resettlement program of Joey Smallwood’s day, in the early years after Mom came to live in St. John’s. The term “bayman” didn’t seem to bother her. It didn’t have the same effect on her as it did my father. But that was Mom, a quiet lady who didn’t waste her energy on trivial things.

  Brazil Square, I was told, was part of the row houses that were built years before World War I. Hundreds of these row houses threaded St. John’s from the 1900s onward. Boarding houses eventually sprang up on Brazil Street, one house joined to the next, as people knew that there was money to be made in housing those people who came from outside the city for short stays. People who owned these homes saw how easy it was to make a quick income renting to people who came to town from rural Newfoundland. Prices for staying there could run a person three to four dollars a day or night for lodging, and many had meals that were included in this fare. Prices varied accordingly depending on where one stayed on Brazil Square.

  This street became the biggest boarding house area in the city, and possibly in Newfoundland. A bitter rivalry soon started between outport people and townies. Those in St. John’s figured that the people from around the bay, or baymen, were coming in to St. John’s to take away their jobs, scarce as they were. Thus developed an animosity that started pitting Newfoundlander against Newfoundlander.

  One time while I was delivering newspapers in the downtown area, I passed by the Belmont Club on New Gower Street and witnessed a fight between two guys—one guy was from St. John’s, and the other was from around the bay. Each was making fun of the way the other talked. The words “bayman” and “townie” were being flung back and forth.

  A large crowd gathered around to watch. Amid the pushing and shoving, two more guys came out of the club to break it up. They seemed to be foreigners, probably from a ship docked in the city’s harbour. By the way they talked, I could tell they were from away. All hell broke loose as the first two combatants, townie and bayman, turned on the two foreigners. Of course, all involved were drunk.

  Afterwards, the first two, the townie and the bayman, walked inside the Belmont, arm in arm, to share a couple of cold ones, patting each other on the back for showing those two outsiders a thing or two. The foreigners who had jumped in to break up the fight were left bleeding on the sidewalk. As my father has said many times, Newfoundlanders are a unique breed, fighting each other one minute with sheer hatred, and the next minute becoming the best of friends.

  My best friend, Dickie, and I saw it happen time and time again on Brazil Square, Water Street, and in clubs that dotted the downtown St. John’s area, such as the Belmont Club on New Gower Street,
the Porthole on Water Street, Gosse’s Tavern on Duckworth Street, and the Station Tavern on Hutching Street. There were no bars on George Street at that time. The Belmont, the main watering hole for many, was a few doors down from Kenny’s Fruit Store on New Gower Street, at the bottom of Brazil Square—and of course it became a favourite gathering spot for people who came to St. John’s from rural areas.

  At that time, women were not allowed to enter a drinking establishment without being accompanied by a man, or sometimes by another woman. Those were the rules set down by the clubs. Rules were different for women and men then.

  On any given night, the club was blocked with people, and the fights would start when someone was trying to take away another guy’s girlfriend or if a townie and bayman looked at each other the wrong way after a few drinks. I was there one evening when most of the club emptied for a fight outdoors. I heard it said a bayman had eaten a townie’s sandwich he had left on a table while getting a beer at the bar. You could go by the Belmont and on to Brazil Square most any given time after supper and see a fight.

  In our day, tough guys would head toward Brazil Square just to pick a fight with a someone from around the bay. Sometimes, though, a townie came out on the losing end, as most baymen were fishermen, tough and big in stature. Not everyone in the city lost a fight to someone from out of town, but they knew that they were in for a good scrap when they took on these out-of-towners.

  There was always a bully trying to make a name for himself. We stayed away from some of the guys we knew, the ones Dickie called “nuts.” They picked on both big and small. We had a rule of thumb, so to speak: do not let yourself be bullied by anyone. A bully would continue to push you around, and possibly hurt you, unless you faced him. It was a hard way to learn, and sometimes the consequences could be severe, but it worked. Most of them were brave when they were with their buddies, but they usually backed away when you caught them alone.

  There was this guy, Earl, who was from the Battery. Earl had a bad attitude. He would hang out at the Belmont and always look for a fight. He left Dickie and me alone because we were small fry, but he was always looking for baymen to fight. One night he got his wish and challenged a guy who looked like he couldn’t fight. Boy, did he ever figure wrong! He called the guy outside after the bayman told him to stay away from his wife. Earl thought this one was a shoo-in. But when all was said and done, the smaller guy knocked Earl on his back, out cold, with a few well-placed left and right hooks. It was the end of Earl’s reign as resident bully.

  Of all the boarding houses on Brazil Square, the Brownsdale was the biggest. Its address was not actually on Brazil Square but rather around the corner, 194 New Gower Street. It was next door to Parsons Grocery, at the lower end of Pleasant Street, and became an inexpensive lodging house for its clientele. Dickie and I thought it was haunted, or at least lived in by evil people who did weird things, as we had seen people in white coats come and go from time to time. One evening while coming home, as we passed by the house on Halloween, we imagined we heard screams echoing from the upstairs bedrooms. Yes, the Brownsdale was indeed haunted!

  In later years, we found out that it was used by a Dr. Roberts who kept his surgery practice there in the home. What we had seen were probably orderlies bringing in patients to visit the doctor. I know one thing. It was always crowded. I’d say it had about thirty to forty rooms. People flocked there because it was the largest boarding house in the city’s downtown, but also because there was a doctor there who could attend to their needs if anything happened.

  We heard the story of a Chinese man who was executed in St. John’s for the killing of three of his countrymen. In 1922, in a fit of rage, a man named Wo Fen Game shot three of his friends. Hong Kim Hi, Hung Leon, and So Ho Ki were executed at the Jim Lee Laundry on Murray Street. He also injured another Chinese gentleman, Hong Wing from the Hop Wah Laundry. He was hospitalized but survived the ordeal.

  Rumour had it that it all revolved around a poker game, but that was never really determined as true until after the trial when the rumours spread. The bodies were taken to Dr. Roberts at the Brownsdale Hotel for autopsy. Wo Fen pleaded to the court that he was innocent. But during the trial, a number of his peers found that not to be true. The injured Hong Wing also testified against him, sealing his fate. Wo Fen was found guilty and was hanged on December 16, 1922. He was thirty-one years old.

  We believed that one or maybe all three of the Chinamen who were killed still haunted the house. One could hear them screaming, especially when Halloween came around! Their bodies were brought there after the murders, and surely their spirits were there, too. One night, when I was about ten years old, I was passing the Brownsdale on my way home after dark, and I could hear strange noises I was sure were coming from the house. I approached the front steps, and I was sure I saw a guy with a hatchet above his head chasing a guy running up the stairs.

  I’ve only been inside the hotel once, when a lady working inside asked me to go across the street to Casey’s Meat Market to pick up some meat for her. I stood inside while she went off to make a list. I waited patiently for her in the hallway. The first thing that caught my attention was the beautiful stairway to my left leading up to the second floor. It had a beautiful artistic design carved in the railings, and it was polished to a shine. There were hardwood floors in the hallway, and the hallway led to a parlour with two sliding doors.

  I could hear women talking in low whispers at the end of the hallway. I assumed this was the kitchen. The place had an eerie silence to it as I waited, and I hoped the lady would not be too long. I was sure the place was haunted, but I wasn’t too afraid because it was daytime.

  Soon the lady came back with a note and some money. She said she had a quarter for me for going and told me not to be long. Eagerly, I rushed across the street to Casey’s Meat Market and passed the note to the butcher, Tom Casey, the owner’s son. He knew me through Dad. Tom asked why the lady at the Brownsdale had asked me to go and not one of the young girls working there. I didn’t care about that, as I was about to make a quarter for my troubles! He gave me a huge package of meat, and I hurried back to the hotel to collect my reward.

  Anther favourite hotel on the street was Eddy’s Boarding House, within shouting distance of the Brownsdale on Brazil Square. We always thought that Old Man Eddy, as we called him, was once a police officer who had to retire because of a shooting injury he suffered while he was on the beat in St. John’s. We never knew if it was true or not, but the rumour spread, and no one ever thought any different. He walked with a slight limp, which only added flavour to it. Old Man Eddy was a big man, and he would scare the crap out of my friends and me when we were brave enough to try and take some pop and beer bottles from behind a shed in his back garden to sell. In an instant, he was out through the back door, and we scampered over his fence in one jump.

  His beautiful words have always been embedded in my mind over the years, as they were said with such kindness and meaning. “If I ever catch one of you little bastards, you are going to live to regret it.” Such words of wisdom!

  Another boarding house was the Lindbergh House, which we believed may have been named after the baby Charles Lindbergh, who was kidnapped on March 1, 1932, in Hopewell, New Jersey. He was the son of famous aviator Anne Lindbergh. He was found dead a little while after his abduction. Other houses that people frequented were Chatfield House and Chaytor House. There were other, smaller boarding homes there, but these were the ones most frequently used when I was growing up in the area. There were probably as many as thirty boarding houses operating on Brazil Square.

  Along with the boarding houses on Brazil Square were family homes and businesses. Robert Glasco’s Meat Market, where I worked part-time while going to school, was located three or four doors up from Kenny’s Fruit Store. Mr. Glasco always seemed to have the best meats available to his customers. He was in competition with Casey’s Meats on New
Gower Street, catering mostly to the boarding houses that bought a ton of meat from him every week. Jack Kidney’s Shoe Repair was right next door to Bob Glasco’s. Mr. Kidney was one of the best shoemakers in St. John’s. He could make any pair of shoes look new again. His shop always smelled of burning leather when you entered. Jack was the elder statesman of Brazil Square. He held meetings at his shop with prominent business people of the day. There was nothing he wasn’t versed in when it came to the city and world news. Dad frequently went to chat with him.

  White’s Fish and Chips, at the top of the Brazil Street, was also a staple for years. Directly across the street from it was a small store called Peddle’s Convenience, which was owned by Helen Peddle (Woodfine). Bob Woodfine, her brother, lived next door, and her brothers Edward, Tom, Dave, Frank, and sisters Lorraine, Carol Ann, and Helen also made up the Woodfine body. Bob and I are good friends today, and we are in the same seniors club.

  One of our first cousins, Isabel Dicks from Rushoon, stayed with us in St. John’s in the early 1960s. Her mother, Violet, was Mom’s sister. Most of the time, relatives from around the bay didn’t board on Brazil Square if relatives had a house in the area. However, people had no choice but to stay in these boarding houses when relatives couldn’t afford to feed them. This sometimes created a problem when they came to St. John’s and didn’t want to stay with strangers.

  Mom and Dad always took in a few boarders, mostly those who were related to us, who came to the city to go to university or to hospital or just to spend a few days shopping, especially during the Christmas months. We always had cousins, aunts, and uncles stay at the house who paid my parents a modest fee for food and the running of the house. Of course, any money was kindly accepted but never expected.