West
Hill High School Memories
Bill Falconer (Class of '44) See Virtual
Student Council page
Montreal was a large city where most of the people spoke French. I didn't,
at least not very well. The English-speaking and French-speaking people
lived in different parts of the city . The schools were "public "-paid for
with taxes, but seemed like private schools. Students were separated by language
and religion. There were different schools for French Catholics and English
Catholics. Everyone else, including the Jewish kids went to the Protestant
schools. Doesn't that sound crazy! Teachers were sorted out that way too.
As most French speaking teachers were Catholic, the French teachers in the
Protestant schools were English. Maybe that is why I couldn't speak French
very well. Like in private schools, girls wore uniforms-a white blouse and
a black jumper. Boys wore ties with a jacket or sweater.
I said I entered West Hill High at the age of 12 .Well, it didn't really
turn out to be like high school. We had to go to grade eight in an elementary
school, Herbert Symonds, as West Hill was overcrowded. It seemed more like
a junior high. I did meet new friends who came from other elementary schools.
Some of them were at my 50th McGill University reunion in 1998 ! Then
I was off to ninth grade at West Hill.It was very different from high schools
now. The building was three stories high. ( Before I forget, guess what it
is today? A retirement home. that's what !Some people who went there now live
there !!!) I've already mentioned uniforms, shirts and ties . But guess what.
Boys and girls were at opposite ends of the school and they used separate
entrances. Boys were taught by men,girls by women -except for some special
teachers, like for art and music. Teachers wore academic robes which look
like black choir gowns . It seems to me that teachers were older then than
they are now! You stayed in your home room and the teachers moved from class
to class, except when you went to do lab work .Now doesn't that sound like
fun !
It was probably five miles from home to West Hill and we all went home
for lunch .None of the kids had cars so we walked ,biked or rode the streetcar.The
streetcar was especially useful at midday as we didn't have much time for
lunch. Student streetcar tickets were seven for twenty -five cents . After
school we would go to Julie's, a soda fountain. A sundae or soda cost about
fifteen cents and a cone cost five. A movie ticket cost 20 or 25 cents.
However when I worked pumping gas I only made 15 cents an hour . Most kids
hung out at the YMCA (no malls then )for sports and on Friday nights, dances
in the Youth Hall to a jukebox and sometimes in the gym to a band . Later
on I played in the band there . The "Y"had an outdoor stage called the "Bonfire
Theater" where they put on shows, movies and community singing.
Playing popular music wasn't encouraged at West Hill although I was in
a small group that played Benny Goodman music before an assembly-only once!
The school put on a musical every year, directed by Mr. Jones and the improbably
named Miss Dumbell .I was a spear carrier in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan's
" Yeomen of the Guard ". We were fortunate to have as consultants Mr. and
Mrs. Harry Norris, experts on G&S , who had worked in the famous D'Oyly
Carte Opera Company in London. On opening night we got the news that Franklin
Roosevelt had died. He had been president of the US since I was in kindergarten
! We opened with "The Star Spangled Banner" (this was in Canada) and I will
never forget that night .
Extracted from Grandpa Bill's Story. Reprinted with the author's permission (Bill
now lives in North Carolina)
Donald Morison Smith (November 19 1925 - December
8 1993 )
In 1930 Donald attended Kensington Public School in N.D.G. where he and
his peers sang lustily "The Maple Leaf Forever" and not so lustily, "The Ash
Grove". It was in November of 1930 that Don contracted scarlet fever which
caused some heart damage. In 1938 Don went on to Westhill High School where
he encountered an inspired classics teacher, Edgar Davidson. "Davey" had
a profound influence on Donald's development both culturally and academically.
Don's motto in the 1942 yearbook was a quotation from Thackeray "Vanitas vanitarum,
all is vanity saith the preacher."
Bruce Barnes
I remember Mr. Hewson at West Hill but not at Monklands. I think
he was a Vice-Principal because a Mr. Unsworth was principal at West Hill.
The new West Hill opened around 1952 or 3 so I don't know what
the feeling was. My first impression was "Wow", what a place
compared to dingy and dim Westward. It had so much more in the
way of facilities, from auditorium to swimming pool, to special visual
arts rooms. It was the largest physical plant high school
in Canada at the time, but not in terms of numbers of students.
Leslie Coppold (attended 1927 through 1929)
see Notable Students page
I remember long walks to school through farm fields. It was important to
know which farms had dogs and which didn't in order to avoid being chased.
In those days the farms stretched to Cote de Liesse and I remember watching
the French teacher walk to the school though the snow on snowshoes. The art
room was on the west side of the school in the new extension, and it was just
a double room that faced north. The inkwells were a problem because I am
lefthanded and they were placed on the right side of the desk that caused
me to leave a trail of ink, sometimes, across the desk. The school was divided
into a girls and boys side with seperate entrances. Of course no student was
allowed to use the main entrance. When I arrived from Herbert Symonds School
there were still grade 6 and 7 classes being held in the school. I remember
the Hamiltons who were both very interested in airplanes. We once skipped
school so that one of them could take a $5 ride in a DeHavilland biplane.
It was his first flight ever. He later became a flight instructor and both
he and his brother died during WWII. I left West Hill to attend art school,
but returned in 1933 to help the students in the classroom. Later, in the
1940s, through Mrs. Moss I was able to use the classroom to work on some
of my own projects. (from a visit with Leslie Coppold in May 2003)
Basil Jesshope
(Class of '38)
Reading the Classmates page was very interesting,
but it did make me feel old. The earliest message I saw was from a
1943 graduate and she felt old. I graduated from WHHS in 1938 in grade
11. In those days the boys occupied the west half and
the girls the east half. I came there from Westmount High, the logical
grade 10 school for us that lived in Pointe Claire (Cedar Park). In 1940, I started on a C.A. program and attended
night school at McGill. In 1941, I joined the RCAF and was in the first
batch of the Commonwealth Training program for radio mechanics - later to
be known as RADAR - at McGill under Dr. Keys. in 1940/41, and again
in 1945/46, McGill was one of my audits .I discontinued
my CA apprenticeship in 1946 when my war-bride wife arrived in Montreal.
I did not pick up my formal academic education until 1971 when I entered
Trent University and achieved a B.A. in Sociology and Economics, which furthered
my career with Statistics Canada.I want to thank you for helping me keep in touch with memories
of some very early days. I knew that the current West Hill High School
was now on Somerled but I had not been aware of the changes in-between.
Note: Basil Jesshope, beloved husband,
companion and best friend of Bette
passed away on April 13, 2011. Basil
enrolled at Trent in 1971 as a mature
student at the age of 51 and graduated
with a BA in 1974. Basil was a retired
manager from Statistics Canada where
he was employed for 24 years. He was
also a Canadian Veteran and the last
chartered member of the Toronto
Wing 444.
William Shatner (attended 1946) see Notable Students page
From Professionally
Speaking, the magazine of the Ontario College of Teachers, (Courtesy of Keith Clark MHS '59)
"Shatner
doesn't recall individual teachers at Willingdon Elementary School and he
says his memories of West Hill High School are almost as foggy. What he was
most interested in then was football, and he does remember Mr. Chesney, the
football coach and physical education teacher. “He put together a good team,
and we won all sorts of city championships".
Note: Shatner also points out he grew up on Marcil Ave.
Dorothy Strickland (attended 1923-24)
Dorothy was unique in that she was a student at the school, served as
the school secretary from 1927-1940 and married one of the West Hill
teachers, George Brown. In 2009 she shared her memories with us. Her
story can be seen here and her recollections sent to us in a letter here. Dorothy passed away on May 10 2010 in Montreal at the age of 100.