“Bet I could hit that plane with a snowball. Well, for sure my dad can.”
That discussion with a friend while we were walking home down a gravel country road known only as The Sixth Line, Malton, is just one of the myriad of memories I have every time I drive past Lester B. Pearson International Airport. It was sometime during a winter, most likely in 1948, that this conversation took place. My family built their home on the Sixth Line, Malton, just about where the planes now touch down on their western approach to the runway paralleling the 401 Highway, and registered me for Grade One at Elmbank Public School that same year.
It seemed like the aircraft, with their propellers thundering crisply through the cold winter air, were just slightly above the treetops and rooflines of our home. To a child of course, everything seemed to be exaggerated. Since we lived a good mile or so south of the airport, the planes were often flying low enough over our home to cause us to look skyward.
Separating us from the airport were a half dozen homes, three farms, and the Workmen’s Compensation Hospital. Just across the road from the entrance to the hospital was a corner store, which, at the time, was owned and operated by Jack Wales. The hospital entrance would have been about the midpoint between what is now Terminal Three at Pearson International Airport and the new Terminal One parking structure. A man named Teddy Morris owned a farm behind Jack Wales’ store. I recall building a hay fort in Teddy’s barn whenever we could. One day we were a little ‘sassy’ with the old gentleman and later I told my dad about how Mr. Morris had chased us. I realize now, he deliberately ran at a slower pace but certainly made us build up a full head of steam to keep in front. How could this old man possibly run as quickly as us in a full run? My dad’s explanation really didn’t register until many years later. Alan Byron ‘Teddy’ Morris was one of Canada’s all-time football greats, who took the Toronto Argos to six Grey Cups.
Having spent the greatest part of my childhood living in the farming community surrounding the Village of Malton, visions of a happy childhood are indelibly etched into my mind. My father driving me into the Village to attend Boy Scouts at the North Star Building, a war-time barracks built for the military stationed there, is something I think of every time I drive past the south-west corner of Derry and Airport Roads. My grade schooling, in a small school house in the nearby hamlet of Elmbank, and later at the new Malton Public School, was filled with years of rich memories.
The community of Elmbank was established in 1831, with its heart being the four corners of Fifth Line and Britannia Road, more popularly known as the Elmbank Side Road. The first school was a log structure built in 1860. Several years later the log school house gave way to a brick building. In 1920, a larger and more modern structure of two rooms, the lower room at ground level and the other above, was built.