Sisters

Esther and Candis grew up in the loving embrace of their doting parents in the vibrant and culturally rich Jewish community of Toronto in the 1950s and 1960s. In those days the city had not yet acquired its accidental designation as Canada’s premiere city and took a clear and noteworthy second place to Montreal, then the shining star in the northern firmament of urban centres.


Montreal was the hometown of their late mother; Mrs Starr had met and married their father and moved with him back to Toronto. Mr Starr—his name was Samuel—was a young man with big dreams and he invested his savings (augmented by a family loan) and launched himself as a fledgling builder and devoted his not inconsiderable energies to the creation of family neighbourhoods in the north end of the city. Specifically, Sam Starr was the driving force behind a popular northern neighbourhood called Bathurst Manor.


As time went on the neighbourhood grew and Sam prospered; he and Estelle moved from Lippincott Street to a tidy bungalow right in Bathurst Manor, near the intersection of Sheppard and Bathurst. Visitors today don’t believe it, but at the time the intersection was desolate and without the hustle and bustle that characterizes the busy area now. The new house had an eat-in kitchen with a built-in dishwasher, a separate dining room with a glittering chandelier and a lovely “front room” that Estelle reserved for company and special occasions. The family would gather Friday night for supper in the dining room —the Starr family held to a Friday night routine—and would spend cozy Sunday nights en famille in their finished basement recreation room to eat Chinese food off of glass plates (to preserve their kosher kitchen) and watch the Wonderful World of Disney on TV.


Soon it was time to move again and Sam built a lovely new home for his family on a quiet street in the best possible blocks of Bathurst Manor. In a moment of pride he named one street of his development “Candis” after his daughter. This presented a problem; “Esther Boulevard” or some other derivative did not exist. Instead his elder daughter was given the privilege of naming another street adjacent to their new home; both parents silently hoping she would not actually name a street “Esther.” Thus it came to be that Esther Starr came up with the name “Blue Forest Drive” after a poem she had written in English class.


Sam turned his eye toward condominiums and subsequently built a number of successful properties across the suburbs of the sprawling city Toronto was growing into. Shopping malls—cheap to build in those days—were erected on unwanted land and great big tracts of land were turned into covered parking to protect happy shoppers from the vagaries of Canadian weather.


Sam and Estelle moved to North Toronto and then finally ended up in a rambling 1960s confection north of Eglinton Avenue, just west of Bathurst Street. When they first moved into their new home visitors were struck by its attention to detail. The consummate builder had erected a showplace of ultra-mod sleek design supported by a hasty collection of modern art, circa 1966. The exact details are now long lost to legend, but Sam and Estelle Starr owned the very first original Warhol in Toronto and it took pride of place in their rarely used living room outfitted with scan-design furniture and funky bric-a-brac. Nubby wallpapers and shaggy carpets co-existed with chunky artwork of vaguely African themes.


Estelle Starr initially missed Montreal with its pulse and myriad opportunities, but ultimately settled in and took to life in Toronto; she was married to a doting and slightly older man who adored her, and that helped. Estelle also recognized that Toronto was a much different community from boisterous and exciting Montreal. It was a far quieter but more determined place. The pace was fast—which visitors always remark on even today—and the people were politely reserved. The city shut down on Sundays (most forms of commercial commerce being illegal on Sunday in those days) and projected a solid middle-class air of WASPy respectability. The Santa Claus Parade was an institution and the society event to of the year was an agricultural show replete with cows and pigs. (On some enchanted occasions a junior member of the Royal Family would be dispatched to attend the Royal Winter Fair leaving local hostesses breathless and giddy.)


Esther and Candis attended public schools and graduated from high school with respectable but not outstanding grades. Parental expectations were limited; both were taught to be good hostesses and marry suitable young men.


The Misses Beebe had a completely different upbringing, defined by the mores of the time and the social constraints they were born into. The family home was on Ardwold Gate (you already know that) and both sisters were educated in Toronto before a couple of years in Switzerland to provide a gentle touch of polish and sophistication. Vesta—you know her as Beebe—left first and Margery followed a few years later when she was old enough to be away from home.


Beebe loved school and her academic excellence was a source of pride to her parents. Ardie Junior was no prize student, often in trouble, and more than a casual truant. Unrepentant and ungovernable for most of his youth his education was a patchwork of different schools, new communities and stark boarding school dormitories. He graduated—barely—from a cram school before embarking on travel and some courses in design in New York.


Margery was quiet, did not socialize as much as her elder sister, and plugged away with solid determination to do her very best. She caused few problems and genuinely missed her parents while she was away at school. She did not enjoy boarding school, but took pleasure in small weekend trips arranged by the headmistress for the girls under her suzerainty. Margery—bookish and quiet—toured museums and galleries and dutifully snapped pictures of cathedrals and castles to send home to her mother in her weekly letters.


Old Ardwold Beebe was greatly disappointed by his son—Ardie was a flop in his opinion—and soon transferred his dynastic aspirations onto his eldest child. Beebe was smart, shrewd and blessed with an intuition she knew to trust. Ardie was too much of a good-time boy to be trusted with business matters and after numerous yelling matches and dire threats of being cut off forever—an empty threat because Ardie was a Momma’s boy and Momma always came to his defense—Ardie was given permission to do whatever he damn well wanted, provided he didn’t cause trouble.


Like all parental strategems this failed; Ardie always seemed to cause some trouble.