Fall 2015
Parkallen News In this issue… • Your Home’s History • New President’s Message • Infill Growing Pains
Cul-de-sac on 71st Avenue, looking east. This was the first street developed in Parkallen, with some houses dating from the 1940s.
Home ... But Not Alone The History of One Parkallen House and the Residents Who Passed Through Its Doors By Niall Mckenna The walkway was sinking. The basement unfinished. The spruce trees hadn’t seen love in a while. The doors were chipped, banged and discoloured. My wife and I couldn’t have been happier. We’d landed a house with personality. A house with a story. And although it turned out to be a “bit of a fixer-upper,” our recent and first home-buying experience has fulfilled our dreams here in Parkallen. Both newcomers and oldtimers know that Parkallen’s tidy bungalows, circular street pattern
and cute-as-a-button central park is unique in Edmonton. Those of us with original homes tend to overlook the peeling paint, chips and bumps for the satisfaction of living in a place with tales to tell. This summer, I wanted to uncover the history of our home on 112A Street.
Hitting the Books I started where many researchers go: the library. I’d heard that a now-defunct company called Henderson’s Directories used to go door-to-door to every home in the western provinces and the Yukon — every year from as far back as
the late 1800s — and collect the names and occupations of their residents. Perhaps they visited our neighbourhood during its beginnings. In the Stanley Milner library’s second floor wood-framed Heritage Room, I heaved open the 1952 Henderson’s Directory, flipped to our street and discovered that John L. Yeats, a geologist with Imperial Oil, was the first recorded occupant of our home. Who was this man who shared the same last name as one of my favourite poets, W.B. Yeats? And why was Parkallen — and our future home — also the place for him?