LOOKING BACK

Centenarian Eldred Milne has deep roots at the TBG

By Lorraine Hunter

VISITORS TO THE TBG today likely couldn’t imagine roosters crowing or sheep grazing in Edwards Gardens. But that was the reality for Eldred Milne as a child almost a century ago.

The last living member of the original Milne family to be born on the farm, Eldred turned 100 this past summer. She was born on August 27, 1920 in the old Milne farmhouse in what is now Edwards Gardens. The house burned down in 1962, long after the Milne family had moved on, and was replaced by the wooden gazebo or teahouse, as it was once known, on the crest of the hill close to Lawrence Ave. The old well, now a wishing well with cover, is still there.

Eldred Milne celebrated her 100th birthday last August when friends and neighbours drove by her current house in West Hill to wish her well.

Eldred has fond memories of the animals raised on the farm including Clydesdale horses, cows, pigs and sheep. In fact, there was an old ram she remembers who preferred staying with his friend Mickey, a beige and white collie, to joining the rest of the flock when it moved from one pasture to another. She also recalls her brother Bill having pet goats and skunks.

Eldred Milne can remember animals on the farm including Clydesdale horses.

Entertainment in the Milne House when Eldred was a girl included listening to the radio, a gramophone and newspapers. They had electricity and running water but used an outhouse.

Eldred’s father, Albert James (Ira to family and friends) and his two brothers, Alexander and Herbert, were the last members of the Milne family to farm on part of the 500 acres of Crown land purchased by their great grandfather Alexander Milne, a Scottish miller and weaver, in 1827. He built a saw mill. The farmhouse was built by his son Peter. Two of the original farm buildings remain today – the barn where the TBG Bloom Café is located and the implement shed where the City now keeps tractors and other heavy garden equipment.

The Milne family in front of the old farmhouse that burned down but was once located in what is now Edwards Gardens.

The brothers sold the property in 1929 when Eldred was nine. The family moved to Hagerman’s Corners south of Unionville at what is now 14th Avenue and Kennedy Rd. Eldred went to live for a time with her uncle and aunt who lived near Don Mills Rd. and Lawrence Ave. She attended Don School, in a brick building that replaced the original one-room log school house built in 1853. She would ride to school in a horse-drawn buggy in inclement weather. “Otherwise, I would walk.”

The property passed through several hands until Rupert Edwards purchased it in 1944 and began to turn it into a park. The City bought it from him in 1955 and Edwards Gardens opened to the public the following year.

We are very lucky that Mr. Edwards donated the property to the city or we would not have the access to it that we have today

Asked what she thinks about the property becoming a botanical garden, Eldred replied “I hope it is kept as natural or close to how Mr. Edwards would have liked it as possible.” She would prefer that no additional buildings be constructed on the property and that it remains as close to her childhood memories of natural beauty as possible while being maintained so that the public can enjoy it.

The family met Rupert Edwards a few times while visiting along with Eldred’s mother Elsie Milne. They were given a tour of the garden and the house. “Mr. Edwards enjoyed showing us the property,” Eldred recalls. “He was very happy living there. A kind gentleman, he enjoyed our company.”

On one visit, Elsie pointed out an apple tree located near the southwest corner of the implement shed. “Many a pie came from that tree,” she commented. The apple tree coincidentally died the same year as Elsie — 1985, according to Paul Latimer, her grandson and Eldred’s nephew.

Eldred was the eldest of five siblings. She had three brothers: William (born in 1922), Melvin (1924) and Robert (1926) who all lived on the farm until the family moved, and one sister, Paul’s mother Alberta, 16 years her junior.

Although she studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and considered becoming a music teacher, Eldred trained as a practical nurse and did private duty nursing until she went to work for Dr. Overton Stephens, author of Today Is All You Have, in his private practice. She stayed on after he died in 1972 and retired when she was 79. “I loved nursing,” she says.

Paul Latimer, Eldred’s nephew, her sister Alberta and Eldred on a recent visit to Edwards Gardens.

Eldred moved to the West Hill neighbourhood in Scarborough in 2005 where she now lives with her sister Alberta and nephews Paul and Dennis.

“We usually visit Edwards Gardens about once a year,” said Paul. The family recently laid marker stones for the three brothers in Milne Cemetery adjacent to the southwest corner of the parking lot on a hill overlooking Wilket Creek, once known as Milne Creek. Three generations of the Milne family are buried there. Many of the original tombstones have fallen over where the soil has washed away. The area is fenced off but at least one old tombstone, as well as the three marker stones, can be seen from outside the enclosure.

“We are very lucky that Mr. Edwards donated the property to the city or we would not have the access to it that we have today,” said Eldred.