For King and Country

In November 2016, we added Coleman Avenue School to For King and Country. Except for brief mentions in old issues of the Toronto Daily Star and The Globe, information about the “vanished” school was hard to find. Fortunately, former student Donna Adams-Hannigan offered to share her clear memories of Coleman:

I remember the teachers crying while they packed all the books in the last days of school. (1964)

The bell tower had no bell. There were two main entrances, and a separate one for the kindergarten. At the back, the “Boys” and “Girls” doors (with names inscribed above) had stairs leading to the basement washrooms and “gym,” with its cement floor painted shiny grey, and backless benches around the perimeter. During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Donna’s older sister heard the principal tell a teacher while organizing drills for the students to shelter in the basement, “We can’t get them all in. There’s not enough room.”

Coleman’s WWII memorial is now at the TDSB archives.

In spite of the rudimentary gym facilities, the girls’ track uniforms boasted gold shorts with a black stripe; white blouse buttoned at the back, with a diagonal banner across the chest spelling out “Coleman” in gold. Donna’s father, Doug Adams, was head of the Home and School when the impressive uniforms were supplied.

The main floor kindergarten faced Coleman Avenue; the Grade One classroom faced west; the combined Grade 5/6 faced Balfour Avenue. The principal’s office (with no secretary) was also on the main floor.

A wide internal stairway led to the second floor. Two right turns led to the nurse’s office, where the window reached almost to the ceiling. A large leather chaise and an enamel and glass cabinet were among the furnishings. Also on the second floor was the staff room, “a secret sanctuary for the teachers,” Donna recalled. “We were all agog when the door opened and the cigarette smoke rolled out.” Along a small corridor was the teachers’ washroom, “another curiosity.” The Grade Three and Four classrooms; the Grade Two classroom—directly over the Grade 5/6 room— had wooden lockers instead of a cloakroom, and a door to the outside fire escape.

Donna added that speculation arose that the school closed because the subway was extending from Woodbine to Warden, but parents had worried that Coleman—no proper gym and a lockable cart instead of a library—lacked the advantages of neighbouring Secord and Gledhill schools.

The school reopened briefly as East End Boys School. It was mainly portables surrounding the school proper.

Donna remembered a main-floor alcove, which held a wreath and poppies. She asked about a war memorial, as her father and her uncle Reg, who had also attended Coleman, served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. Her father, Doug Adams, appears on the memorial. For King and Country volunteer Marg McCann found Coleman’s A.J. Casson memorial at the TDSB Archives.