© 2024, Christian Cassidy
Often I will
see an old photo or ad and spend some time digging into its back story.
Sometimes I find a great story, sometimes not. Either way, I learn a
few things about the city's history. Here's my latest attempt:
The above image was posted in the Manitoba Postcard Collectors Forum on Facebook. It is part of the vast Rob McInnes postcard collection, (you can see some of it here), and is used in this post with his permission.
The image is by Maurice Lyall of the Lyall Commercial Photo Co. of Winnipeg and contains no mention of a year or the location of the news stand. A resourceful member of the forum traced one of the magazine covers back to February 1912. A note on the back of the card states "This is Fred & Len's stall. That is Fred behind the counter."
After some digging through street directories, I found that this is the Foster Bros. News and Cigar Stand inside the McLaren Hotel operated by Frederick W. and R. Leonard Foster.
The
Fosters came to Canada from their native Sussex, England in 1893. The
family consisted of Alfred, a builder, and his wife Annie, along with their children Frederick, Herbert, Sidney, Charles, Augustine, R. Leonard, and Adelaide.
In 1903, tragedy struck when Alfred died of a heart attack while working in Minnedosa. At the time, the children ranged in age from 16 to 26 and all lived together at the family home on Furby Street.
The family remained close-knit. The year after Alfred's death, Annie and the children moved to a house at 527 Pembina Highway then to Beresford Avenue. The 1916 census shows them, minus Sidney and Charles, living together at 693 Rosedale Avenue.
March 3, 196, The Voice
Fred and Len Foster followed in their father's footsteps and became carpenters and in the early 1900s both worked for the CPR.
How they transitioned from being carpenters to running a news stand at the McLaren Hotel is unclear. The 1912 street directory lists the two men with no occupations and in the 1913 directory, the data for which would have been complied in mid-1912, there they are as Foster Bros. News and Cigar Stand.
The 150-room McLaren Hotel was opened in September 1911 by the McLaren Brothers. Aside from CPR's 300-room Royal Alexandra Hotel at Higgins Avenue, the McLaren was the largest hotel on the Main Street strip between Portage and Main and the CPR Depot.
Unlike the grander railway hotels, the other being the Grand Trunk's Hotel Fort Garry which would open in 1913, the McLaren was a middle-class hotel offering more affordable room rates and meal options.
Frederick married Amy Craddeck in December 1915 and by 1917 moved to 260 Mandeville Street in St. James.
Len took a different path and enlisted to fight in the war on September 2, 1914. He served as a private with the 10th Battalion Infantry and was killed in action on April 23, 1916 at the age of 29. He is buried at the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground in Belgium.
After Len's death, Charles took his place at the McLaren alongside Frederick.
The Fosters got out of the news stand business around 1926. Frederick, still living on Mandeville, went back to being a carpenter. Charles, who lived at 602 Jubilee did the same.
Frederick disappears from street drectories around 1945 and it is unclear what happened to him later in life. I could find no obituary for him and census records for that time are not yet accessible.
More Behind the Photo entries
1 comment:
Thanks for the correction. Yes, it was an avenue. I agree that the hustle and bustle of downtown Winnipeg would have been quite an interesting and exciting place. Probably a bit smelly, too!
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