© 2026, Christian Cassidy. Please respect my research.
This is the story of Norman and Sarah Lewsey, who came to Canada in 1908 by way of British Guiana (known as Guyana since 1966). They not only raised a large family but also took in lodgers, acting as a welcoming committee to others in the Guyanese and larger Black community.
Mr. Lewsey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and was a police sergeant in the British Guiana police force. That is where he met and married Sarah Frances Hope on April 30, 1907. It was likely Norman's second marriage.
The couple came to Winnipeg in 1908, aged 35 and 24 respectively, and had eight children: Edna, Irene, Laura, Evelyn, Cecil, Lawrence, Clarence, and Charles. Charles died in 1925 at the age of eight.
Gustavus (Gus), one of Mr. Lewsey's sons from his previous marriage, came to Winnipeg around 1911 as a young teen and also lived with them.
The Lewseys first appear in the Winnipeg Street directory of 1910, the data for which would have been compiled in 1909. They lived at 309 1/2 Notre Dame Avenue at Adelaide Street (now demolished).
This was a mixed-use building with Clackson's watchmaker and jewellers on the first floor and initially one large suite upstairs. The view from their doorstep looking east towards downtown would have looked similar to this, and the Winnipeg Opera House was across the street.
The 1911 census entry (pictured above) shows the Lewseys living at this address with Gustavus Lewsey, a son from Mr. Lewsey's first marriage, their first daughter, Edna, who was born in 1911, and three lodgers.
Unfortunately, the census entry for the household contains many errors. It lists everyone as coming from Ontario, the Lewsey ages are wrong, and there is no race noted, which would have been clue as to whether the roomers were also Guyanese, or at least from the city's Black community.
Mr. Lewsey's listed in the street directory as a porter at United Cigar Store and Barber Shop located in one of the office buildings at Portage and Main. The following year, he was a porter at barbers Ostrander and Hughes in the basement of the Union Bank building at Main Street and William.
Barber shop porters did maintenance, cleaning, and services other than cutting hair. These were the days when men stopped at a full-service shop, such as the ones in the city's business district where Lewsey worked, to also get a shave, shoe shine, hair tonic, and their head, neck or scalp massaged. The Union Bank barber shop offered baths when it first opened in 1905 and had a manicurist booth until around 1912.
The couple moved to a small house at 970 Alexander Avenue later in 1911, and Mr. Lewsey is now a porter at another United Cigar Store Barber Shop. There are two others listed as living with them. Fred Lewsey, no occupation listed, and a roomer named William Haynes.
Haynes came to Canada in 1910 from British Guiana and was joined the following year by his wife, Frederica, and three children. The family then moved a couple of blocks east to 936 Alexander Avenue (now demolished) and eventually to Lulu Street. Son Percy opened Haynes Chicken Shack there in 1952. (Read more about the Haynes' here.)
In 1912, the Lewseys family moved to 526 Simcoe Street, and Mr. Lewsey is a shoe shiner at the Sterling Bank Barber Shop in the basement of the newly opened Sterling Bank Building on Portage Avenue.
Here, they also took in lodgers, such as Hewburn Greenidge, a recent arrival from Guyana who worked with Mr. Lewsey at the barber shop. Greenidge then moved to 936 Alexander Avenue, the Haynes residence, enrolled in medical school, took a break to serve in the War, and in 1920 became Manitoba's first Black doctor. (Read more about him here later this month!)
1931 Census of Canada (Library and Archives Canada)
By 1915, the Lewsey family moved to a home they would stay at for several years to raise their growing family. 59 Gallagher Avenue (now demolished) was in the city's Weston neighbourhood, nicknamed "CPR Town", for its proximity to the CPR Weston Yards.
The remainder of their eight children were born at this house. Sadly, their son Charles died here in 1925 at the age of eight.
During this time, Mr. Lewsey continued to work at barber shops until 1918 - 1920, when he was a porter at the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. He was a shoe shiner at the Grain Exchange Barber Shop in 1922, and the following year began a decades-long career as a porter with the CNR working from Union Station.
Mrs. Lewsey, when not raising her children and looking after lodgers, was involved in Pilgrim Baptist Church. She was a charter member of the church, which was a founding member of back in 1924.
In her book North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955, Sarah-Jane Mathieu notes that in cities across Canada through the inter-war years, councils of Black women associated with churches, Masonic groups, or YWCAs, "lectured on proper nutrition, sanitation, education, finance, and racial uplift" to their community.
Mathieu lists Sarah Lewsey as one of eleven "powerful matriarchs" who did this counselling in Winnipeg.
Though he retired in 1940, Lewsey didn't stop working. He became a shoe shiner at the Union Station shoe shine stand, which kept him close to three of his sons, who also became CNR porters.
Porter did a lengthy interview with Lewsey for the Tribune in February 1942, where the former porter spoke about his family, his outlook on life, and stories from his time at the railway. (You can read that column here.)
For the first few years, some of their children lived with them. Lawrence, for instance, moved with his parents and stayed until around 1953. Cecil lived here immediately before and after serving in World War II. Evelyn lived here in the early 1950s after she became a nurse at the General Hospital.
Edna Lewsey and her husband, Lionel West, lived here for a time in the early 1950s. Lionel West and Lawrence Lewsey were business partners for a few years in the Liberty Pool Room, the successor to the Union Pool Room in the Craig Block at 795 Main Street.
By 1954, it appears that everyone had moved on to their own domiciles and it was just Norman and Sarah at home.
Norman's name made the newspapers a few times as part of a seniors' bowling league. The last mention of him playing was in 1961 at the age of 88.
Sarah remained at the house for a time before moving to 638 Linden Avenue, presumably the home of one of her children. She died at age 95 on May 19, 1979, at Grace Hospital. Her obituary noted that she was the last charter member of Pilgrim Baptist Church and had been the oldest living Black pioneer in the city.
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