OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a column about the Kennedy Block in downtown Orillia, published Feb. 1.
I read with interest the Orillia Museum of Art & History column about the Kennedy Block building. To add a little more history, the building was home to the YMCA prior to construction of the building across from the post office.
Before his death, G.A. “Skid” Watson (1896-1984) wrote a memoir in collaboration with Don Jenkins about his association with the Y, his life growing up in Orillia and serving overseas during the First World War.
According to Skid, and he would know, the Orillia YMCA received its first charter in 1869. Skid’s first recollection of participating in Y activities was in the building recently lost to fire. He recalled walking up the long stairway to the games and reading rooms and that under the staircase was a liquor store. He mentions playing games and that the most popular reading room material was the London Illustrated News.
Due to the lack of a gymnasium, in 1895, a group of community leaders (Hale, Tudhope, Thompson, Frost, Long and others) spearheaded the drive to construct a dedicated YMCA building. The “new” old Y was opened by Lt.-Gov. Sir William Mortimer Clark on Sept. 30, 1907.
Pat Thor
Orillia
