Running Free in the Valley

In Spring, 1951, Garry Melville’s parents bought a bungalow for about $7,000 at 4051 Old Dundas St. It was only about 300 feet (90 metres) east of the Humber River.

School was a five-minute walk away. There were no warnings not to go near the river, and a bunch of four or five kids wandered far and wide. Garry says they would build rafts to cross the Humber, play baseball in the park beside the river, or hang out in the woods. Kids went home when streetlights came on or when they were hungry.

The Old Dundas Street bridge was still in place, and market gardens flourished in the rich black soil of the river valley. Garry played in the concrete pool where the veggies were washed in the back lane behind Warren Cres. Happily, just past the lane, there was an ice cream parlour with a dance hall attached.

In the early years, folks would come to the Warren Park valley, get ice cream, then drive across the Humber River to the Etobicoke side to Home Smith Park Road where there were stables. For 25 cents, they could rent a table at picnic sites near where the washrooms are now.

The Storm

On Friday, Oct. 15, 1954, Hurricane Hazel swept through. The storm turned the Humber River into a raging torrent. Garry was awakened around 1:00 am and told to be ready to go. He was frightened. He heard the fire engine going down the Etobicoke side of the river and believes that it was the fire truck that went into the Humber, causing five crew members to drown.

Water breached the banks, washing away houses on Raymore Dr. with inhabitants still inside. At the narrow point where the river passed under the Old Dundas Street bridge, the water surged to 30 feet (9 metres). Right across the road from Garry’s home, Lambton House became a rescue and recovery centre. Eighty-one people, most in Toronto, perished in the hurricane.

The next day Garry walked down through the debris to the park near the current baseball diamond and watched the tatters of people’s lives floating down the Humber to Lake Ontario. The Old Dundas Street Bridge had been washed away, and the market gardens were gone.

Return to the river

Garry and his wife Sandra moved back to the valley in the mid-1980s to raise their son in the idyllic world along the Humber, which he had inhabited as a kid. When Garry and Sandra moved to a condo, they chose one on the banks of the Humber. And most days Garry can be seen walking through the valley and along the river that has been such a significant part of his life.