On a sunny day in July in 1940, Ross’s sister Virginia married Rudy Morin. This may have been the first colour film my dad shot with his 16mm home movie camera. What ever chemicals they used back then, they sure held up better than film stocks from the ’60s and ’70s. The film, which was
This film is so my dad. Ross Brioux was a real neighbourhood guy, going door-to-door calling on the locals. Many became lifelong friends including brothers “Bus” and “Sping” Turner. The fact my dad knew guys named “Bus” and “Sping” is so him, too. Men of the early ’40s had nicknames pulled from daily newspaper comic
Here’s what my dad did in the war: Prosper (Ross) Brioux was part of the Canadian Provost Corps, basically a member of the Military Police. This film shows what army life was like during World War II at Camp Borden (now Base Borden), an army training centre near Barrie, Ont. Ross received his basic and
In 1943, William Louis Brioux lost his wife Ada (Guerin) in an automobile accident. Three of his grown children—Gontran (and his wife, Marge), Virginia (and her husband, Rudy, and young son, Paul) and Prosper gathered at William’s home on Wilgar in what was then the new subdivision of The Kingsway. First stop—Our Lady of Sorrows
Why this film and why now? Paul’s Christmas 1946 was one of my dad Ross Brioux’s 16mm films I could have transferred and edited anytime. Almost everyone featured in this eight-minute story has passed on. That even includes the young four- or five-year-old who is the main focus – Paul Morin. He died, tragically, in
In 1953, Ross and Marg Brioux moved 2.5 kms west — from Wilgar Rd. to 5308 Dundas St. West in Etobicoke. The two storey farmhouse was one of a handful of heritage residences that remained on the ever-widening, commercialized street known as Hwy 5. In that house they raised their first born, Tippy — an
Back in the late 1950s, my family lived in one of the last of the old farm houses right on Dundas Street in Toronto’s west end. That’s where I spent my first 10 Christmases. Today, where once grew truly delicious apples, the stretch along Dundas St. West between Kipling Avenue and The 427 is now
