Patricia O’Duffy (née LaDoucer)
Isabel: “Pop Stuart always carried a bag of candy in his pocket.”
Joan: “Yes! I remember that. At church.”
Isabel: “And passed it out to the kids.”
Joan: “He wasn’t supposed to give it to the kids at church and then he’d give us all candy.”
Patricia: “He’d have a suit on always. He’d have like a suit coat on, a white shirt. And then he was a real tease. He’d have a fly on his collar and he’d be looking at you and you’d say, ‘There’s a fly!’ ‘Well, hit it off!’ Well, you couldn’t because it was made of metal. And you’d hit it and then you’d realize.And then he’d have a string hanging out with thread in the pocket, you know. And then he’d say, ‘Well, pull that thread! Where’s it come from?’ You’d be pulling the thread! He was terrible.”
Joan: “He was a big jokester.”
Patricia: “He was a jokester. He had no kids. But we rented the last house in Wales from him. He owned that house. And they burned it. And I see it on one of the videos that Frannie made, burning it. It’s a funny feeling. And I always want to go on Google and look where you lived when you were a kid. I can’t. ‘Cause it’s underwater. ‘Cause a lot of my friends do that and I say, ‘I can’t do that!’ But, anyhow. Oh, I have good memories.”
Patricia O’Duffy grew up in a house her family rented in Wales, Ontario.
in her own words: Patricia O’Duffy’s Voice (6 audio & video clips)
Patricia O’Duffy, Interview Audio Excerpts (joint interview with Joan McEwan & Isabel Hunter), Lost Villages Historical Society Schoolhouse, Long Sault, Ontario. August 22, 2013
Babysitting Ryan Gosling’s father when she was young.
The memories flood back when I go to Upper Canada Village.
The teacher with the snoring dog.
Pop Stuart the local jokester in Wales. Sadly I cannot visit where I once lived, or Google it to see it on a map.
Video
Video Excerpt: Joan McEwan (joint interview with Patricia O’Duffy & Isabel Hunter), Lost Villages Historical Society Schoolhouse, Long Sault, Ontario. August 22, 2013
Video Excerpt: Joan McEwan (joint interview with Patricia O’Duffy & Isabel Hunter), Lost Villages Historical Society Schoolhouse, Long Sault, Ontario. August 22, 2013
In the first video Patricia O'Duffy, Joan McEwan and Isabel Hunter remember a wonderful character, Pop Stuart. Patricia then talks about how they rented his house until it was burned down. She also laments not being able to look up her childhood home on Google because it is now underwater.
In the second video Patricia recalls babysitting for various families including the Goslings where she babysat the movie star Ryan Gosling’s father. Then the three talk about how with the exception of a few rich families everyone was in the same circumstances. They recall old Dr. Brown from Aultsvile who made house calls driving his old Model T and would only charge 50 cents.
Bio
Patricia O’Duffy (née LaDoucer) grew up in a house her family rented from Pop Stuart in Wales, Ontario.
She now lives in Morrisburg and maintains a close relationship with her childhood friends from Wales.
Patricia O'Duffy on her bike in front of the Laflamme Barber shop in Wales in 1956
Patricia O'Duffy (1950s) in bathing suit sitting on wall at Dr Moody's House in Wales