{"id":23664,"date":"2019-04-26T14:59:59","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23664"},"modified":"2019-04-26T15:00:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:00:08","slug":"time-travellers-diary-a-50-year-flashback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-a-50-year-flashback\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: A 50-Year Flashback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Helen Roberts
Volunteer
Aurora Museum & Archives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 1969 and the\nnewly married Time Traveller and her husband are looking for their first home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although both were\nborn and raised in Toronto, prices of suitable homes in that city exceeded\ntheir modest budget of $25,000. So, they looked north; to the new development\nin the village of Beeton – homes within the budget but too far north; to\nTottenham where pre-fab homes were available at a very reasonable price \u2013 too\ngreat a distance from jobs in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richmond Hill was a\npossibility but the couple finally decided to check out a new subdivision in\nAurora. Just south of St. Andrews College, Wimpy Homes, a well-known builder\nwas opening a brand-new subdivision called Aurora Orchards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple was\ndelighted to discover that two of the new homes fell within their budget \u2013 a\nside split with half basement and crawl space, and a bungalow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both models offered\nthree bedrooms, one bathroom, living, dining room and kitchen plus a carport.\nAlthough $500 over their budget, they chose a bungalow on Orchard Heights Blvd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rumours suggested\nthat the road would one day go all the way west to Bathurst Street, but that\nwas difficult to believe \u2013 at the time the area was covered with the remains of\nthe original apple orchard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of\nNovember, the house was ready (complete with the latest yellow bathroom\nfixtures), the sod was laid and before the end of the year the couple became\nresidents of the Town of Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On checking out Aurora\u2019s\namenities, the Time Traveller was pleased to discover that shopping was close\nby and easy to access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main shopping\ndistrict on Yonge Street provided a butcher, bakery, dairy, hardware, two\njewelry stores, a menswear store, a five & dime and even a small department\nstore at the corner of Wellington carrying everything from clothing for the\nentire family to sporting goods, fabrics and sewing supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank stood in the\ncentre of the block. Groceries would be no problem \u2013 both the IGA and the new\nA&P at Aurora Heights Dr. carried all the essentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The library on\nVictoria Street was quite new and promised to be an interesting source of\nreading material and there were five churches within easy reach of the new\nhome. With the growing population, schools were becoming overcrowded, however a\nnew public school within the subdivision had been promised (and was built by\nthe time the Time Travellers\u2019 family had grown to include children).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future was\nexciting for the young couple and their choice of Aurora as their new home and\nthe place to bring up their family proved auspicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years later they would still call Aurora\nhome.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Helen RobertsVolunteerAurora Museum & Archives It\u2019s 1969 and the newly married Time Traveller and her husband are looking for their first home. Although both were born and raised in Toronto, prices of suitable homes in that city exceeded their modest budget of $25,000. So, they looked north; to the new development in the village […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-69G","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 09:21:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}