A Brief History of Michael Addleman & His Businesses

                                            1899 - 1950's    

Written for Addleman family after a query as to whether I had any information on Michael Addleman                    

                

The Pembroke of 1899, the year Michael Addleman arrived in town, was well into its transition from a lawless outpost where the Shiners who had ruled the lumber trade from Ottawa to Mattawa were long gone as was the wisdom, as one physician wrote to his parents in England, of the necessity of carrying a revolver. Money had been made in the past decades, lots of money and it showed in the magnificent brick homes that became a feature of the town. It also showed on the main street where two and three story businesses, crowned with fancy pediments lined much of the commercial section. 

A couple of years after Michael arrived he was joined by his wife and perhaps wanting to show off their new home to her they would have taken a stroll up the main street.

In that year of 1902 there was a new addition to the main street, the Freeman Block, seen below, which had just been completed and would have been a “must see” on their walk.

                                                      

Unfortunately by the end of the decade this building burnt to the ground but within a year or so was replaced with this block of buildings, seen below to the right of the photo.

                                             

This first block of Pembroke Street west would have been all too familiar to the Addleman family as it was the  beginning of the main business section of town and looking eastward, as we are, it would have been a familiar sight to any family member returning home after shopping or from school. The tall, brown building behind the telephone pole is the White Building which was situated at the corner of Pembroke Street east and Mackay Street and this is the corner where any of the family returning home or to the store would have turned left, went a block and a bit and been at the front door.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This, below, is the main street as Michael would have shown it to Golda in 1902 on her introductory walk up the main street.

                               

Here on this block was a grocery store, a druggist, a paint and wallpaper store, a men’s clothing store, an insurance company, offices and if you notice the lower of the two signs on the side of the building there was Dr. McKay who would pull a tooth for a quarter. Just off camera to the left was the flour mill and behind the low building on the left of the photo were the woollen mills where raw wool from the local farmers would be turned into cloth. 

 Continuing their walk up the main street of Golda’s new hometown they would come next to Albert Street where they perhaps stopped and turned to see the Bank of Ontario building with its arched windows. Across the street and just this side of the Freeman block is the three story Copeland Hotel where he may have stayed when he first arrived in town. But with limited funds the one dollar a night the Copeland charged may have been a little steep for the young Michael Addleman and he may have selected one of the several other good, but less expensive hotels the town had to offer. 

               

 Turning now to continue their walk westward up the main street the next intersection they would have come to would have been the Prince of Wales Street, now called Prince Street. 

In the photo below, looking west up Pembroke Street, they would have seen this, the heart of the business section and an area that in less than twenty years, in 1918, would be levelled by fire.

The Royal Bank is on the corner with the O’Kelly Building behind it where you could buy a hand rolled cigar, made by one of Mr. Kelly’s employees and perhaps buy a bottle of Topaz or Radium wine to enjoy with that cigar.

                                

Next door is the Murray Bros. Department store, one of several big stores of that time.

Across the street is the Pembroke Hotel with its many balconies and all you can eat meals for a quarter.

Continuing up the main street they would come to the corner of Pembroke and Moffat Streets and here again looking back they would see Fenton & Smith’s Department Store to the right with Beamish’s Dry Goods across the street.

             

Farther down the street was a hardware store, a grocer, a tailor, two barbershops and the inevitable tobacconist that was a feature on every block of the town. Just off camera to the right was the Albion Hotel that along with the Copeland were the two main hotels of the town. 

Turning again to look westward they would have seen this, the last couple of block of Pembroke’s main street. 

                                            

Here they would have seen the Oak Hall Men’s Wear to the left of the photo who’s owners, the Cohens, they would have undoubtedly come to know. Farther up the street on the right was the Grand Opera House and at the near right was Stewart & Bowden's Hardware. Here too was Dr. Josephs office, a butcher shop and higher up a variety of other businesses. Here as well was a lumber mill, a foundry, the offices of the Pembroke Observer newspaper and at the end of the street in among the distant trees was one of the old, original homesteads.

At the very top of the street was Mark Cardiff’s, one of the prominent old businesses that still carried on the trade of carriage making and repair and horse shoeing. This type business and its appearance, an anomaly perhaps to the modern main street, was a common sight on the side streets of Pembroke where the old industries still held sway.

                                  

For the first few years after Michael arrived there are few details of his life in Pembroke. There was a scrap metal business that, if it operated in the town of Pembroke did so quietly. His business may have in fact have taken place outside of Pembroke as In the 1904 Ontario Business Gazette he is not mentioned in the section for Pembroke. However he may have opened his business too late to be included in that years edition because on the eleventh of May, 1904 this ad appeared for the first time in the Pembroke Standard newspaper.

                                                              

Just an item on the front page of the Pembroke Standard. There was no street address given as that innovation was almost two decades away and as was the custom in those years it’s location was given in relationship to another well known business, in this instance the Manitoba House Hotel and as many small hotels were in those days it was probably little more than a house that rented rooms.

Here is the same ad from July of 1904 showing other ads above and below it. His ads in the paper were either on the front page or on the fifth page where most of the small, local advertisements appeared and I have the feeling that ads were placed at the discretion of the typesetter to go where ever they would best fit. 

                                                       

This small ad as seen above was placed, without change, every week until a few weeks prior to the eighteenth of April, 1906 when this item appeared in the local news column of the Standard:

                               

And their ad in the same issue of the paper reflected that change.

                                              This new site at 159 John Street is just a block east of their old location, on a side street off of Pembroke Street east, just a block down from the Queens Hotel which was located on the corner of Pembroke east and John Streets. They also kept their building on Mackay Street and were about to open another, different business at that location.

The photo below is of their building on John Street with 159 being to the left side of the building. The right side of the building was a home.

                                           I have the feeling this building, or at least their half of it, became the Addleman home. It’s reasonable to think that until they bought this building they were living in the apartments over the store on Mackay Street. There’s a large time gap between the purchasing of this building in 1906 and the publishing of the first street directory in 1925 but in that first directory all of the business concerns of Michael Addleman were listed as being at 137 Mackay Street. John Street is only listed as being a residence and in 1925  A. David, J. Michael and Michael Addleman are listed at this location. In 1927 there are, in addition to the above, Abraham D. (perhaps A. David?), Ann, Harry and Joseph all listed as living at the John Street location. Harry is listed as being a student, there is no designation for Ann (perhaps a school age child?), Abraham and Harry are listed as being clerks at M. Addleman Ltd. and J. Michael is listed as being a manager for that firm.

 The home on the right side is listed in 1925 as belonging to H.R. Mackay and in later years Edward Poupore. By 1938 the Addleman's are gone from this location and Mr. Lorne G. Fraser resides there with A.E. Marcotte living next door.

As mentioned this new location was just down the street from the Queens Hotel that was on the corner of Pembroke Street east and John Street. Once called the Metropolitan Hotel it was the finest hostelry of its day in the town of Pembroke. Below is an artist's rendition of what the hotel looked like in its prime.

                                                 

But it had fallen on hard times, had been renamed the Queen’s Hotel and in 1906 at the time of Addleman Brothers moving to their new location the old hotel was poised to  become the new location for Lee Manufacturing, makers of the Peerless Incubator for the poultry industry. After Lee moved in, the sloping roof of the building was taken off to create a flat roof and in time, when Lee relocated, the building became the home of the new Superior Electric Company.  

At the time of his move to John Street. This is what Michael would have seen as he stepped out of his new business location and looked left, up John Street towards Pembroke Street.

                                                     

During the period after the move the ads for the scrap business became less frequent in the paper, eventually disappearing altogether for a time until this ad appeared in 1909.

                                      

The location was the same but now Addleman Brothers had become Michael Addleman alone.

The change doesn’t seem to have affected the business as he continued to place regular ads in the paper for the next several years.

At the same time it would appear that the Mackay Street location has become Addleman's Men’s Clothing store. There seemed to be no formal announcement in the papers of the day of its opening nor were there the usual opening week specials that often accompanied the arrival of a new business. The first ad I found for the new clothing store was this one, placed in the November 4th, 1913 edition of the newspaper.

                                         

However in December of that same year there was this notice advertising their fifth anniversary sale which would put the stores opening in the fall of 1908.

                                            

Earlier, before there were any ads for this new enterprise there was this in the section for Pembroke of the 1910-1911 Ontario Gazetteer and Directory, which was a listing of businesses  by town or city:

                                              

So we know for sure that by 1910 he was in the clothing business. In the 1906 edition of the Gazetteer there was no listing for Addleman other than as a junk dealer.

After placing the two ads above there were regular weekly specials and reductions that were the hallmark of the clothing business throughout the town in those days. Although the term “Slaughter Sale” may seem almost off putting to our modern sensibilities it’s use was not uncommon in those days. 

Prosperity must have been smiling on him as on April 10th, 1913 a new, larger ad for his other businesses was drawn up and became a regular feature in the paper. The ad also heralded another change, the return to Mackay Street for all his business concerns and a new name for a new and apparently dominant facet of his business, dealing in raw hides and furs.

                        

The location this time noted as being next door to Cecile (sic) Hotel as are the ads for  the clothing store. The Manitoba House was no more and the dominant feature of that street would have been the Windsor Hotel owned by a Mr. Moleon Cecile. In those days hotels were often referred to by the name of the owner rather than by the name of the establishment and throughout his ads at this time, and for decades to come, the Addleman business was listed as being next to Cecile’s hotel, near the C.P.R. Station. This definitely places his business in the building that became known, and is known still by the older people of the community, as Addlemans. The building still stands today and is used as an apartment building at 137 Mackay Street as seen in the photo below.

                                     

Although there are no buildings to the left of the store in this photo at the time Michael had his business here there were three other buildings between his store and Nelson Street ( called Wellington Street until the early 1920’s) seen at mid photo, left. The C.P.R. railway station mentioned in his ad would have been located approximately where the unidentified white object is at the left of the photo.

The old Windsor Hotel has long since burned and unfortunately there are no known photos of it but it was a medium sized building of two, perhaps three stories with an enclosed balcony at the front extended off the second floor. Behind it were stables that had been advertised as having room to accommodate 30 span of horses.

On the other side of Addleman's was a store that was, at different times, a tobacconist, a grocery store and a tea room. Next to it was a home and on the corner was a grocery store that eventually became a private home. 

 I should mention here that the corner grocery store was owned by a Mrs. R. Wolfe whose husband Mr. J. Wolfe also owned a grocery store in town. They were Russian Poles who undoubtedly were well acquainted with the Addleman family as they were not only neighbours and fellow business people but shared a common faith and perhaps a common language. The Wolfe’s as well as the Addleman's also adopted a child from Russia, a little girl who they brought to Pembroke and raised as their daughter. This child was one of over one hundred Jewish children who were rescued from post war Russia by Mrs. A.J. Freiman of Ottawa and brought to Canada.

As Michael stepped out of his store on Mackay street and looked across and to his right he would have seen, on the corner of Mackay and Nelson Streets, a livery business that later, with the increasing popularity of the automobile, became Fraser's Red Arrow Taxi Company and this was a constant business throughout the entire history of Addleman's on Mackay Street. The photo below, taken in 1928, is what Michael would have seen in those years.

                    

Looking to his left, across and up Mackay street he would have seen this building which was there when he came and remained unchanged throughout his time in Pembroke.

                                     

This was the Pembroke Laundry, Cleaning and Dyeing Company which not only did Pembroke and areas laundry but had it shipped in by train from as far away as Chapleau, Ontario. If the Addleman family had their laundry sent out it may have gone to this business or to one of the several Chinese hand laundry businesses that were located in town.

Now with his men’s clothing a success there were weekly ads like the one below which firmly placed Addleman's in the realm of selling inexpensive clothing for the working man.

                                                               

At a time when the average working man earned less than a thousand dollars a year he would have appealed to the men who worked in many of the industries that once populated that area of Pembroke. 

One of his main competitors for the working man’s dollar in those days would have been a store run by Mr. W. Luxenburg, located at the west end of the main street who also sold inexpensive mens and boys clothing. In 1914 Mr. Luxenburg retired from the clothing business but in his place was a new competitor, a Mr. Mendel whose shop was in the heart of the business section close to all the other stores one might frequent when downtown. Perhaps this was the incentive for Michael to divert from his usual practice of placing a medium sized ad and for the first time to succumb to the lure of a full page ad in December of 1914.

                                                    

And of course now, in December of 1914, the first world war had just begun. Aside from some new defence industries coming to town and an influx of men to the military base at Petawawa some ten miles west of Pembroke there was little change in the routine in the lives of the  citizens of the town or in the businesses. The newspapers of course were filled with war news and there were letters from the front written by local lads that were published fairly regularly telling what they could of the fighting in Europe and of their experiences.

As in most, if not all communities, there were drives in Pembroke and area to solicit money for the war effort and in this the Addleman family were regular and generous contributors. Below is the results of one such drive published in the paper in the waning months of the war in June of 1918. To the left of the notice you can see an ad for Addleman's who were advertising sailor hats.

                                                                        

As evidenced below, the donation by Michael Addleman was exceedingly generous as that $100 would be worth in excess of $1,700 in the currency of 2016.

                                      

With the ending of the war there was continued prosperity in town with most of the industries still paying “war time” wages to their employees, an issue that was to become a bone of contention in the early years of the 1920’s. However it did put extra money in the pockets of the working man and woman and the businesses of the town seemed to flourish in the continuing post war boom. 

Addleman's continued to advertise both their clothing and raw fur concerns and although it still continued to operate, the scrap business never made it to the paper.

Then in March of 1920 this notice appeared in the local papers.

                              

Addleman's were getting out of their clothing business. There was a piece in the local news that Michael Addleman was selling his business to Mr. Charles Shore and was moving to Ottawa. He assured his customers for his other concerns he was going to continue the raw hide and fur business as well as the scrap business and these would still be located at 137 Mackay Street in the Addleman building. 

And so that spring Addleman's became Charles Shore Mens Wear.

                     

It was apparent from the ad, seen above, that Mr. Shore was going to aim at a bit higher market than had been the case for Addleman's. This however seemed to be a bit of a hard sell to the townspeople who were used to buying cheaper priced clothes at this location. With these prices he was going up against at least two of the old, established “Gentlemen’s Clothiers” of the town, Watters & Bodell and Oak Hall Men’ Wear and was even pricing himself above the mid range stores such as Kennedy’s and Fenton & Smith and a host of other family clothing stores. This, of course, did not work as planned and almost immediately he dropped his prices and began, as many stores of the day did, accepting produce in lieu of cash. More price reductions and weekly sales ensued but it still appeared that he was struggling to lure in the customers. 

Then in July of 1921 there was a fire.

                                                             

This seemed to be the final straw for Mr. Shore. There were no closing out sales, no last minute bargains, nothing but this announcement in the July, 1921 edition of the papers.

Although it is hard to read here it stated that Michael Addleman was returning to Pembroke and was going to reopen his old men’s wear store in the old location.

                                                        

And as any good businessman would do he had a grand re-opening sale.

             With this Addleman's was back in the men’s wear business. The raw fur concern was still in business but ads for this were few in these years. As an established buyer of furs and hides there was probably little need to advertise what the farmers and trappers of the area already knew of and had a long relationship with. That his raw fur business was still flourishing became evident in 1925 when one of the premier manufacturing concerns in town went into receivership. The Pembroke Woollen Mills had been forced into liquidation along with a host of other woollen mills throughout the country. Canada had removed the 11 ¼ % tariff it had placed on  woollen goods coming from England and with these cheaper goods now flooding the market many local mills were forced to close. At its peak the Pembroke mill employed as many as 130 men and women and at its closing was employing 75 or 80 people adding about $60,000 to the local economy ($814,000 in 2016 dollars). In March of that year when the assets of the mill were sold off Mr. Addleman bought the entire stock of raw wool, nearly 30,000 pounds worth and was able to resell most of it almost immediately.

There was one other change around this time that had to do with the Addleman business enterprise. Like the opening of the clothing store years before this new business had no opening advertisements, indeed it never advertised at all, and would have gone unnoticed as being part of the community of stores on Mackay Street if, in 1927 it hadn’t been included in that years Mackay Street  listing in Vernon’s Directory.

                                                                         

Addleman's now ran a grocery store. In 1925 the listing for this store at 135 Mackay Street was Morris Barnett’s Tobacco Shop, now it was Addleman's Grocers. 

But here is another mystery that I cannot put a location to. In the 1916 edition of Vernon's Directory there was this:

                                                  

So as early as 1915 Michael had, what probably was the general store that Katherine mentioned in an email to me. I have never come upon any advertising for this although for a small, family run grocery store of the day that wasn't unusual. We know that by 1906 the family, or part of it, lived and worked on John Street. We know that by 1908 the Mackay Street store was a clothing store so where, in 1916, was the grocery store located? Also I should say that in the 1925 Vernon's Directory there was no listing for grocer under Addleman and there was no Addleman listed under grocer, either wholesale or retail.

It is perhaps not surprising that Michael or one of the family decided to open (or re-open or move) a grocery store, probably in late 1925 or in 1926, just doors away from what was and had been for years, an established grocery business. One of the strange facts of business life in Pembroke was if there was a successful grocery business in an area soon other entrepreneurs would open one near by. In the case of Addleman's there was not only Gorman’s grocery but a block and a half away on the corner of Mackay and Pembroke Streets there were, within sight of one another, at least five other grocers and at least two of these were popular, long established concerns. So this was almost preordained to fail and by the next Vernon’s Directory we have which is 1929, it was gone and the store was vacant. In 1931 it was listed as Gervais’ Tea Room.

Just a note here. In the 1929 edition of the Business Gazetteer Addleman's is still listed as having a grocery as one of their business concerns but the street listing had this building, at 135 Mackay Street, as vacant. As I've discovered the business listings were often less accurate than the street listings and so I tend to believe that by 1929 and probably in 1927, the grocery business had closed.

So the grocery store at this location probably lasted but a year or two and by 1927 it was undoubtedly gone as that was the year another huge change was about to happen to the Addleman businesses.

There was this item, part of a larger ad, in the September 1st, 1927 edition of the local newspaper.

                  

In the same issue of the paper there was this eulogy and a statement from Michael Addleman.

                                                       

Now of course the advertising began and ran over a couple of months until November 3rd, 1927 this final ad for Addleman's Men’s Wear appeared in the paper.

                                

Ever the businessman Michael had one last trick up his sleeve to lure the customers to his store. He advertised that on a particular Saturday in October he would, at times throughout the day, climb up onto the roof of his store and toss handfuls of one dollar bills to the crown below until he had disbursed all of one hundred dollars. There is no report on how this went off but I have no doubt that it drew in the crowds as any public event in those days would pull in people by the hundreds.

During all this he again began advertising for hides and fur on a more regular basis than he had done for the past number of years. 

During the war there had been a huge demand for hides which had driven up the price for which they could be sold. But at the end of the war this enormous stockpile of leather that had accumulated in the government stores was flung back onto the market depressing the price farmers were paid and which dealers could sell for. By 1927 however the price had stabilized and was back to pre-war levels and indeed now there was a shortage of hides. There was also a renewed demand for furs as the post war boom continued and after some years of few and sporadic ads for this side of their business Addleman's were once again back, full force, in the fur and hide business. The ad below is from 1928 and is a new and larger ad than had been seen for some years.

                           

If you note the small print at the bottom of the ad states he has been in business for 25 years and this tallies with my earlier guess that he started business in Pembroke in 1904 at the time of his first advertisement. 

During the 1920's the original scrap business seems to have evolved into a more specific metal recycling business. The Vernon Directories no longer had Addleman's listed under scrap but were now listed under Iron and Steel Merchants

Then in 1929 the depression hit.

It took a year or so for the full effect of this to hit Pembroke as initially that mainstay of the local economy, the lumber industry, continued to send men to the winter camps and the mills continued to run full shifts but even these, by late 1930, were feeling the effects. By 1931 and onwards fewer and fewer men went into the bush and the mills either shuttered their operations or severely cut back the hours of operation. Most of the local industries remained open but either reduced their hours or, in an effort to keep as many men as possible employed, had two shifts of a few hours each so at least what little work there was could be divided between all their employees.

This economic catastrophe was reflected in the ads that were placed in the papers of the day. Those stores which had once placed weekly ads of a half a page or more now would place an occasional, small ad although the large, chain stores such as Friedman’s and the Canadian Department Store (Eaton’s by another name) still placed full page or two paged ads and undoubtedly helped keep the newspaper in revenue.

There was an item in the paper from this time of a farmer coming to town with a load of sheep skins for sale and after receiving an offer of ten cents per hide returned home with them as this wasn’t enough to cover his cost of bringing them to town. This drop in demand for hides of all sorts of course had to affect Michael Addleman's business and this was reflected in an almost complete cessation of any advertising. Throughout these years there were few and sporadic ads for his business except for each April, at the end of the trapping season, when an ad or two or three like the ones below were placed. The ad on the left is from 1931, the one on the right is from 1934.

                                                     

  Towards the end of the 1930's the economy of Pembroke was recovering. This could be seen in the new, larger and more frequent ads that were run in the local newspaper. Their tone was more aggressive and up-beat and luxury goods were again advertised. Addleman's however had pretty well stopped placing ads altogether. In my scanning of the Standard-Observer in the late thirties there was only this one, small ad I came across, placed in the April 18th, 1937 edition of the paper.

                                                                    

Although I've looked through different years of the newspaper, right through until the 1950's, I never again came upon an ad for Addlemans. In the Vernon's directory they are listed right up until 1950 but in the next available edition, which is in 1960, they are gone.

In 1931 both Joseph and J. Michael Addleman are listed as living in the house on John Street with the business still on Mackay street and I would imagine that some time after the clothing store closed in 1927 Michael Addleman probably returned to live in Ottawa. By the 1941 edition there is just Joseph M. Addleman listed as manager for M. Addleman & Co. with the notation that he lives in Ottawa. 

Addleman's fur business continued on into some time in the 1950's when it ended its business concern here and in the 1960 address listings there was no longer the name Addleman listed in the directory.

From the end of the depression they still dealt in furs, still kept their store on Mackay Street open but I have the feeling it may have been open only occasionally or perhaps seasonally.

Although the last ad I could find was for the iron and steel business this side of their was never again listed in the Vernon's business directory. They were, throughout this time, still dealing in hides and furs and on a couple of occasions when I've mentioned Addleman's to some of the elderly people in town they always remember it as "the fur company."

                                                              Life in Pembroke

After her move to Pembroke where does Mrs. Addleman shop, lets say for groceries? In the second photograph I mentioned the brown building at the corner of Pembroke and Mackay Streets. Below is a drawing of that building and as you can see it held a fairly large  grocery store. If she didn't want to shop here she could have turned either right or left and within less than half a block been at another grocers all within easy walking distance of home. The building beside it with the steep pitched roof was a harness dealer and if Michael ever owned a horse he may have bought a harness or had it repaired here. The building beyond it was a private home and is still being used as an apartment building. 

                                                      

Or she may have shopped here, at Martin's Grocery Store (as seen in 1903) of which the interior would have been typical for that time. The advent of self serve, where you roam the aisles picking items and placing them in a basket did not come to Pembroke until the mid 1920's.

                                                       

She may have, if down town shopped at Fenton & Smith's Grocery store (below, as seen in 1902) which was part of their larger department store. Here there was free home delivery of your purchases if you spent over a dollar and if you spent less, a fee of ten cents would get you the service.

                                                                      

Perhaps a new coal scuttle was needed and so after shopping at Fenton & Smith's she could have went next door to Dunlop's Hardware store. If it was winter she could have warmed herself momentarily by the stove, seen in the foreground of the photo, before having one of the clerks fetch her a new scuttle from the end wall.

                                                       

Then she might cross the street to have a quick look in Murray Brothers department store…….

                                                                 

…..up the street and a pop into Harrison's jewellers because, well, just because……

                                                            

…….a glance across the street to Fraser's wondering if the kids need new shoes or scribblers for school from Grigg's…..

                                                             

…….perhaps a new broom from Gardener's (note the wooden sidewalk)…..

                                                                               

……then down the last block, cross the bridge, go by the post office, turn left at Mackay Street and home.

As the years passed and the Addleman family prospered and became well known and undoubtedly part of the social scene of the town Mrs. Addleman may have indulged in a dress from the Ritz Ladies Wear seen here in the early 1920's.

        

Perhaps Mr. Addleman wanting a suit that was commensurate with his status in the town would have dropped into Watters & Bodell to have one fitted from a bolt of cloth of his choosing.

                                                

And his first car, a new Model T would have been bought from Pinks, Ford dealership

                                                  

                                                                The Kids

If they were born in Pembroke or needed to visit a hospital in the first year or two after Golda arrived this hospital, the Pembroke General, run by the Grey Nuns, would have been their  only option. 

                                

However within a few years the new Cottage Hospital, seen below, was built. Generally regarded as a protestant or non-secular hospital this probably would have been the institution of choice for the Addleman family. This building is now, among other things, the home of the Upper Ottawa Valley Genealogical Group.

                                 

Living where they did there is a good chance that the children would have went to the Centre Ward Public School on Isabella Street. The school, seen below, still stands and is an office building. 

                            

Later, as they moved on to high school they would have only have to walk down  Isabella Street to the next block where the high school was located. 

                                                       

A new high school was finally built in the late 1920's, too late I would imagine for any of the Addleman children to use.

Perhaps, once in the upper grades of elementary school, third or fourth book as they were called in those days, rather than going straight home they might have succumbed to the lure of Hunt's Cafe on the main street. 

                                                             

Here among the cool marble and polished glass they could have sampled the ice cream delights of the local dairies or indulged in one of Mr. Behan's  liquid concoctions.

                                                                     

And for fun. Well for the boys at least, being boys, there were two nearby train stations with regular steam locomotives coming and going, there were lumber mills and manufacturers of wooden products, a boat builder or two, carriage makers and machine shops and all this, if it were then as it was in my childhood, would be open to a couple of young boys who could wander around at will among the machinery and working men and teams of horses so long as you kept out of the way.

 Every year at least one circus came to town and when it unloaded all of its wagons from the train at the nearby C.P.R. station there was always a parade that would have went right past Addleman's store on its way to the fair grounds. What boy of any age can resist a circus and for the concerned parents it was always advertised as "good, clean fun."

In winter there was skating and tobogganing, there was a children's fair held each February and of course there were the movies. Both the Grand Opera House and the Casino Theatre ran Saturday serials to the furious playing of the piano as it kept up with the action of the silent films of the day. 

As they got older the children may have indulged in what their parents had already partaken of, and that was a summer cruise up the Ottawa River in the Steamer Oiseau. 

                           

This was such a big part of the social life of young people in Pembroke that in 1920 the stores on the main street decided to close half days on Wednesdays so their young employees could indulge in an afternoon cruise up the river to Fort William, an old fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Co., or perhaps beyond. 

                     

All of this, the coming to Pembroke, the beginning of that humble first business and then the other businesses, the becoming part of the business community, the Jewish community and the wider community of the town, to become a widely known and respected member of the business and of that wider community who people to this day remember, all of this all took place in a time of prosperity and in a time that we can scarcely imagine. This was a time when electricity although widely available was not universal throughout the town. This was a time before television, even, until the mid 1920's, before radio was available in Pembroke and this lack of ready made entertainment at home flung people out into the wider community. There were weekly dances, there were movies that changed features three times a week, there was little theatre with local performers and there was vaudeville. The Grand Opera House had, at least monthly, a play or a minstrel programme and revues with, as the ads were always sure to point out, "lots of pretty girls." 

The depression of course changed all this but by that time the Addleman family had pretty well moved to Ottawa where I have no doubt Michael Addleman and his children were able to weather that storm and return to prosperity.

It's been fun delving into the business life and times of Michael and bringing to life, if even a little bit, his Pembroke story to his family. 

There was a mention that Michael Addleman had some connection with the Superior Electric Company of Pembroke. I could never find any connection although being a known and successful businessman he may have been on the board of directors or the fact he dealt in scrap iron and steel meant he could have been the man to whom Superior Electric had a contract with to sell their scrap metal.

 November 10, 2016