New Gormley: Unique Richmond Hill neighbourhood has ties that last

Hideaway hamlet formed by heritage and community

Yorkregion.com
November 15, 2018
Kim Zarzour

This is the first in a four-part series looking at communities within Richmond Hill that have retained their deep roots and identity.

“Come in, come in!”

Susan Corrigan ushers her visitors up the creaky wooden steps to the big front porch, scoots past Duffy the golden doodle slumped at the front door into the cosy kitchen where family is gathered before the old pot belly wood stove.

There’s Corrigan’s husband Jim, her sister Faye and her husband Don Wideman (they were married in the nearby one-room schoolhouse when they were in Grade 1) and, on the wood-panelled walls surrounding them, dozens of photographs of family and neighbours dating back to the 1800s.

In the parlour of the house across the road, warmed by sunlight pouring through the tall rippled-glass window, the VandeRee kids are drawing in their sketchbooks; it’s art class taught by mom on a typical school day in their 1905 farmhouse.

And a few doors down, 15-year-old Mark Botelho is considering his next big project, possibly sewing up the flags he designed to cheer on this little community he loves.

Welcome to New Gormley, a neighbourhood quite unlike any you may have ever seen before.

This historic hamlet tucked behind the GO station feels a little like a place time forgot.

Everyone knows everyone here, and that is the way it always has been, all the way back to the first decade of the 19th century when Pennsylvania German immigrants first made it their home.

In its heyday, the community that straddled Richmond Hill and Whitchurch-Stouffville (later split by Hwy 404) had a hotel, store, blacksmith shop, weaver, boot and shoemaker, cheese and ruler factories and a cement block and tile company.

An article in The Richmond Hill Liberal in 1907 predicted glory days were ahead with the coming of the railway to the western half of Gormley, later known as New Gormley.

"Progress is in the air," the column-writer enthused, pointing to the hamlet perched "high and dry", an abundance of ozone, plenty of pure water and, from house verandahs, wide views of Richmond Hill, Markham and Scarborough.

Today, New Gormley has one main thoroughfare with about 35 houses, many of them 100 years old, most of them with barns still tucked behind, a surprising number with original family members still living there.

“Everyone’s related, one side or the other,” says Faye Wideman, who now lives in Aurora but still considers this 'home.'

Faye and Susan (nee Johnson) grew up here in the 106-year-old house that, until 1955, was the family-run general store.

Talking with the sisters is a boisterous blend of laughter and memories. There are stories of catching up on “the news” by listening to the party-line on the old crank-up wall phone, Gramma Mabel trying to keep the passing train’s soot from ruining her laundry on the clothesline, the day Queen Elizabeth 2 passed by on the train and everyone sat on the tracks waiting to wave; the little house down the road, with a skating rink behind (home of the Weasels hockey team), that a dentist and bank took turns using, the bank passbooks proudly boasting they now allow women to have their own accounts.

And of course the “wedding.”

Faye and Susan and Don all attended SS Number 4, (it’s York Centre for Youth now), a one-room school house on Leslie Street.

It was 1953, the first week of school.

“Some of the kids asked me if I liked Faye and then she came running up, all giggly,” Don recalls.

“He was smitten by me, he really was,” Faye smiles.

They decided to hold a wedding then and there, the entire class of Grade 1s running around the field gathering bouquets of chicory weed.

Their plans were foiled by the teacher who told them recess was over; the real wedding would have to wait two more decades.

As they reminisce, the CN train rumbles past a stone’s throw away. It screeches and the walls tremble and you almost have to shout to be heard but no one notices. It is part of life here.

“My mother would put me in the baby carriage on the porch for my afternoon’s sleep,” Faye says. “Never bothered me.”

This front room used to be the general store. A metal shelf that held soda pop still sports a label that makes them laugh: O’Keefe’s Ginger All.

Grampa JT Johnson scratched the E to be an L. No "ale" allowed in this religious household.

Up the creaky staircase in the attic, the massive storefront advertises “good value, prompt service.” On the second floor, the “tank room” was used to collect rainwater from eavestroughs to provide running water downstairs.

Aside from plumbing (“it was quite a treat when that went in,” Susan says), little has changed in this community. The families still share genetic links and social ones. Big front porches, street parties, Doors Open events and even Duffy all serve to keep everyone connected.

The VandeRees, who moved in across the street 16 years ago, quickly picked up the habit of walking Duffy in the evenings and now the neighbourhood feels more family than family, they say.

“When we bought this place it was a disaster,” says Marieke Geertsema VandeRee. “The porch was falling off the front, there were holes in the roof raccoons in the attic, garbage everywhere, lawn was waist-deep … Plus we had a six-week-old baby. It was kind of crazy.”

But they discovered these homes were built to last. The fixes were cosmetic, and they have grown to love the close-knit community.

The precarious plaster walls, the wonky path through the rail tracks, the rumbly train interruptions --it’s all quirky and it’s all earned its place here over the years, she says.

This neighbourhood is Richmond Hill’s first and only heritage district, so the homes and expansive lots are carefully preserved --and like most folks here, Marieke like that. She likes how you drive into the hidden hamlet south off Stouffville Sideroad and feel as if you’re entering a pioneer village.

“It’s like living in a big antique.”

D.W. Heise, who built this old brick house, planted an apple orchard out back and they still harvest the fruit for apple sauce and pies.

“I love that, the fact that he planted these and 100 years later I’m still working with them. It keeps his story alive.”

And it’s been a good place to raise a family. The children were home-schooled here, gathering on Susan’s front porch to sing songs, neighbourhood kids playing board games, old-timers sharing memories of walking up the tracks to the old schoolhouse.

Mark Botelho loves it here, too. Three years ago, at the age of 12, he gathered input from his neighbours to design a community flag in crayon: yellow for cornfields, green for the grass and trees, blue for sky and red for the omnipresent CN trains. Printouts of that flag now grace several homeowners’ front entrances.

Last summer he organized a referendum to secede from Richmond Hill with a mock mayoral race that saw neighbour Nigel Brown elected.

Mark admits their hamlet's mayor "doesn’t have power like Dave Barrow,” but his platform resonated for many here: asking Metrolinx to dim its parking lot lights at night, halting development on the Oak Ridges moraine, a bigger sign with the hamlet’s history and a local brewery to attract visitors.

The world outside New Gormley keeps churning along, farm fields bulldozed for big houses on tiny lots. On Gormley Road, change happens too: the old folks are passing away, new ones moving in.

But residents here are determined to keep their cachet.

What ties a community shifts, Marieke says.

At one point, families clustered here for support. It is the same, and different, today. Folks take care of each other here, but it takes effort, she says.

It can be as simple as bringing in eggs from her chickens out back, the kids raking elders’ leaves or 14-year-old Marten driving his lawn mower down the road, looking for lawns to cut.

“It’s harder when you lose relationships and people are busier,” Marieke says. “As Richmond Hill grows more diverse, it’s important to be aware that what people seek in a community isn’t always the same.”

The key is to shift our outlook and discover what common goals and compromises there are to connect you, she says.

Residents in New Gormley say they feel blessed: blessed to have historical designation so any changes are carefully done. Blessed to have had Stouffville Sideroad rerouted to keep them off the beaten track. Blessed to have large lots and a GO station a short walk away.

But mostly, they say, they are blessed to have people who care.

“We have the right people in the right place,” says 15-year-old Mark. “Everyone deserves to have a great neighbourhood like this.”