Mainstreeter Staff
In our April issue, at page 21, we chronicled the final days of a majestic
100-year-old Norway Maple tree located on the front lawn of 11 Mutchmor
Road that had recently met its match in a 30-minute tussle with a City of
Ottawa woodchipper. Beneath a 1920’s photo of the stately home, which has
been owned by Doug and Gayle Singer since 1988, we pointed out to readers
that 11 Mutchmor “was well known to Ottawans of the time for a reason other
than the maple”, and we promised a big reveal in our June issue.
Well here it is…
It was Christmastime 1930, and the talk of the town was the brilliant Xmas lights adorning Stephen R. Waggoner’s home at 11 Mutchmor Road, winner of the City’s best all-around Christmas lighting display. Photo Supplied
The year was 1930, with Christmas in the offing, but as an article in the Ottawa Journal noted, the unseasonably warm weather and scarcity of snow was threatening to put a damper on the festive season in Ottawa. However, there was one bright light on the holiday horizon, and that was the collective glow emanating from the outdoor Christmas lighting display bedecking the Old Ottawa East home of Mr. & Mrs. Stephen R. Waggoner – that being the house at 11 Mutchmor Road.
According to the Journal, Mr. Waggoner’s entry in the newspaper’s popular Light Up for Christmas contest, had just captured the fancy of Ottawans across the city, and had been awarded first prize overall as the Best All-around Christmas Outdoor Lighting Display in Ottawa.
A previous contest winner, Mr. Waggoner and the house at 11 Mutchmor were the unanimous choice of the contest judges in 1930, the display earning their praise as “a design of distinction,” and “a very novel effect.”
While snow was at a premium in December 1930, this photo of 11 Mutchmor Road and surrounding homes shows enough of the white stuff to provide a magical holiday glow to the neighbourhood. Photo Supplied
“People came from miles around to see his display of Christmas lighting,” crowed the Journal, which summed up the impact of Mr. Waggoner’s bright lights on an otherwise sombre Xmas season in Ottawa, as follows: “One thing making the judges’ task much harder was the unseasonal lack of snow. Christmas lighting is at its best when snow covers the trees and ground. All were agreed, however, that Christmas lighting had given the necessary and practically sole holiday effect to the city.”
The photos of the Waggoners Christmas lighting display, featured on this page, came into the possession of the current owners of 11 Mutchmor, the Singers, in an interesting and roundabout manner.
Several years ago, the Singers received a letter from Doug and Jane Fitzgibbons of Kitchener, Waterloo, enclosing photos they had discovered when going through the belongings of past relatives of theirs – Joseph Little and his wife Irene (nee Ninninger) who resided at 11 Mutchmor in Ottawa from the 1950’s until their deaths within a month of one another in 1979/1980. The photos then passed on to Mr. Little’s surviving brother and sister, where they were found by the Fitzgibbons, who then passed them on to the Singers.
The photos appear to have been taken days apart, as one shows the house dusted with a sprinkle of snow, while the other seems to follow afterwards with a more substantial fall of snow on the house roof and on the surrounding lawns and streets.
This May 1928 photo of the home features a Model T Ford parked in the driveway and cobblestone paving on Mutchmor Road. Photo Supplied
Another photo featured on this page, this one taken on May 28, 1928, shows off a Model T Ford parked in the driveway of the home, as well as cobblestone paving on Mutchmor Road. The photo also came to the Singers from a previously unknown source, a woman named Judy Bell of Port Sanilac, Michigan on the shores of Lake Huron across from Bayfield, Ontario. Bell’ mother, Sarah Elizabeth (Bess) Clarke was born and raised in Kars, outside of Ottawa, and married Thomas E. Johnson, of Port Sanilac. The photo was found by Bell in June 2020 while she and her son were combing through her father’s photo albums, and a Google search eventually confirmed the location of the home as Ottawa, and not Port Sanilac.
The Singers are not aware of the connection between the late Bess Clarke and their historic home at 11 Mutchmor, a mystery that dates back almost 100 years, nor do they know how the photo came to find its way into a photo album belonging to Clarke’s husband.
Christmas lighting, Norway Maples and a Model T Ford – they all have a place in the century-old historical tapestry woven out of bricks and mortar at 11 Mutchmor Road!
