Trying To Solve A 65 Year Old Mystery

 

This photo was taken in 2012. Back in the 1950s the driveway was gravel and a Mr. Beauchamin would come by with his tractor with 45 gallon drums filled with water to give it traction and plow the snow away. 4590 and 4592 Harvard Avenue.

In 1951 my family moved into an upstairs flat in the middle class district of Notre Dame de Grace in Montreal. 4590 Harvard Avenue. Back then “flats” were sometimes called duplexes. More often than not the buildings were actually “fourplexes” that housed 4 families with separate entrances. One side of the building “copycatted” the other side of the building. They were kind of like large apartments. Our flat had four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a separate dining room, a breakfast nook, a pantry off of the kitchen, and a small bathroom. There was also shared basement space and two garages built into the building on either side of the fourplex.

There were thousands of buildings in Notre Dame de Grace (NDG) and other Montreal districts that were similar to the one we lived in. Most of the units were administered by trust companies like Montreal Trust and Royal Trust. Nobody owned their own flat back then but there were a few single family homes dotted throughout the neighbourhood that were privately owned. NDG had a hill in the middle of the community. The more desirous places to live were on the northern slope of the hill where we lived. I think my father paid something like $140.00 per month for our flat in the 1950s. Rent got cheaper the further down the southern slope of the hill one lived at.

Previously to moving in we had lived in an apartment building a few blocks way. The birth of my younger sister in 1952 necessitated the move. We needed more space. We became a family of 6 including two boys and two girls. For some reason May 1^st used to be moving day in Quebec. It never seemed to make a lot of sense. The school year didn’t end until the end of June. I can vaguely recall the day we moved in. It was overcast.

The Downstairs Neighbours

We quickly became aware of our downstairs neighbours shortly after moving in. There were 3 of them and we would know them for the next 14 years or so. At the time, in 1951/1952, there was a middle aged woman we called Mrs. Myers, her son Billy who was in his early thirties, and an adopted son named Peter Tellier who was 8 or 9 years of age. There was also an overweight cat named Tippy who was white with gray and black spots.

There were a few advantages to living downstairs. The biggest one was probably the fact that they had a fenced in backyard and we didn’t. For some reason they were also responsible for the maintenance of the front lawn. They also had a bigger basement than we did.

Mrs. Myers wasn’t the friendliest person I’ve ever met. She always seemed to have a scowl on her face. She certainly wasn’t fussy about our family at all and let it be known from time to time. She also kind of acted like we were her tenants and that she wrote the rules.

Her son Billy was probably the first gay person I ever met in life. Billy was gay before I even knew what being gay meant. He was about 22 years older than his adopted brother Peter. They never seemed to have much in common and I can’t recall much interaction between the two of them. Billy’s big hobby was gardening. He would spend hours tending to his flowers in his backyard and could often be seen with a water hose in hand at the back and the front of the building. Billy also had a garden plot some distance away that I think was a Victory Garden during WW2. I think he mostly grew vegetables there. When we first moved in Billy drove a blue and white Willys Jeep station wagon that carried all of his garden tools. One day the car was suddenly gone and Billy was then using a bicycle to get back and forth to his garden plot. He looked rather awkward transporting his gardening tools on a bike and I can clearly remember him having a metal clip at the bottom of one of his pant legs that stopped the cuff from getting caught in the bike chain.

Once in a while Billy would listen to the opera on Sunday afternoons in the summer. He jacked up the volume a bit. My mother used to talk to Billy every now and then while he was gardening downstairs and she was taking stuff off of the clothesline. I believe they shared the same birthday. Something else that they both had in common was the loss of a brother in WW2.

Billy worked for a number of years in the downtown offices of KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) and the last time I saw him and talked to him was around 1966 when I ran into him on the street in front of the KLM offices.

Peter Tellier and I circa 1953. This photo was taken across the street from where we lived. We looked like a couple of Charles Dickens characters.

Peter Tellier was about 4 years older than me and about 1 year younger than my older brother. He was a Catholic and didn’t attend the same schools that we did. He had blonde hair with a little patch of white hair off of one of his temples. From a young age he was a big sports fan. He would often organize street hockey and between houses hockey games in the winter. Chunks of ice were frequently used as the goals and hockey sticks often were missing a piece of the blade. There was a lot of whacking and hacking going on. On any given weekend, in the midst of winter, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant kids from houses close by could be seen scrambling in a pack for the momentary possession of a grey tennis ball or a hockey puck before some kid would fire a riser at the illusionary net.

In the summers Peter’s attention turned to baseball. I believe he went to a number of Montreal Royals games in the fifties at the old Delormier Stadium. He would organize baseball games on the big field behind the high school I would later attend, West Hill High. Getting enough boys to form 2 teams was a bit of a feat in itself. He would cajole any kid he could find to come out whether or not they had played baseball before. Some of the boys didn’t have baseball mitts and had to borrow one when the opposing team came off of the field. My older brother participated in some of those games.

For a few years on many Sunday mornings Peter would throw a ball against the brick wall of the building we shared and catch it with his mitt on the rebound. I remember my father saying “That damned Dogen is stotting that ball again!”  I am pretty sure that “Dogen” was a derisive term for an Irish Catholic and the verb “stotting” must be a British thing.

From what I can recall I think Peter was a pretty decent pitcher in baseball and he may have played for the NDG junior baseball team when he was about 16. He once told me that he had been scouted by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Peter was the guy who informed a few other boys my age and me about the basics of sex. We were sitting on a metal railing by a small strip mall around the corner from where we lived. The other boys and I were about 6 at the time and were more than a little confused about the information.

Easily the most interesting thing about Peter was the stuff he had in his home. In all the years I knew him I don’t think I was in his home more than 6 times. His bedroom was on the small side and he had a variety of treasures in the room starting with an 18 inch stuffed light brown alligator. He had stacks and stacks of hockey and baseball cards. He also had a collection of Hardy Boy books that I believe dated back to the 1930s. There were some other items that were interesting. Peter had a certificate that indicated he was the owner of 1 square inch of land in the Klondike. It was a promotion put on by one of the breakfast cereal companies in the 1950s. He also had a little stack of photos that were about 2 inches square of some guy’s face. They were held together by an elastic band and when you flicked the photos they became animated because each photo was very slightly different from the other. Peter also had what seemed to be a permanent stash of Kraft caramel candies.

 

There was a big table set up in Peter’s basement (about 8’x 8’) that had a square hole in the middle of it. On top of the table was an elaborate Lionel train set complete with a train station and a tunnel. One of the railway cars had a ramp that led up to it with cattle. I think the engine had a headlight. There were railroad crossings where the barrier poles went up and down. There were trees dotted about and people too. A person had to crawl under the table to the square hole to get to the train controls. On the wall next to the train set were some large posters of WW2 vintage fighter planes. My older brother and I back then both believed that Peter had inherited a lot of the little “treasures” in his bedroom and the train set from an “older brother” who had died in WW2.

 

As time went on and Peter became a teenager he became interested in rock and roll and had a stack of records including one called Born Too Late by the Ponytails that came out in 1958. I can still remember that song seeping through the thin basement walls. He got interested in girls and one gal who was a classmate of mine in grade school visited his basement a number of times. I think her name was Elizabeth. She would have been about 13 at the time and Peter would have been about 17.

I saw less and less of Peter as he got older. He obtained a Honda or was it a Yamaha 60cc motorcycle when he was about 18. I think he started going to college or university. By this time he had almost become a ghost with very infrequent sightings.

The Mysterious Sedan

 

About once a year a black, or was it a dark grey, sedan would pull up to front of our house. A couple of people would get out of the car and walk up to our downstairs neighbor’s front door and ring the doorbell. I vaguely remember that they were dressed well and one of them seemed to be an older gentleman. It is possible that the other person was a woman but I can’t recall for sure. After about 3 or 4 hours they would return to their car and drive way not to be seen again for another year.

My older brother and I always suspected that the people visiting were blood relatives of Peter’s and that they were getting an annual update of how Peter was making out living as an adopted child. It was highly unlikely that the visitors were from child welfare. They just seemed to be too well dressed for that type of job.

The Search For Peter Tellier

Most people my age, 73, have parents who have passed on. For many of those parents their memories of days long ago were old family photographs stored in boxes or a trunk in the basement or the attic. Before the advent of the internet, Google, and Facebook, reconnecting with old friends or acquaintances was highly improbable. Often once someone disappeared they were often gone for good. This is still true today but we now have more avenues to track somebody down if we care to, including old schoolmates.

First Clues

I have revised this section from what I wrote initially a few days ago when I first posted this story.

I find it a bit ironic that I am writing about clues and Peter Tellier considering that I remember playing the board game “Clue” with Peter about 65 years ago. (Mrs. Peacock in the library with the candlestick holder.)

From time to time over the past 10 years I would do an on-line search for Peter Tellier. Tellier is a pretty common French last name in Quebec. I checked out Facebook pages and used Google. About 2 years ago I found an obituary for a Peter Charles Tellier who had died on November 12^th, 2016 at the age of 73 in Port Williams, Nova Scotia.

A lot of things matched up on the Peter Tellier obit.

-He was originally from Montreal.
-He was the right age.
-His father was named Maurice which was one of the names of the guy who died in WW2.
-In his obit he looked like an older version of the Peter Tellier I once knew.

It seems that I have found the wrong Peter Tellier however. A friend of a friend e-mailed me yesterday morning and pointed out my mistake. It turns out that he knew the Peter Tellier whose obit I posted and the one I knew and the one he knew are not the same guy. In the obit I posted a younger brother named Ross is mentioned. The Peter Tellier I knew didn't have a younger brother.  
Second Clues

A little over a month ago I Googled “Peter Tellier obit” and was surprised at what I came up with. It was an item from the Canadian Virtual War Memorial. It was in memory of Warrant Officer Class II Maurice Tellier Peter Myers who died in Germany in March of 1943 while serving in the RCAF in WW2. I was shocked. Somehow I had stumbled on Peter Tellier’s “older brother” and things seemed to start to match up.

Canadian Virtual War Memorial
Maurice Tellier Peter Myers 
In memory of:

Warrant Officer Class II Maurice Tellier Peter Myers

March 14, 1943

 

Military Service

---

Service Number:

R/77338              

Force:

Air Force              

Unit:

Royal Canadian Air Force              

Division:

138 (R.A.F.) Sqdn 

 

Third Clues

Just for the heck of it I thought I would Google Peter’s older gay step brother, Billy Myers, and see what I could find. Once again I was surprised when I found Billy Myers’s obit. William (Billy) Myers passed away on May 31^st, 2016 at the ripe old age of 95. The obit mentions his deceased mother Helene (Mrs. Myers) and his deceased father Charles. It also mentions his brother Peter who died in Germany in WW2 and Billy’s adopted brother Peter Tellier. The obit talks about Billy’s gardening hobby and how he cooked meals for Meals On Wheels later in life. It seems like he was a pretty decent guy.

Billy Myers

MYERS, William
1921 - 2016
William Myers passed away peacefully on May 31, 2016 in his 95th year. He was predeceased by his father Charles and mother Helene Tellier Myers and his brother Peter, RCAF Germany 1943. Bill Booked his express ticket to heaven and now will be happily reunited with his family, and can cook and garden to his heart's content. He touched the lives of countless, throughout his long and highly fulfilled life. He was always smiling and happy to lend a hand to anyone, especially Meals on Wheels where he cooked hundreds of meals in LaSalle. He will be especially missed by his adopted brother Peter Tellier, many cousins, nieces, nephews and friends. A very special thanks to all the staff at Ste-Anne's Military Hospital. Visitations will take place at Centre funéraire Côte-des-Neiges on Saturday June 4 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday June 5 from 12 to 1 p.m., followed by a Memorial Service in the Chapel of the Center. Burial at a later date in July.

Published on June 2, 2016    

Fourth Clues

I went back to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial and discovered a few more things about the family member who had died in WW2. A newspaper clipping identified him as flight sergeant M.T. Peter Myers. M.T. probably meaning Maurice Tellier. Apparently he joined the RCAF at the young age of 18 and was called up for active service in 1940. Before that he was a student at West Hill High School and was noted for his cartoons. I went to the new West Hill High but it was built about 9 years after Peter Myers died. The original West Hill High was later called Monkland High School. The clipping also mentions that Peter Myers’s brother Billy was also in the RCAF and was stationed in Halifax at the time of Peter Myers’s death.

 

Sorting It All Out
 
First of all let me say that a lot of the following is conjecture on my part.

Part 1

I believe that Peter Tellier’s “older brother” who died in WW2  was actually his father. Things were different back in the 1940s and 1950s and there was a certain shame about having a child out of wedlock, particularly for Catholics. Famous entertainers like Jack Nicholson and Bobby Darin both thought that their mothers were their sisters when they were growing up. Nicholson didn’t find out the truth until he was in his thirties. In the 1930s actress Loretta Young had an affair with Clark Gable that produced a daughter. Ms. Young secretly went off to England to have the baby and later made it seem like she had adopted the child.

Peter Tellier’s “older brother” died at the age of 21 or 22. That would have made him 21 or 22 years older than Peter. It is almost unheard of for two brothers to be that different in age.

Here is what I think happened. The “older brother” got a girl pregnant. I’m guessing this happened when he was home on leave. He dies in the war, most likely never having married the girl because his obit doesn’t include the mention of a wife. The girl decides that she is not prepared to raise the child alone and wants to get on with her life. Her father steps in and negotiates a deal with the mother (Mrs. Myers) of the dead soldier. The father will pay for the rent and upkeep for the young boy until he leaves home.

Back in 1943 when Peter Tellier was born I think adoption was different than it is today. If the child became a ward of the court I think the authorities could decide which foster home the baby or child would go to without the parent or parents being part of the decision. By choosing Mrs. Myers as Peter’s adopted mother the mothers’s father and the mother would know exactly who would be looking after Peter as he grew up.

It is pretty obvious to me that the mother’s father was paying the rent and expenses in Mrs. Myers’s home. Billy would have been the only one working back then and it would be very doubtful that he would be able to support 3 people and pay the rent.

Part 2

This is just conjecture on my part but I am guessing that something may have occurred at one of those annual meetings that affected Billy. My guess is that Peter Tellier’s mother’s father may have figured out that he was also partly supporting Billy who at the time was in his thirties. The father may have demanded that Billy pay rent. This would explain Billy selling his Willys Jeep and using a bicycle instead to get to his gardening plot because he could no longer afford a car.

Part 3

One of the more confusing things in doing this research was trying to understand the identifications of Billy and the guy who died in WW2. Their obits reveal several things.

Billy is identified as William Myers on his obit. It also identifies his father as a man named Charles and his mother as Helene Tellier Myers. It is quite possible that Mrs. Myers was married more than once. Nowhere in Billy’s obit does it mention that Billy served in the RCAF in WW2. This may have been an oversight by whoever wrote the obit. There may have been another reason for not mentioning Billy’s RCAF experience and that is that he may be have been discharged after being outed as being gay. This is purely conjecture on my part.

I found 2 documents about Peter Myers, who died in WW2 and was Billy Myers’s brother. The Canadian Virtual War Memorial indentifies Peter Myers as Maurice Tellier Peter Myers. The 2^nd document looks like a newspaper clipping. It identifies Peter Myers as M.T. Peter Myers. The M.T. would have meant Maurice Tellier. The clipping also states that he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. C.H. Myers who lived at 4465 Harvard Avenue in Montreal. Mr. C.H Myers must have passed away or skipped town between 1943 and 1952 because he wasn’t around when we moved in. .

If you have found this all confusing at this point you are not alone.

Part 4

From what I can deduce Peter and Billy Myers were very close in age. My guess is that they were born about a year apart. It is curious that one of them (Peter) had the names Maurice and Tellier as part of his name whereas Billy didn’t. It is also curious that Peter Tellier was named Peter. Was it a salute to Peter Myers who died at a young age in WW2?  Where did the name Tellier come from? Was he perhaps Mrs. Myers’s first husband or lover?

I guess I’ll never know but it has been interesting trying to sort all of this stuff out even though it is none of my business.

A Few Final Oberservations

When Billy Myers died at the age of 95 in 2016 he was residing at Ste Anne’s Military Hospital In Ste Anne de Bellevue on the far west side of Montreal Island. My father was a captain in the Canadian Army in WW2 and I believe he spent his final years in the same hospital as Billy. My father died in 1981 at the age of 75.

When Peter Myers died in 1943 in Germany his home address was 4465 Harvard Avenue. This is not the same address that Billy Myers, Mrs. Myers, and Peter Tellier lived at when they were our downstairs neighbours. Their address was 4592 Harvard Avenue. When I was growing up in NDG it wasn’t uncommon for some families to hop scotch from one house to another that seemed more appealing.

This was a complicated story to write and I hope that the readers have managed to follow along without having to give their heads a shake.

The long and the short of this effort is that I never did find out what happened to Peter Tellier. I gave it a try.