As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: when the parents come to visit, you tidy up the house (a little), put on your best bib and tucker (or your cleanest pair of jeans), and get taken out somewhere swanky for dinner. In the 1950s, maybe it was the Town and Country on Princess Street, where a rib-eye steak would set Dad back a buck fifty. Regardless, it was a welcome break from boxed mac and cheese.
For decades, one of the places to go has been Chez Piggy, and it was on the top of the list in the early spring of 1981 when the restaurant was just two years old. Allison Fellowes, Artsci’82, has a reason to remember being taken there that March. Her dad snapped a photo of her and her mom, resplendent in high heels and mid-calf fur coats (PETA’s anti-fur campaign was just getting started) on the gingerbread-crowned porch of 187 University Avenue.
For Ms. Fellowes, the photograph is more than a memento of an excellent lunch. It is a reminder of two wonderful years lived practically in the heart of the Queen’s campus with four housemates who, more than four decades later, remain friends.
The 130-year-old, 2½-storey house at 187 University hasn’t changed much since Ms. Fellowes called it home. The wooden porch is now concrete and wrought iron, but the gingerbread is still there, if missing a detail or two. The house is owned by the university now but, in 1980, it was an Alma Mater Society house, among those offered to students each year by lottery.
That year, the lottery bestowed 187 University on Leslie Konantz (now Landell), Artsci’81, a student going into third year, and she knew who she would invite to share her windfall. It was the same four women she had met in Victoria Hall in her first year, and with whom she shared a house on Brock Street in second year: Ms. Fellowes, Laurel Brown, Com’82, and Leslie Jamison, Sc’82, among them.
There was no question the housemates would move, remembers Ms. Fellowes. Alma Mater Society houses were cheaper than private rentals and well maintained. But most compelling was 187 University’s location. The Brock Street house was near campus; 187 University was on it. Today, you could practically throw a Frisbee from the front yard of 187 University and break a window at Stauffer Library. The John Deutsch University Centre, then home to the Quiet Pub (now the Queen’s Pub) was within strolling distance.
“A couple of us worked … on campus,” recalls Ms. Fellowes. “I could walk home easily, which was awesome,” she says.
And the fellowship within the house was great, she adds. “I don’t remember any arguments or problems … We did eat together from Sunday to Thursday. We each had a night … You bought your food and you cooked it and cleaned up.
“We were like a bit of a family unit.”
The house revealed an unexpected advantage. University Avenue was – and still is – a major thoroughfare for students walking to class. “You get kind of known on campus when you live [in that block] on University,” she says. “People would see you on the front porch and talk to you.”
Ms. Fellowes figures her Queen’s experience changed with that four-block move from Brock Street. In her last two years at the university, she felt embraced by its campus, largely thanks to 187 University.
“I got to know a lot of students just being there,” she says. Same housemates, but the location made all the difference.
Tell us about the University District house you lived in and the memories you made.
