by Ann Brady
Long before my brothers and I could read and write, we could read blueprints. We also understood the consequences of stealing our father’s sharpened pencils that stood like guards in a jar by his drafting table. And the inevitable cursing and shouting when he’d find one – or three! – missing, peace being restored in our tiny apartment only after three, very blunted pencils mysteriously resumed their posts in that jar.
‘Popper’ as I loved to call him, studied architecture at McGill. I can’t remember a time when he was not working on plans for someone’s house – or one of his own five – even into his senior years. He was a mathematical genius, an artist, a solutions man; and more than a few of the homes he designed dot Ontario and Quebec landscapes to this day. He also did side jobs for CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) reworking plans to maximize space, before the plans were compiled in huge books available to the public.
Our Dad’s greatest moment came early, when he was only 27 years old. Already a family man with a wife and three small kids, he had completed designing his first house. I’ll never forget the awe my brothers and I felt as Popper carried in ‘the blueprint scrolls’ fresh from the printer, and unrolled them on the living room floor. Moses couldn’t have had a more enraptured audience. Heavy, dark china-blue paper, crisp white lines and squiggles and symbols we’d seen in plain white as Popper worked at his drafting table, were now something officially announcing the birth of a house. Our house!
Popper explained everything to us – those were the doorways, and these, the windows. Here’s where the electrical went and that was where the rooms were delineated. Finding all the stairs was fun and easy, and I marveled over how my Dad had found a way to show them going in both directions at once! And yes, that was the bathroom and the kitchen and those were our bedrooms. Our bedrooms! By quick calculation, I stifled my excitement seeing that I had a small and perfect bedroom all my own.
By the time we actually set foot in the door of this, our father’s first house, our family had already moved in. Those blueprints had magically taught us that a dream could be laid down on plain white paper and made come true. With a lot of imagination, very sharp pencils, a T-square and some fancy French curves as his tools, Popper took that dream and translated it into the creation of an actual, physical edifice that we now inhabited. What a wonder! What a dad!
Looking back on that moment, sixty-some years ago, I can only imagine the pride and love our father must have felt for his little family as he revealed his blueprints. This was his gift to us. I remember how happy our Mom was as she quickly wrote a letter to her sister about the new house, while Dad slipped the plans back into their special tube. And all these years later, especially on this Fathers Day, I know this for sure: it was our Dad who built us that house, and our Mom who made it our home. Thank you, Popper, for dreaming it.
