Lucille Hunte: Proud Mother, Tenant Activist, “Grandma”, Keeper of the Community

Lucille Hunte: Proud Mother, Tenant Activist, “Grandma”, Keeper of the Community

My full name is Lucille Udell Hunte.

(Laughs) Oh my goodness, scratch that, I wasn’t born Hunte- I’ve been using that for 35 years. The name I was born with was Lucille Udell Craig- the Hunte came later.

My mom used to go at this white lady across the street and I think she had a daughter or sister or someone named Lucille so she told my mom to name me after her. So that’s where Lucille came from, but I don’t know where the Udell came from.

Who cares (laughs) I was born in April 13^th, 1937. Seven days from now I’m going to be (whispers) 78 years old.

Lucille at home in Neptune

We were raised under the British rule. Barbados used to be called Little England. A lot of people used to look after the English children. I hated the idea of looking after some snotty nosed child (laughs) They used to try and call me Lucy- but I hate nicknames with a vengeance!! I am not a Lucy- my name is Lucille. On the street we had lots of friends. We used to go for walks, go to the sea. In summer when school was out we would go to the beach, we would get apples, sugar cane and some coconut. We used to spend the day there and then come home. At 8:30 we had to go in.

I never moved from Powder Road until I left home and came here when I was 27.

How did you come to Canada?

I wanted to go to England to do nursing. I think a lot of Island people had that same idea. But you know, people in power sometimes abuse it. We had this man, he was in charge of that- signing up people to go overseas. They would give you a little amount to start up with and you had to pay it back. And I went to see this man- his name was Mr. Hall. This man was so ugly- he had this big head and you had to either give him money or something else…you understand the gist??

I didn’t have the first and I’m not doing the second so I didn’t get accepted then. But surprisingly one day, I got a big brown envelope and my heart started beating. When I opened it, it was a letter asking me if I was interested in coming to Canada. Heaven knows how they got my name.

So we went down to this place called Fontabelle to this large house. That’s where most of the white people used to live. A lady came, her name was Miss Cohn, and she explained to us about going to Canada. She told us about the sunshine and the flowers and the ha ha ha!! But she never told us about the winter (laughs)

I came to Canada on the 7^th of July 1963. There was about 50 of us. We came by Air Canada, it was lovely. We were looking forward to getting work, helping the family back home, studying. We landed in Montreal and they put us in a big hotel and they put us in the middle of the room. The French people were all looking at us and laughing. We felt terrible. When I got back to the room I walked to the window and said “If I could walk home, I would start right now”. In all the years I lived in Barbados, we had white people all over, but nobody ever looked at me like that, or behaved like that at home. It was a terrible feeling.

After that we got on a train and came to Toronto. At the time I had a cousin George who lived in Virginia and he told me to come here to Toronto because it would be closer than Montreal to him.

We landed at the train station. There was a big office down there and that’s where we saw Miss Cohn again. She had the names of people that they were sending us to. And she had this (and I’m saying it loosely) lady who was called Mrs. Eckler. She lived on Burton Road, she had a house nearly as big as this apartment building- three stories. She said to Miss Cohn “put her in a cab and send her to me”. Other people came and met people, made them feel welcome, but not her.

So I got up to Burton Road. It`s close to here, near Bathurst just before St. Clair- Forest Hill area. I was hoping for the best.

Mrs. Eckler put me in a room on top of the garage. The house was so big. Would you believe someone could get lost in a house? I did. She told me to check the laundry one day so I went down the stairs, so I followed that. When I got back up to the door, I ended up in the foyer. And she was standing there and she said to me “Don’t you ever use those stairs again. Suppose I had company?”

They said I was a servant which I was never a servant for nobody. I serve at home, I serve at Church. Mrs. Eckler and her husband had 8 children but I only remember one of their names- her name was Phyllis.

Mrs. Eckler’s husband was a big lawyer in Toronto. I rarely saw him but the few times I saw him I thought “How could you have married this woman?” He was a gentleman. But the kids were something else- they were rude! The little boy had broken his leg and one day they were all at breakfast and they all wanted different things. I said to them “Why can’t everybody have the same thing?” And the son said to me “You’re a servant and you have to do what we say.”

I had to do the laundry, cleaning, peel the potatoes, and so on. This house was so big they had intercoms. The first time I heard it I jumped. I heard this person calling “Lucy”. And I said to myself “Who’s Lucy? (laughs).

I remember one time they were going to the cottage in Beaverton. We had this nurse with us, her name was Mrs. Best. She was such a dear lady, she was from Alberta. She was looking after the boy Michael who had broken his leg. The cottage was like a house to live in, it was so big. Every day Mrs. Eckler would say to me “Lucy you have to do this, and that and that” and I said to her “why do you have to call me Lucy?” and she said I want the children to call you Lucy. And she said that Mrs. Best could eat at the table with them but not me. And Mrs. Best said no, I’ll sit with Lucille.

Ms.Hunte at the Eckler cottage in Beaverton

After that I went to work for Mrs. Young. That was not bad. I still have a double strand of pearls that she gave me. After there, some friends had a house off Dundas and I used to stay there. I did a few housekeeping jobs after that. I worked for a lady whose husband had a dental office off Eglinton- Marhill I think. Her name was Marilyn and I think she thought she was Marilyn Monroe. She shaved her eyebrows and dyed her hair blond. I remember this one evening, the lady’s aunt made a roast, some potatoes and some corn. And they wouldn’t let me sit with them in the dining room, I sat in the kitchen. The next thing you know, she came into the kitchen and scraped food off their plates onto mine. And she said “this is good food, don’t let it go to waste”.

I did that kind of housekeeping work for a short time. After I left Marhill I went to the States for a while and when I came back I found a place to rent at 55 ½ Delaware Ave. My friend Theodore and another girl from Nova Scotia and I moved in and we shared the place. Theodore’s husband and Earl came at the same time, I think it was the 16^th of May, 1965. So there were three couples living there. When we got paid, some of us would meet up on Thursdays at this restaurant at Yonge and College called Fran’s. They used to make the most delicious chicken.

In 1965 I sponsored my fiancé who was back home to come here. His name was Earl Leon Hunte but I used to call him “Puss”. I met him when I was 13 and he was 17.

At that time, you used to have $300 in your account to sponsor someone. We got married at St. Anne’s Church on Gladstone Ave. After Earl came we were living on Delaware and I got pregnant with Sandra. Earl was working at Mount Sinai Hospital in the laundry. We decided we would go to Simpson’s to apply for jobs. He got hired but they didn’t hire me. Then I started getting sick with the asthma.

When did you first come to live in Neptune?

It was hard to get a place in those days. My family was growing and we needed a bigger place. Somebody had told Leon to apply for housing at University Ave so he went on his lunch and applied. The first place we got into was on Shuter St. Me, Leon and Sandra moved there in 1973. When Earl was born in 1973 we moved to Neptune. At that time, Neptune wasn’t even completed. They didn’t even have a sidewalk. We were the only people to live in this unit to this day.

It was a beautiful place to be. Everyone and his brother wanted a transfer to Neptune. I remember when we came here to look at the place. We came from downtown on the expressway and we said to ourselves “Are we coming out to the country?” It seemed so far away. (laughs)

Ms. Hunte at a resident leadership forum, 2014

I had a folder just the other day, and it had all the names of the tenant associations we had over the years. I was always involved. Now I think there are about 10 people that are involved in the Neptune Renewal Group. And we are trying to make things better for people here, to help make it be a place that people really want to be. I was involved on the tenant associations for years. There wasn’t any names or things like that, it was just tenants. We used to have Mr. and Mrs. Hunt- (no relation) they were the live-in supers, and we used to have people in the office and a social worker. We had different events, like BBQs, fashion shows, games for the kids, we used to go to CHUM and get gifts for the kids. A lady named Gloria and I decided to have a library upstairs where the kids could come, do their homework. I get a kick now when I see people at the bus stop and they don’t realize that if it wasn’t for me and a couple of others to get Howard Moscoe and Josh Colle’s dad who were the politicians in this area, we wouldn’t have a bus here on Neptune.

I think because I’ve lived here for so long. They see me as an elder in the community, a keeper of the community. Neptune and Mrs. Hunte seems to flow together.

I went to Jarvis Street for 17 years. Now I go to Asbury United Church on Bathurst Street. I’ve been going there since 1991. I have a certificate from them.

When I first came, there weren’t that many black people in Toronto. You had to walk far before you would see someone like you. With someone like Mrs. Eckler, I almost starved. But thank the Lord I always had hope. But it hasn’t been easy, the way people treated you. I was part of the Black Congress of Canada later on. I have to say that if I had known about them when I first came, it would have saved me a lot of heartache. A lot of them came from home, they were teachers and nurses, but they couldn’t work here in their jobs. It was a struggle for many of us.

A lady at Church invited me to come sometime in the 90’s. They have Chapters all over. This one is up at Edithvale School. What they did was they helped people who were facing discrimination and unfair treatment. They would help you with lawyers and that kind of thing. Jean Augustine was in it. I didn’t like to think we didn’t have no human rights when I first came, but if they did, we didn’t know about it. I remember different times, on the bus and at Eaton’s, when I was treated a certain way because I’m black. Now I’m at a stage in my life, I need to cut back on things. I always thought I would go back home- my dream was to go back.

I’m proud of the way my kids have turned out. My most important thing is that people should be kind to each other and not judge each other. And do the best that you can.