William Moore: Stonemason and entrepreneur

Shirley Eglite, born in 1927, describes her entrepreneurial grandfather, an Irish immigrant who helped build Toronto’s Old City Hall.

Postcard of Toront’s Old City Hall

William Moore was a stonemason. He went on to build homes and was the owner of a Ford dealership, a bowling alley and a dance hall. He was also my maternal grandfather. We called him Grandpa Moore.

He was a real Irishman. He came over at age 17 from Ireland with his parents and three siblings in 1878 on a boat called the S.S. Circassian. My mother and he could clash over anything, but she had enough Irish in her that she would fight back.

He was a clever man, but he wasn’t particularly nice. First he’d live with us, and then we’d have a clash, and he’d move to Uncle Howard’s, and they’d have a clash, and he would come back to our house. It was the way he was.

He didn’t relate to children at all. He thought they were to be seen but not heard. We used to go for a walk with him. He could walk for miles and miles and miles. We always hoped he would buy us ice cream, but he never did. I don’t think he cared whether we were there or not.

Of course, my dad was the exact opposite. He thought his three girls should have an opinion on everything. At the dinner table, when we were talking, especially politics, he would always ask us, “Well, what do you think?” and we’d always say something stupid. My poor grandfather -- that was too much for him.

When I walked home from Riverdale Collegiate, I’d stop in at the library at Ashdale, and very often he’d be there reading books. But I wouldn’t speak to him, and he wouldn’t speak to me.

My mother was a child of his second wife (his first one died in childbirth). He met both his wives while a boarder with their families – the first while working on a stone bridge in Claremont, and the second when he was rooming with the Shepards (Sheppard Ave. is named after the family) at 158 Richmond St. W. in Toronto. His occupation was listed in the 1887 Toronto City Directory as stonemason.

The family still has his wooden stonemason’s mallet, and we know he worked on Old City Hall, where construction started in 1889. We also have the fragile cover of a Toronto weekly magazine called “Truth”, dated May 2, 1891, and delivered to W. H. Moore at 24 Fennings St. near Trinity Bellwoods Park. The four children from his second marriage, including my mother, were born in that house.

In 1906, Grandpa Moore built a home at 81 Bellefair Ave. in Kew Beach for the family. Everyone helped, including my grandmother who said she was up on the roof shingling. He also built 79 Bellefair. Both houses look pretty much the same as when he built them.

In 1920 he owned East Ford Sales and Service Station at 1852-54 Queen St. E. (we have a photo of him with his family in a Model T Touring car). By 1923, he converted the dealership to a Bowling Alley and Dancing Academy (we still have a bowling ball).

When he retired, he put everything in his two sons’ names, and they just lost the money, sold the houses. Mom got nothing from it, absolutely nothing. Stupid. The Woodbine racetrack was right there and I know Uncle Will, he was a gambler. But I don’t know what Uncle Howard did, but he married a woman, Mildred, who was a model in her early years. The family always said the sons lost the money on slow horses and fast women.

As told to Sarah Kidd, William Moore’s great, great granddaughter and Shirley Eglite’s great niece.

Shirley Eglite, interviewed November, 2020

Sources: Family History by Joan Rasmussen and Shirley Eglite.

William H. Moore and Sarah Maria Shepard were married Nov. 30, 1888.

Grandpa Moore’s “First Tin lizzie” Model T Tour Car. He is driving with Sarah Maria beside him and children Howard, Bessie and Eveline in the back. This is a postcard-type photo.

Family photo: Front of “Truth” church publication

Family photo: Howard Moore’s wife Mildred modeling underwear on a Peerless box

79 and 81 Bellefair in the the Beach

Family photo: Stonemason’s mallet

24 Fennings