Bruce Scrivens has a century of rich memories

Bruce Scrivens celebrating his 100th birthday 

Photo: Michael Scrivens 

Bruce Scrivens has a lifetime of memories recorded in photos, letters and clippings. 

Photo: Leslie Cole 

Scrivens as a young man in his cedar-strip canoe with an added sail, on Dow’s Lake 

Bruce Scrivens has a century of rich memories  

By Leslie Cole 

Now 100 years old, Bruce Scrivens no longer skis or paddles his canoe – but you may still encounter him out along the canal pathways on his scooter. 

Scrivens has lived in the Glebe for most of his life. In three large green binders that he shows me in his second-floor room at the Lord Lansdowne retirement home, he has recorded his life with photos and stories, letters and clippings of important events. The binders hold ration coupons from the Second World War and letters written on birch bark that he mailed to his parents from summer jobs in northern Ontario. 

Scrivens was born in 1925 to a family living on Sunset Boulevard when the area on that side of Bronson Street was largely a lumber yard owned by lumber baron J.R. Booth. He remembers his boyhood there fondly – the smell of freshly cut lumber and the challenge of scaling a 10-foot-high board fence to watch the machinery at work. He remembers milk, ice and laundry being delivered to the door and a popcorn truck making regular rounds on the street. A photo in his album shows a thriving vegetable “victory garden” planted in the backyard during the war. Scrivens went to Mutchmor Public School for grades one to six and Hopewell for grades seven and eight.  

In winter, he and his friends would clear the ice on nearby Dow’s Lake to play hockey, but they also set aside time just for skating. He says they also skied across Dow’s Lake to the Experimental Farm. There was a boathouse on Dow’s Lake at the time that later burned down. There was also a favourite corner store that sold ice cream by the original Bronson Street swing bridge. 

Scrivens earned enough money from his paper route to purchase a canoe, which he launched into Dow’s Lake in the summers. As he got older, he and a friend, Don Johnston, paddled longer distances, sometimes hauling up a lateen sail to catch the wind. They would set out on the last two weeks before school started in the fall and travel from Dow’s Lake down the Rideau canal as far as Kingston, stopping at night to sleep in a field or, if it rained, to ask a farmer for shelter in his barn. On one canoe trip during the war, they were caught in waves from Corvettes, the smallest of warships, on Lake Ontario, and the canoe was badly damaged against the rocky shore. They sent the canoe by train directly to Peterborough where the company that had made his cedar strip canoe repaired it.  

He enjoyed school and was convinced by a canoeing friend to attend Ottawa Tech for high school instead of Glebe Collegiate “because it was further away” from home. He was a member of the football and basketball teams and graduated just as the war ended. He was accepted at MacDonald College campus of McGill University to study general agricultural science with the biggest class as returning veterans came back to school. When he finished college, he started applying for jobs but had little success. His father, Bill, who was in the insurance business, said he needed help in his office. Bruce says he thought he would do that temporarily. “And 35 years later, there I was. I had no intention of spending my lifetime there, but I enjoyed it . . . I enjoyed being helpful to people, finding out what they needed and what they wanted.” 

His father bought a house on MacLaren Street downtown to set up an expanded office in 1950. Scrivens joined when he had completed some insurance courses in Montreal and New York state. The business is still operating – his sons, Peter, David and Michael, took it over, and Michael’s son, Jake, is the fourth generation to work there. 

Bruce Scrivens met his wife Betty at a young people’s camp, and they were married in 1953 at St. James United Church in the building that now houses the Glebe Community Centre. In their early married years, the Scrivens lived in an apartment over the garage of a large home on Queen Elizabeth Drive, which he later purchased. When their second child was born, they moved to a home in Alta Vista where their four sons were raised. Betty and the boys also became avid skiers and canoeists. Scrivens helped found the Edelweiss Ski Club in Wakefield, and the family skied there for many years.  

Scrivens also kept an active art workshop in his basement that evolved from a photography darkroom to a pottery studio. He showed me photographs of stained-glass windows and aluminum sculptures he has crafted. He also has a display along his windowsill of wooden caricatures that he carved. 

Scrivens and his wife moved back to the Glebe 16 years ago when they moved into the then year-old Lord Lansdowne. Scrivens remained active. He skied into his 80s and was in his beloved and restored canoe on Dow’s Lake on his 60th wedding anniversary. When his wife died seven years ago, Scrivens moved into a smaller suite in the home where he still takes part in social activities.  

In January this year, his family celebrated his 100th birthday with balloons, speeches and cake.  

Leslie Cole is a writer and editor who lives in the Glebe.