These were the photos they sent with the letter:

Below is my father’s sister, my Aunt Agnes, who wrote the letter, beside my cousin Gorman. Her husband was my Uncle Will Sheppard.  He called my Aunt Agnes “Babe”.  They got married and lived in the United States.  Agnes and Will retired in Canada in their old age.  My uncle Will died of kidney failure.  I saw him on his deathbed at Toronto Western Hospital. He was anointed by their parish priest, Fr. Howard McMillan.

The photo below is my father’s other sister, my Aunt Delphine, her husband Pat Brown and their son Gorman, my cousin, on the left side. Gorman was also the maiden name of my grandmother, my father’s mother, Mary. Pat and Delphine had another son, but he died at age five.  Gorman died of a heart attack in his forties. They lived at 96 Fulton Avenue. I used to drop into their home when I was a child and my Aunt would give me a cookie. She was very pleasant and good natured.

Before they were married, my Uncle Pat was one of the last men to drive a fire wagon led by horses before we had fire trucks.   After they were married, my Uncle Pat was in charge of the merchandising store in the main floor of the Foy building, a six-story building on Front Street that was built by my grandfather Nicholas’s brother, George Foy. Uncle Pat used to give us chocolate bars from the store he managed. Importers operated business in the building.  He used to let me and my brother Edward go through the old envelopes from the business offices there on Friday evenings and get the stamps from all over the world. I was introduced to entrepreneurship – as children we used to sell the stamps. We made little booklets of the stamps and sent them out to anyone that was interested.  They would pick the stamps they wanted and send the booklet back with the money.