Landscape Archives | Page 4 of 5 | Sweat Equity – The Grimsby Homebuilding Co-operative 1953

Wilf Worley wrote a song for John Colleary

Sixty years later, John Blake would sing the song at a “Co-op at 60” information event hosted by the Grimsby Archives. It speaks to the fun-loving guy that […]

Shingling in the Lakedale Co-op

Some jobs were simply backbreaking and others required skill. Sometimes work could be dangerous. Supervisors and inspectors were on hand, but men who had never done construction found […]

Shingling alone or together

Harold works on the roof of a 2-story building illustrating the challenges and dangers facing the builders. Fortunately there were contractors who over saw the day-to-day workings of […]

Materials and Men

The management of materials and men fell to the hired supervisors, Rod and Ward Sexsmith and Roy and Denton Wilson, as well as to the co-op team leaders. […]

Teamwork was key

Working 30 hours on the co-op site per week, over and above their regular jobs, the builders focused first on grunt work. Eventually, they took on some of […]

North end homes, with the Niagara Escarpment to the south

Within view of both the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario, this beautifully situated neighbourhood was aptly named Lakemount Terrace Subdivision. As houses passed inspection, the CMHC would release […]

Sweat equity begins with land clearing

The men were so anxious to begin the building phase, they cleared the land themselves. Later, they would mix their own concrete, haul and lay bricks for basements […]

Main Street Grimsby 1950’s, facing west

More than half the co-op families did not own a car, so it took coordination for 81 men to carpool between Hamilton and Grimsby. Some also worked two […]

Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) facing east, 1947

The QEW, built in the late 1930s and upgraded in the late 1940s, had sped up travel from Hamilton to Grimsby, but it was still a 25-minute commute. […]

Aerial View of Grimsby 1956

Finding a site on which to build was a challenge. After looking for months, the sites committee heard a rumour about land in Grimsby. The 14-acre lot on […]

Social gathering in 1954

They would soon embark on the project of a lifetime – building homes together. Although people of all ages participated, many were young and newly married, some with […]

Father O’Brien and Father Sherlock

O’Brien and Sherlock had been introduced to co-operative methods a few years earlier, as students at St. Augustine’s Seminary, when Father Marrocco had come to lecture. After the […]