Fern Ave. Public School Blog

This was posted a while ago on a popular Facebook page called Vintage Toronto . It is a photo of the 1923 kindergarten class at Fern Avenue Public School.

This photograph from April 25, 1928 shows a city policeman escorting children across Roncesvalles Avenue from the northeast corner of Fern. Today, this is the location of the Hot Oven Bakery, but back then it was home to a grocery store owned by William Forster, who lived in the attached residence at 190 Fern Avenue. The Just Kids Safety Club was established in the spring of 1928 based on a King Features Syndicate comic strip  The Globe  was running at the time called “Just Kids.” In exchange for a pledge to “always look up and down before crossing the street,” some 300,000 children in Ontario alone received a membership button featuring one of the characters from the strip. Source: City of Toronto Archives , Globe and Mail fonds.

Every Saturday in 1905, the Toronto Daily Star would turn over a page of their weekend edition to the pupils of a local area school. On November 18, it was Fern’s turn to present themselves to the city. These days—when this sort of self-promotion is but a few clicks away—it serves us well to reflect on how things have changed at a school that will soon be 120 years old . . . and how much has pretty much stayed the same, here and in our community. Below are some excerpts, or you can click here to view the entire page.