In a friendship that has lasted 80 years, there is nothing Martha O’Neill and Nancy Reid keep from each other. They tell each other everything.
Everything, except the fact that on this radiant Tuesday in Leaside, a É«É«À² Star reporter and photographer will be tagging along as the friends relive the first day of kindergarten all those years ago, the day their friendship began, with a walk from their childhood homes to the school where they met.
At last, on the sidewalks of the street they grew up on, O’Neill’s secret invitation to the Star spills into the open.
Best friends since 1945, they took the walk down memory lane to their old school.
“She has not!” Reid gasped. “I don’t believe it.”
“I told you to dress for the occasion,” O’Neill chided with a devilish grin.
O’Neill and Reid, both 85, have been friends since the month the Second World War ended — longer than Queen Elizabeth II ruled the United Kingdom, longer than “Hockey Night in Canada” has been on television, longer than É«É«À² has had a subway. Together, they’ve seen the world change around them, homes on their childhood street go up and come down, neighbours move in and out and shops open and close.
They’ve changed, too. They’ve grown up, moved out of the neighbourhood, travelled the world, had children and had grandchildren. Somehow, after all these years, they’re still best buds, meeting most Saturdays for coffee and a chat — and, nearly every year, commemorating the first day of school, the day they met, by retracing the short walk they once took to Bessborough Drive Elementary.Â
It’s a tradition that has been going strong for at least 25 years. Ten years ago, a Star reporter tagged along. O’Neill didn’t tell Reid she was inviting a reporter that time, either.
From 1945 onward, they made this walk at least four times every day, with a return trip at lunchtime for meals. The streets are different today, of course. The maple tree in O’Neill’s former front yard, once small enough she could practically wrap her hands around it, now towers over the house. The bungalows that used to run from one end of the street to another are fewer these days, replaced by modern houses.
Martha O’Neill holds a photo of the elementary class where she met her lifelong friend Nancy Reid.Â
Nick Lachance/É«É«À² StarBut the memories these two have are still thick enough to get tangled up in. There’s the house around the corner that once belonged to a war veteran who built a bomb shelter in the basement. The house it faces was Mrs. Connolly’s, a woman who sewed clothes for O’Neill’s dolls. Further down the street is the lawn where O’Neill and Reid used to race to find the first four-leaf clover.
Who usually won?
“Me,” O’Neill snapped. “I like all the glory.”
O’Neill is the more fiery and spontaneous of the two, the type of person who would invite a newspaper reporter to a walk down memory lane without consulting her friend. Once, in her last week of high school, a teacher threw a chalkboard eraser at her for talking with a friend. O’Neill threw it back. She was sent to the principal’s office.
O’Neill was a model as a teenager — one gig for the CNE landed her on the front page of the Star in the 1950s — and later worked as a secretary. While she travelled across Europe in her 20s, Reid was raising a family and changing diapers.
But the pair never lost contact — and, the way they tell it, never argue, although they’re more than happy to trade the occasional barb. “I could drive her crazy,” O’Neill said.
“She does,” Reid confirmed.
They’ve travelled over the years, to the Bahamas for their 40th birthdays and to Las Vegas for their 50th and 60th. (They stayed at the Bellagio, but will say no more. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.) They played bridge every week for 50 years. These days, with O’Neill living closer to Pickering and Reid in North York, they meet for coffee halfway most Saturday mornings.
They talk for hours. “We never run out of things to say, ever,” Reid said.
The conversations are different now. They talked about boys in the early years, then their children. These days, they talk about their health.
Martha O’Neill, right, and Nancy Reid met on the first day of kindergarten at Bessborough Drive Elementary. Now, 80 years later, the pair relive their childhood walk to school every year, a tradition they started decades ago.Â
Nick Lachance/É«É«À² StarThe secret, if there is one to a friendship this long, is not just about putting in an effort to maintain the connection, Reid said — it’s about respecting each other and knowing what you say stays with the other person. O’Neill and Reid can tell each other anything. “We’re just there for each other,” Reid said.
And like that, the walk is over. They’re back at their childhood houses, which sit across the street from each other, and their palimpsest ends. They joke about being back here in 10 years, when they’re both 95.
“We’ll have our walkers,” Reid smirked.
Then O’Neill and Reid go on their way down the street, off to whatever adventure might be next.
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