'Only in Canada' eh? Retired judge share his memories growing up Little Italy

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Ray Stortini is proud of his heritage, his upbringing and what growing up in Sault Ste. Marie’s west end was all about.

It’s the traditions, stories and experiences that he believes are important to him, younger generations of his family and the community at large.

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'Only in Canada' eh? Retired judge share his memories growing up Little Italy Back to video

That’s why he began documenting stories from his past by writing them down. Before he knew it, the stories formed a book, called Only In Canada, Memories of an Italian Canadian. A second book followed, Only In Canada: Part Two Stories from A Lost Neighbourhood.

Published by the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre, the collection of stories was designed to share his upbringing and family stories with his grandchildren.

Proceeds from book sales – now over 2,000 – go directly to the soup kitchen, a charity Stortini has been volunteering at since he retired.

“I haven’t advertised the books. I think the biggest customer is me. I buy them and give them away to my friends or relatives or former Sault residents with a bit of nostalgia,” he said.

Stortini’s first book, Only in Canada Memories of an Italian Canadian, was printed in 2006.

It’s a collection of true short stories from the retired Ontario court judge’s life, many about growing up in Sault Ste. Marie’s ‘Little Italy,’ or James Street area, where immigrants tended to settle.

‘Little Italy’ was considered a very close-knit neighbourhood, almost a community within itself, writes Ron Irwin in the book’s forward.

While the stories in the book all have their special meaning to Stortini, the most important is called Grandma’s Trunk. The story details the journey of his mother’s hope chest and how she had to leave it behind as she made her journey to Canada to join his father. The chest was later brought to Sault Ste. Marie by an uncle, buried to protect its contents during the Second World War and then passed between family members for years before the contents were divvied up to his four granddaughters.

“I wrote about things as the old stories popped in my head,” Stortini said. “A lot of the book is about how the west end came to be Little Italy, how families settled there because of the industry and the canal.”

Stortini called the west end a great place in which to grow up. He said many family friends share his fond memories of the area.

“We were lucky to have such an upbringing in that part of the world,” he said.

Urban renewal ruined the west-end neighbourhood, Stortini says, and the ethnic character of the James Street area was erased, as many families left and were never to return.

Stortini’s volunteer work at the soup kitchen has spurred on many memories detailed in the book.

“Every time I go to the west end it makes me want to weep,” he said in a telephone interview from his St. Joseph Island home.

Stortini said he told former soup kitchen manager Calna McGoldrick about his first book and she agreed to proof read and publish it.  In return, Stortini committed all proceeds to the soup kitchen.

The second book, Only In Canada: Part Two Stories From A Lost Neighbourhood, includes memories from Saultites Vince Greco, Gene Motluk and Richard Morettin.

Published in 2017, the short stories reflect on the change of the city’s west end, from a tight-knit community filled with prosperity to an unsuccessful urban renewal project, which resulted in the destruction of the neighbourhood.

This book also refers to many of the families and individuals Stortini grew up with there.

As with the first book, the second effort highlights issues of poverty, discrimination, women’s lack of rights and Aboriginal marginalization that occurred during the time.

It mentions times when jobs were plentiful and other times when there were shortages.

“It breaks my heart to see what happened to this once exciting part of our city,” Stortini writes in the book’s introduction.

He notes that recent upgrades to the Gore Street infrastructure are “encouraging.” He had hopes stories in the book “are in a way a lament for a lost neighbourhood. At least the memories will not be lost forever,” he concluded.

This book also branches out and records a number of stories unrelated to Little Italy, but important to Stortini. For instance, short stories record the first defibrillator at the Sault Ste. Marie YMCA, learning to make apple cider and making pancakes for St. Joseph Island Lions Club breakfasts.

Stortini doesn’t know why those short vignettes were added to the book other than they were part of his history and experience.

“There is no real connection. They were stories that just popped into my head and I wrote about them,” he said.

Books can be purchased at Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre.