1

The children used to play in all sorts of places in the local area.

2

An old bicycle.
1920
Museum on the Boyne, Alliston, Ontario

3

Robert Douglas Banting and Marie (Banting) Shields reminisce:

Marie: I remember going with Margaret Banting on bicycles … We went by bicycle over to Cookstown [a village about 9 kilometres to the east]. We went to visit the Monkmans.

Bob: They had 3 corners, my recollection of that is it was always a "stop" when we went up that way. Because one of the corners had an ice cream cone, always good for an ice cream cone in Cookstown. One side was a gas station, one was a store and that's where the ice cream cones were. It was on the side the bank is. Biking all the way … so how'd you manage Sharp's Hill?

M: I guess we probably had to push up Sharp's Hill.

B: Coming down wouldn't be so bad.

4

Scout Island.
1930
Scout Island, Boyne River, Alliston, Ontario

5

Helen (Banting) Jackson further remembers this about her Uncle Fred:

"He and his cousin Fred Hipwell, who also became a doctor, used to spend hours digging on an island in this same river, thinking they might find some pirates gold. We don't know of a spot on the whole island that they hadn't dug up at one time or another."

The island was known as Scout Island.

6

Scout Island.
1940
Scout Island, Boyne River, Alliston, Ontario

7

Scout Island, favourite haunt of the Banting children.

Helen (Banting) Jackson remembers her famous Uncle Frederick, "Not long before his death, my brothers went with him, just to have a look at the island again."

8

The Boyne River.
1940
Boyne River, Alliston, Ontario

9

Marie (Banting) Shields recalls another favourite pastime of children at the Homestead, which is located quite close to the Boyne River. "We used to go down to the river and swim," she muses. "Down by the bridge."

10

The Boyne River.
1920
Alliston, Ontario

11

A photograph of the expanse of the Boyne River, the way it used to look.

"Of course," Marie Shields adds, speaking of swimming in the Boyne River near the Banting Homestead, "that was a different bridge, and the river didn't look like it does now, it was much wider, because of Tuer's Dam." The dam and the accompanying mill have been gone for many years.

12

The Alliston boys' baseball team.
1908
Alliston, Ontario

13

Sir Frederick Banting's mother recalled that he very much enjoyed playing baseball and was a member of the school team. She also remembered that he enjoyed rugby and tennis.

Marie (Banting) Shields also recalls playing ball in Alliston, as she explains to Robert Douglas Banting:

Marie: I played with the Elm Grove Farmerettes.

Bob: Elm Grove is spelled with two words, right?

M: I think it is.

B: Because they've squashed it together now, and I've heard a couple of historians up there are concerned about it. Just across on the next line was the Elm Grove School, was that where you played ball?

M: I don't know where all we played, different farms.

Don Shields (Marie's husband): I picked you up at the park, down where the museum is.

M: Down at Riverdale Park. We played on the farms. I can remember playing out at the Maclean's.

14

Baseball pants.
1908
Museum on the Boyne, Alliston, Ontario