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Up to the 1950s the majority of Bendale residents were of English or Scottish backgrounds with longstanding roots in the community. As suburban housing developments overtook the farmland in the late 1950s and 1960s, a mix of new residents came to the area. Young families from Toronto as well as Greek and Italian immigrants were attracted to the new neighbourhood for its affordable housing, yards, gardens and surrounding park land despite the initial lack of conveniences. Among the many new groups that have chosen Bendale as their home, immigrants from India, Guyana, China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Caribbean have contributed significantly to the growth of the community.

Follow the development of suburban Bendale up to the present day through the experiences of its residents, both new and old.

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People of Bendale
15 December 2004
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Photo Mosaic: George Dunbar

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Tom Hayes at CFTO anchor desk
November, 2004
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"It was just the wave, the suburbs were opening. It was the chance for people to get a home and backyard and a piece of land". -Tom Hayes recalls the changes in post rural Bendale.

Tom Hayes was born on the Danforth. His family moved to Bendale when he was 18 months old.

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Harold Fearon's house
15 December 2004
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"We signed the offer on this place in fifty-eight before it was even begun to be constructed. The wife and I went out to Etobicoke and looked at houses identical to this, one that was occupied, and the cost for this one was $1500 less in Scarborough. Most of the people that I knew from the west end of Toronto were moving west. So I thought, well, $1500 plus all the interest on that $1500 is going to run me, in those days, a lot of money. So we decided to come out here. That's why we came out to Scarborough. It was a monetary thing. It was expected, it was the norm. You moved out as a whole area mushroomed every direction. You just were expected to follow the trend". -Harold Fearon

Harold Fearon moved to Scarborough with his wife in 1959

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George Mueller's home
15 December 2004
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"We went for a drive here on a Sunday afternoon, we just went out for a drive in the car and happened to end up in this area here. We came up Brimley. There were some houses being built over here and we made a turn down here and came into this area and we both liked it and that was it. That was '59. This was all just open field here. So we bought the house … basically we just looked at the house that afternoon and we went home and told the wife's parents that we were looking at a house and we ended up buying it". -George Mueller recalls discovering Bendale

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Muddy Scarborough. Typical new subdivision under construction
1956
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"Well, there were certainly no trees, that's for sure. The roads were not finished yet, we still had mud. Now of course, you can't go and put houses up until the roads and all are in. Back then it was different. We were walking around in mud for quite a while until we had the streets and before they were paved. Of course, we had just gravel driveways the first little while".

-George Mueller moved to the new subdivision in 1957

"If it started to rain, everyone hurried to their cars to drive out to the gravel road. If we didn't, the cars would sink to their hubcaps in mud".

-David Jackson remembers the early days of the subdivision.

"I hear stories about pushing grocery carts up a muddy Midland Avenue to get the food home".

-Tom Hayes

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Playing hockey in the hydro fields
1970
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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Bendale Post Office and Store
1930
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"Bendale post office in those days, years gone by, every little community had its own post office. Bendale itself was on the south side of Lawrence. If you recall, across from the hospital, there is a Shell Gasoline station. About fifty to one hundred feet to the west of McCowan there was the Bendale Post Office. The houses that are there now didn't exist. It served the area south, east and west of that point. Then of course the name Ben began the name of every street in that subdivision east of McCowan".

-Harold Fearon recalling the Bendale Post Office.

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Children's Story Time at Glen Ayr United Church
2003
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada