WALTER BURHOE'S WHITE ROSE SERVICE STATION

Walter ran this service station for many years , just down the street from my home.He would always give us the waste oil so we could burn it for heat down at the car club.
The top photo is probably 1950. The second photo is taken after Walter moved the station back from the road and renovated the station. Thanks to the Burhoe girls for the photos.
The Ladner family lived upstairs at this time, we had alot of fun with Stu & Hal, trading comics. Charlie and Jeannie Bartel lived with them for a few years and one day disappeared. No one ever tells a kid what was going on. We always wondered what happened to them. Then in the mid 90's, after we got on line, I was able to track Charlie down in Ontario. A few weeks later he arrived on PEI with his family and i met him down at Mother's. We had a great time catching up on our lives. Mother said that after they left and hearing how well Charlie had done in life, she had her best night sleep in years.
During the 50,s Walter had a contract to tow the cars that were involved in collisions, these mostly occured on Saturday night.
Walter had two old Army Trucks that he used for towing. After a car had it's transmission wrecked from towing , Walter always crawled under the car and removed the drive shaft.
As I said most of the serious accidents occured on Saturday night, this was pre seat belts, airbag, collapsable steering column, padded dash or safety glass.
These cars were usually a mess, heads smashed into the steel dash, or through the windsheild. Lots of blood and other things.
He would park these wrecks behind the station on Belmont Street. We would run down early Sunday morning to get alook at the mayhem that occured the night before.
In this era most people went to Church on Sunday as a family. After Church people would head out to Walter's to look at the wrecks. If it was a bad accident with people dying the crowds would be enormous. Men would park their cars with their family inside and go to look at the carnage. Kids would be begging daddy to let them look. My brothers and I would usually be there to watch these men and listen to their commments.
This was a Sunday ritual for many years.
Walter was a good guy , as was his son Wen and Allison Moore.
In the evening many men, like Juice Longaphee, Bun Duffy, George Beer, would come into to walter's to chat , have a smoke and a bottle of Pepsi.
When we were kids Walter would let us work on our bikes there and help us to fix them and patch the tires for a penny.
Thanks Walter.