Neighbour of Note – Trudy Cloudt Trudy Cloudt’s parents, immigrants from the Netherlands, built their first house in Canada in Orchard Park, her father a carpenter. Trudy lived in the Hyde Park area most of her life. After moving away for university and travelling in Europe, Trudy returned to the Hyde Park area, close to familial roots, to raise her children. They played and explored Medway Creek and developed lasting friendships with neighbourhood children just as she had years prior. They were active members of local sports teams. Always an artist at heart, Trudy devoted her time to writing when her children were small. “It was something that I could carry with me and work on in short intervals. I filled numerous journals with daily musings, poems and short stories,” she says. As a passionate educator, she spent three decades teaching children French, Music and “good values”. Now that she is semi-retired, Trudy has more time to devote to writing. Her writing examines relationships, from interior family connections to external interactions and often, she says “the courage needed to survive them.” As a child, she was intrigued by stories that she heard her parents and the elders speak about around the kitchen table. “They told their entertaining tales as ordinary people doing ordinary things. I realized that their lives exemplified courage, resilience and kindness.” She feels that these are important messages that need to be shared with our generation and the generations to come. Trudy has published two short stories. The IOU can be found in Canada: Brave New World , an anthology edited by Elaine
Couglar of Peache House Press. Grandpa’s Harvest can be found in Out of The Woods – Voices from the Forest City , an anthology of short stories selected by Londoner Emma Donoghue and published by Indie Publishing Group.
Both books are available from Amazon or from the publishers. Out of the Woods is also available at Indigo and various bookstores in the area. She is working on her first novel. Learn more about the London Writers Society at londonwriterssociety.ca
Historic Hyde Park
Back in the Day
William Sherwood Fox One of Canada’s foremost champions of the cause of classical scholarship and of the humanities in Canada, William Sherwood Fox (1878 – 1967) evidenced titanic energy and match- less vigour during his long career of three decades at Western University, as teacher and administrator. Enlisted by Woodrow Wilson as assistant pro- fessor at Princeton, Fox later (1917) chose to decamp to London’s fledgling
university as professor of classics. His retirement was marked by the establishment of a memorial chair in classics. Throughout his years in Canada, Fox was a spirited advocate of archaeological reconstruction, a legacy from his training at Johns Hopkins. He worked energetically on behalf of restoration at St. Ignace in the Huron country of Georgian Bay, of reforestation, and of bilingualism among young Ontario students through summer programs at Trois Pistoles, Quebec. His devotion to botany, to natural phenomena, and to Izaak Walton was lifelong. William Sherwood Fox Public School on Steeplechase Drive, the Sherwood Fox Arboretum at Western University, Sherwood Ave., and Sherwood Mall on Wonderland Road were named after William Sherwood Fox.
Russ Brown (above, left) was among the 50 students at the Sherwood Forest Mall in 1974, aiming to set a new record for eating 1000 banana splits. Organized to publicize the United Way of Greater London, only 319 splits were devoured. Brown ate six. Photo courtesy Western Archives.
Our January-February 2017 Hyde Park-Oakridge Villager cover. It was the 11th issue of the community magazine. Be the first to email Cathy@VillagerPublications.com and identify the location of the photo to receive two tickets to FROZEN at the Grand Theatre. www.grandtheatre.com/event/frozen
JAN-FEB 2017 ISSUE 11
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Hyde Park – Oakridge Villager • November 2025 • Page 11
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