Tillie Spiers McGillis and George McGillis - c. 1890HELL'S BURNING!!
By C.M. "Mac" Lapointe
It was a typically quiet morning in Ottawa on Thursday, April 26, 1900. Tillie McGillis was busy ironing sheets, pillow cases, and tablecloths used in the boarding-house that she owned. Her niece, Hattie Bray, was doing the sweeping, dusting and scrubbing wherever needed. Seven year old Vada McGillis came in from playing on the street and announced, "Hell's burning."
These days we have psychologists who warn parents not to wash out a child's mouth with soap and water if a bad word is uttered. The theory is, that trying to stop the child in such behaviour will only make him or her more determined to get a rise out of the parent. However, Tillie probably didn't know what a psychologist was. She did know that she had to get the ironing done and there was no time for mouth washing with soap and water. Besides, she was a merry faced little woman with a comic impulse that she would indulge in at unexpected moments. She went on ironing, just saying, "I know."
However, this time Vada was not being provocative; she was just reporting the news. For "Hell" was the derogatory name given by the good people of Ottawa to the city of Hull, located across the bridge over the Ottawa River, when they wanted to put it down. Hull was not only in Quebec, it was full of French people who talked funny and were Roman Catholics, but even worse than the Irish. It was the place that the lumberjacks, politicians and other men went to drink, whoop it up and visit those wicked women.
That morning, Hull really was burning. The black smoke rolled across the River darkening the sky and the flames were threatening to jump the water and engulf the city of Ottawa. Tillie and Hattie were soon joined by the available male boarders and they all began carrying furniture and household goods out of the house and piling it out front in the hope that it might be saved if the house should go up in flames. Luckily, the wind changed direction just in time. Just to be on the safe side, the furnishings remained outside over night and Hattie slept on one of the tables so that she could be on guard against possible looters.
Perhaps business declined after the fire, but, for whatever reason, George and Tillie McGillis soon after moved to North Bay, Ontario. Tillie had a talent for visiting a bank manager's office and coming away with sufficient funds to buy a run-down house at a bargain, make repairs and spruce it up so that it could be sold or serve as a rooming house - anything to make a profit. George was a very good barber and a fervently religious man who would try to save a customer's soul as quickly as shave him or cut his hair.
