Abstract
In this article on memory and memory making, Katrina Srigley examines four sisters’ recollections of their Depression-era family, focusing on their father, a Toronto Transit Commission motorman, bookie, and bootlegger. His role in their lives was dynamic and exciting, but also troubling and difficult. The sisters painted deeply textured portraits of him, revealing how individual identities, collective narratives of unemployment and family, as well as silences, shaped the stories that they told. As Annette Kuhn points out, “families are imagined communities,” and remembering them is a “key moment in the making of ourselves,” and, as Srigley argues, our families and our communities.
