The Little Girl At The Reformatory

In 2018, Richard Wilson contacted the Yorklands Green Hub to relate that his late wife, Betty Spry, was the daughter of the first groundskeeper at the Ontario Reformatory (OR). "They lived in a tent at first, and then moved into the gatehouse on York Road while her father worked there."

"One day, word came down to the gatehouse from the House on the Hill (the popular name for the OR) that the inmates wanted an outline of the feet of the little girl who lived there. Betty remembered standing on two pieces of paper while her father got down on all fours with a pencil, and traced around her feet. The outlines were sent back up the hill.

A week later, a beautiful pair of little moccasins was delivered to the back door "for the little girl. The Indigenous inmates who were part of the population there had created them for her in their native arts workshop.” Richard Wilson died in 2019.