325 First Street - W.A. Brady House

325 1st St., W. A. Brady House

Just south from the hospital in Reston on the west side of First Street sits this grand four square home with a dormer window peeking out of the attic above.  The  house is wrapped with a wide veranda and chunky posts which the current owners decorate with bright garland at Christmas and beautiful plants in the summer.  Ken and Eileen Milliken have done an amazing job updating and renovating the house since taking it over in 1979.  Two Milliken children were raised here and now four grandchildren create special memories here as well.  
  
The home was built in 1907 for William Albert (known as Bert) Brady.  I found him on the Manitoba census of 1891 as a 32-year-old farmer living on his homestead in the Pipestone district. In December of 1892 he married Ida Helen Hacking at Winnipeg. Ida had been born in the US in 1869. Bert was born in Ontario in 1860 and would have headed west in the later days of the 1800's to make a life on the prairies. He moved from farming to the lumber business at some point.  In 1916 Bert Brady built the Brady Block (now known as the Martin block) in downtown Reston following a disastrous fire where he lost his business on the same spot. It had sold farm implements, buggies, hardware, housewares, furniture, and china. He continued with Brady Hardware for many years. 

Brady Block on the left side of this postcard from Prairie Towns website

Bert and Ida has a family of 4 girls and a boy - Helen May, Frank Hacking, Marjorie Edith, Emma Evelyn, and Dorothy Mary.  Ida died in 1911 and Bert’s sister Georgina lived with the family and helped out for a few years.  When Frank married, they built their home just south of this one. Frank  joined his father in the hardware business in 1921. Eileen and Ken gave me the copy below of the picture of these two houses, likely taken in the 20's.   

Bert died in 1930 and his son took over the Brady Hardware business until they sold out in November 1955 to W.J. (Bill) Champion.  While the Millikens have been doing renovations, they found "W.A. Brady" written on the back of several pieces of the woodwork.  The postcard shown below found here on Peel's Prairie Provinces website shows the house (I think) in the distance on the left side.  The picture is dated circa 1910.

The next resident may have been a dentist as Ken has been told of a memory of a dental chair in one of the rooms.  Does anyone recall?  Please let me know at ssimms@escape.ca 

**Update September 2020 Verna Olenick pointed me to the 1981 history book Trails Along the Pipestone to page 481-2.  It says a Dr Haughton was town dentist in 1935  but that he practiced out of Berry Barber Shop.  During the 40's, a Dr Thompson of Carnduff had a dental office in the same shop as well as in the basement of the Masonic Hall and the hotel for a time. The chair may well have been in the Brady house for some unknown reason and stuck in someone's memory! **

 
Next owners that I know were Reg and Gwen Berry. Reginald was the son of Edward and Bertha Berry born in 1906 in Reston. They built the Berry Block across from the post office as a residence and jewelry store in 1906 and lived there with their 10 children. Reginald was born in 1911 and he went on to go to Normal School in Brandon. Reg taught school in Reston for eight years and later farmed as well as sold insurance. His wife Gwen was the daughter of James I. and Nellie Bulloch, farmers on SW 16-7-27. Reg and Gwen raised three daughters in the house: Gail, Sharon and Valerie. They built a new house to the north (now Tina and Scott Stanley's home) and moved to it in 1974.

Tom and Olive Tesarski were the next owners in August 1974. He was principal at Reston Collegiate and she was a business education teacher there. Their family was Curt, Shelly, Bradley, Garry and Charlotte. They left Reston in 1979 when they retired to Brandon.

Next owners Ken and Eileen Milliken continue to live in the old house and were keen to help tell its story.