In July 2025, Helen McFadden ’61 visited Trinity for the first time since she graduated more than 60 years ago. She and her daughter toured the campus, visited with Provost Nick Terpstra and Rolph-Bell Archivist Sylvia Lassam, and learned about the College’s current projects. A few days later, Helen, who is a longtime member of the Gerald Larkin Society (those who have remembered Trinity in their wills), sent us this letter. In it, she shares her unforgettable story of growing up at Trinity.
Trinity College changes lives, no doubt about that, as it seems every student leaves with fresh perspectives, deeper critical skills and more profound global awareness, and often goes on to make major contributions to the Canadian and international scene.
This story, my story, is about a different way lives were changed by Trinity. In 1947, l was seven years old, living in postwar England’s industrial heartland. My mother, suffering from asthma and desperately unhappy, was raising two young children while my father, with his degree in Classical Studies from Cambridge, was living and teaching in a boys’ boarding school some distance away — the only job he could get at that time.
No car, no cell phone — not even a regular phone — just two isolated people each with their own stresses and despairs, trying desperately to make sense of it all.
The turning point came when Trinity’s then-Provost Reginald Seeley was hunting for new teaching staff for the College and was given my father’s name by a fellow Cambridge grad. As a result, my dad, J.W. Scrivin, was hired and made his way to Toronto to prepare for his new position and for his family to join him, which we did a short time later. It was an amazing turn of events for all of us!
We lived in the Windsor Arms Hotel for a week, and my brother and I were sure we had gone straight to heaven. Then we lived on Toronto Island for a short time, where just getting there and back by ferry was a supreme novelty that for us made up for the fact that our accommodation was pretty basic. Eventually we found a house and settled in.
That was in 1947. My dad was a popular lecturer with a strong bent for scholarship mitigated by a fine sense of humour and great respect for his students. My mother balanced his qualities with her own as she emerged as a great hostess; in no time our house was a gathering place for profs, students, local personalities, and visiting scholars.
And so my father’s career took flight. He became Residence Don at 99 St George Street, a beautiful house that was also Provost Seeley’s home at the time. Then he was asked to be Dean of Residence for the College and we moved into the Dean of Residence’s apartment on the second and third floors of Trinity itself. He coached soccer, was on the board of both the Lit and Salterrae, acted in College and varsity stage productions, and both my parents were involved in the Earle Grey Players’ Shakespeare productions in the Quad each summer. What a wonderful childhood that was for my brother, John, and me, one whose memory I cherish even as I pinch myself to be sure it ever happened!
All this was quite dramatically and suddenly dashed in November of 1953 — only seven years after we had arrived in this amazing new world — when my dad, after a series of medical incidents over the summer, died suddenly on November 6 at the age of 40.
Who knows how different things might have been had he had the right diagnosis and treatment and lived his full life span, but as it was J.W. (Jim) Scrivin had made his impact in a more concentrated fashion.
After his death, we of course had to move away from the College. Mom was able to get trained as a social worker, and bought a house with the small insurance settlement she received. My brother was supported by a benefactor who provided for him to go to Trinity College School, and the College also provided free tuition for both of us when we reached university age. Through the generosity of my father’s colleagues, a small scholarship fund was raised for each of us as well, so that we were well provided for.
A sad additional note is that Provost Seeley himself was also taken too young, when he was killed in a car accident a couple of years later. He and J.W. had been a great working team for the College; who knows what they could have accomplished given a few more years of working together.
From 1957 to 1961, I proudly attended Trinity, reveling in the lectures, the tutorials, the Buttery. I took a part-time job in the Library, did a little acting, even tried out as a cheerleader once. I learned to write essays and exam questions effectively thanks to the intensive work of one professor, Philip Child, and the amazingly detailed feedback of every professor from every essay I wrote. What an educational bonus that was! I loved being back at Trinity again, and continue to cherish every memory of that time.
July 2025
So, yes, Trinity has definitely made a difference in my life, enough that it is one of my most intense points of thankfulness. My career has not brought me into a lot of money, but has allowed me to make some worthwhile contributions. And I truly believe that each of us needs to pay back whatever we can to this incredible institution, both in life and in a bequest at the end of it, so that Trinity can continue to work its life-changing magic in all those young people who are fortunate enough to come under its influence.
With kindest regards to all who have the privilege to work at Trinity, to my 6T1 friends and companions, and to all those who have come under Trinity’s influence in their lives,
Helen Scrivin
(also Helen Raby 1968-76 and Helen McFadden 1989 to present)
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