Mary Sabat:
By Norman Jennings

+ On January 1, 2003, Mary retired from the office. This is about her time with Moriyama and Teshima.

It was the year 1966. Mary had recently given birth to her third child Peter Jr. and was ready to go back to work. She went into a placement agency and they had a job opening at an architect's office called Raymond Moriyama Architects and Planners. By coincidence Mary had recently read an article about the young architect Raymond Moriyama in a magazine. From what she could tell it seemed like that office would be a good place to work.

Mary went down to the basement of the building at 711 Church Street where the office was located in those days and had an interview with David Vickers. She was hired right away and her first day on the job was February 27, 1966.

The office was very busy and quite crowded at 711 Church. Staff included David Vickers, Don Cooper, Bon Mueller, Fred Brooks, Ted Teshima and Al Clouter. In all there were about twenty employees and along with Mary the only other women were Pauline Maybe who worked in the studio and Vivian Compline who was Ray's secretary. She was referred to as Mrs. C.

The big project in the office at the time was the Ontario Science Centre. It was much larger than anything the young office had done before and many a late night was spent by those involved. Mary worked on the specs. Now in 1966 you had to work on Gestetner sheets, a kind of reverse carbon paper, in a typewriter. If you made even a small mistake you had to start over. Then it had to be run off page by page. A Ditto machine, which was easier to use and more like a photocopier, would have done the job but the quality was not there.

With the office expanding, it could no longer fit in the basement at 711 Church and moved down the street to 32 Davenport Road in mid-1966. Aubrey McIntosh came from Pet Milk to M&T in November 1966 to take over the accounts. One day in 1967, right out of the blue, Mrs. C went to Aubrey and said she was leaving and walked out right then and there never to be seen in the office again. Mary switched desks, to where she sat from then on, and took over from Mrs. C as RM's secretary shortly thereafter.

Often in the 1960's there were three people in the "front office" but never for too long as there was a string of different receptionists. Mary became the constant steadying influence as it was sometimes difficult having to break in new people all the time. Ray and Mary became a tight knit team. Now, as it was then, if you wanted to get to Ray you had to go through Mary.

Moving into the 1970's, the office worked on numerous studies and reports. Mary would have to transcribe the written notes of Ray or George Stockton or Al Clouter. She found this to be a very fascinating and educative process as draft after draft was produced. This is something Mary says she misses in the current computer age where everyone does their own word processing on their computers. Luckily by this time photocopying became more common so printing of the reports was much easier.

But where did it all start? Mary was born and grew up in a small town near Edmonton, Alberta so she is really a prairie girl at heart. Her family moved to Toronto in the late 1940's and she finished high school here in the west end near Bloor and Dufferin. High school was followed by Shaw Business College, then Mary started to work. Right before Peter Jr. was born she worked at the Professional Engineers Association. In all she has three boys with Greg being the oldest, followed by Robert and Peter Jr.. During his teenage years, and after that, Peter was a fixture around M&T doing odd jobs. Shoveling snow, looking after the fishpond and even installing wires through the building for the early Macintosh Appletalk network. Now Peter is in the film business in New York City.

In the new year, Mary's immediate plan is to take it easy and get organized at home. She will be able to take more frequent trips to New York City to see Peter and the grandchildren and spend some relaxing time in the garden once spring comes. Then in June it's off to the Mediterranean for the cruise that will take Mary and Peter Sr. to Barcelona, Monaco, through Italy to Yalta and then to Spain. After that Mary will expand on her current volunteer work with seniors and at her church.

Mary said that she has enjoyed working with so many good people over the years and her time with Ray has always been enjoyable. And don't worry Ray, Mary is not going to reveal any inside scoops here! Some very kind words were said of Mary at the recent M&T Christmas party. Her professionalism and friendly nature will surely be missed.

We will no longer have Mary telling us to "have a good one" as we are heading out the door at the end of another workday. I think during her time here, Mary has had a great one! Thanks so much.