This a thank you to long-time Mimico merchants Tina and Italo Vigiliante, the owners of Tina’s Department Store, on 364 Royal York Road.

Family patriarch Vigiliante passed away earlier this year and the store Is slated to close. Such sad news.

Many customers for decades have shopped in Tina’s store. Loyal customers, as my mother, who would later become friends of the couple and received a peek at some of the many newcomer families the haberdashers helped to succeed on their arrival in Canada.

One of those immigrant families was ours. It must be more than five decades now, when we resettled in Canada from Trinidad and Tobago.

The couple never forgot the feeling of being alone and new themselves in a foreign country. And it is with such values that they lived their lives, traits which they passed on to their children.

My mother would recall that back then she was a young bank worker, who had arrived here with husband, Neville. They had left five children in Trinidad, as they worked at one or two jobs to earn enough funds to sponsor us here.

“They are great people,” my mother said of the Tina and Italo. “They were nice, genuine people who helped many families when they first arrived here.”

It was Tina’s Department Store to whom many newcomers, stunned by autumn’s falling temperatures, leaves and snow, would visit during their first days in Canada to obtain winter clothing, like boots, gloves and toques.

My mother, today in her 80s, will never forget being given clothing for five children on credit, which she dutifully repaid to Tina $100 each payday on her bank worker’s salary until the debt was paid off.

Simple and easy, it was the way business was conducted generations ago in South Etobicoke.

I only recently found out that our first winter gear in Canada was fronted to my mother by Tina, who took a chance on another arriving and thankful family.

“I went looking for her over the years,” my mom says. “I could never catch up with them.”

Even though the two live in different parts of Mississauga, they were never able to re-connect, only in memory and good thoughts.

This all came back recently on learning on the death of Italo Vigiliante, who could only receive a COVID-19 send off with less than a dozen mourners present.

My mother was shocked to learn of his passing at the age of 87.

“He was a really nice man,” according to my mother. “He and Tina kept that place running for many years.”

Their lives was a true love story. Vigilianti met his sweetheart, Giustina Viola, in April 1955, a month after arriving In Canada by ship from his hometown of Terracina, Italy.

The couple married and settled in Mimico to raise a family. Italo worked for Tip Top Tailor and Chubb Canada, before they opened their business in December 1958.

The store, which was named after Tina, has been a mainstay on the Royal York strip, from Judson to Evans Ave., for more than 62 years.

It is a sad loss for the community.

Tom Godfrey is the Publisher of The South Etobicoke News. He was a reporter at the Toronto Sun for many years before deciding to use his skills to work in community journalism.