Ontario, Canada Recollections

Ringrose Press (1139 Lillian Ave., Windsor, Ontario)

business | windsor

Recollections (1990s)

I remember going to Ringrose Press at 1139 Lillian Ave. in Windsor, Ontario a number of times in the 1990s. It offered commercial printing services.

It was located in a nondescript house on the west side of a residential street. I don’t remember it having any sort of signage indicating that a business operated out of that location.

Customers would enter via a sidewalk-like walkway that cut across the front lawn, and ran along the north exterior wall of the house to an east-facing exterior door. This door opened into a small, rectangular, fully-enclosed porch-like room jutting out from the north side of the house, towards the rear of the building.

A customer service counter ran along the west end, and I believe part of the south side, separating this customer entry area from a larger main working area that I believe had some printing equipment within it. There appeared to be at least one room at the front of the house that connected to this main area through a typical-looking interior doorway, and at least one other room at the back through another interior doorway.

The inside of the house was somewhat worn and run-down, and it generally looked rather outdated for the 1990s.

Many samples of past printing jobs were glued or otherwise attached to the walls of the customer entry area, and also to the walls in some of the other areas that were visible to customers. I remember the customer area’s walls being almost completely covered with these samples, many of which were yellowed and looked like they were probably decades old by the 1990s.

The printing equipment visible from the customer area generally seemed older and far more mechanical than the photocopiers used at other printing businesses at the time.

I also recall the inside of the building having a very unique smell, although I’m not sure what the source of it was. I don’t remember any smell or noise from the printing operations being noticeable from outside the house, at least when approaching from the front.

It was one of the most interesting business locations that I recall visiting at that time.

Other Information

There are some photos on Flickr from 2009:

There is an obituary for Francis Graves “Sonny” Ringrose (January 13, 2009) that states, “Mr. Ringrose was the owner of Ringrose Press (Windsor).”

There is also an obituary for Lois May “Dodie” Wright (née Ringrose) (March 23, 2010) that mentions ‘"Dodie" worked beside her family at Ringrose Press for 46 years in Windsor.’

There is some online discussion about some of the printing equipment being sold in 2009.

The business is listed in various directories, such as:

There appears to have been an earlier printing/publishing business involving somebody named “Ringrose, Wm J”. Perhaps this is the same “William Ringrose (1950)” mentioned as being the father of Lois Wright in her obituary, and possibly the father of her brother Francis Ringrose, too. This business is listed in various directories such as:

Under the 2025 street numbering scheme, addresses like 1136 Highland Ave., 482 Erie St. E., 446 Erie St. E., and 1300 Howard Ave., would be within 0.5 km from 1139 Lillian Ave.

The Google Street View imagery from May 2014 is the latest showing the house as I remember it looking during the 1990s, with the east (front) side having the green paint at the bottom, the white paint toward the roof, the door to the left, the window to the right, and the customer entrance along the north wall. Between May 2014 and March 2021, the house apparently underwent significant renovations.