Our 50-Year
Courage.
The chronicle of a family, a marketplace, and the art of finding beauty in the discarded.
Two Teachers and
an Obsession.
Courage My Love wasn’t born out of a business plan. It was born out of an obsession. In 1975, Stewart and Patricia Scriver walked away from their stable careers as school teachers to stake a claim in Kensington Market.
They didn’t start a vintage shop—they started a "junk store." Stewart was a master of the Canadian "dig," traveling across the country to farm auctions and estate sales, rescuing industrial artifacts that others saw as debris.
Patricia was the stylistic soul. She could see the silhouette of a gown through decades of dust. Together, they turned a small blue storefront on Kensington Avenue into the centerpiece of Toronto’s creative counter-culture.
Foundation
Stewart and Patricia Scriver open the original blue storefront.
The Prop Era
The shop becomes a primary source for Toronto’s film and theater industry.
Global Sourcing
Established partnerships for beads and buttons across Mexico and Indonesia.
Next Gen
Cece Scriver carries the heritage into its second half-century.
Sovereign Sourcing.
We don’t rely on wholesalers. From the thousands of loose beads hand-picked in Mexico to the 1920s lace rescued from Ontario farms, every item in our shop has a verifiable lineage of curation.
Creative Sanctuary.
For 50 years, artists, students, and sub-cultures have gathered around our incense-scented aisles. We are not just a point of sale; we are a community waypoint for the creative spirit.
Family Sovereignty.
Through Kensington’s transformations, the Scriver family has remained the constant. We are a family business that believes in the quiet power of creative independence.
"We are turning old things into new courage."
Patricia Scriver, Co-Founder