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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-22 published
She danced on tabletops of Ottawa
Former reporter with capital connections hosted parties for the
powerful and waged a spirited campaign to save railway cabooses
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, January
22, 2003, Page R5
Most who knew her have a story to tell about Starr
SOLOMON, a
journalist and public-relations practitioner who for years hosted
glamorous parties in Ottawa that attracted a who's who of cabinet
ministers, bureaucrats and media people.
Ms. SOLOMON, the widow of Hy
SOLOMON, former Ottawa bureau chief
for The Financial Post, has died in Toronto. She was 64.
Long-time friend and colleague Walter
GRAY/GREY remembers the time
Ms. SOLOMON convinced former Prime Minister Brian
MULRONEY and
Liberal
Member of Parliament Sheila
COPPS -- for years Mr.
MULRONEY's
nemesis -- to sing together at the National Press Club in Ottawa
in the mid-1980s, following the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery
dinner.
"They sang a duet. The song was You Made Me Love You," says Mr.
GRAY/GREY, a former Globe and Mail bureau chief in Ottawa, who played
the piano while the two politicians crooned in tandem. Ms.
COPPS
is now Canada's heritage minister.
Edna HAMPTON, one of Ms.
SOLOMON's closest Friends, said acquaintances,
colleagues and politicians always looked forward to dinner parties
at the SOLOMON home in Ottawa's trendy Glebe neighbourhood. Trouble
was, you never knew when the meal would be served.
"I always used to eat first because the parties would zip along
and she would let dinner go. You might eat at 8, you might eat
at 11 . . . but you always knew the food would be good," said
Ms. HAMPTON, a retired journalist.
Ms. SOLOMON was born in Ottawa and moved to North Bay, Ontario,
as a child, where she attended elementary and high school. In
the late 1950s, she landed a reporting job with The North Bay
Nugget, where Ms.
HAMPTON was a senior reporter at the time.
Later, The Ottawa Citizen hired her as a reporter and she wrote
under the byline Starr
COTE, the surname of her first husband.
"She was always full of energy and fond of fun assignments,"
recalls Ms.
HAMPTON. "
She would cover anything from a royal tour
to a St. Patrick's Day event up the Ottawa Valley."
Among her plum assignments was the visit to Ottawa by U.S. president
John F. KENNEDY and his wife, Jacqueline. She also wrote restaurant
reviews for The Citizen, where she developed a reputation as
a lively writer who was quick-witted, entertaining and personal.
Ms. SOLOMON often fought it out for the big local stories with
Joyce FAIRBAIRN, a reporter with the now-defunct Ottawa Journal.
Ms. FAIRBAIRN later became a Senator.
Ms. SOLOMON left The Citizen in the mid-1960s and moved to Toronto,
where she worked with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as
a writer/producer. She married Mr.
SOLOMON on January 23, 1966.
The couple lived in Toronto until Mr.
SOLOMON was transferred
to Washington to open a bureau for The Financial Post.
When the
SOLOMONs returned to Ottawa, Ms.
SOLOMON and a partner
formed a public-relations firm. She quickly became a fixture
in the city's media and political circles, a move Mr.
GRAY/GREY calls
"networking at its best. She had a wide range of Friends and
she used these connections to her greatest advantage. I wish
I had her Rolodex."
For about 10 years in the 1980s, Ms.
SOLOMON and Mr.
GRAY/GREY worked
at the same public-relations firm, where they teamed up on a
variety of projects.
"There was the day the African chief Butelezi arrived in Ottawa
as a front for a group of Canadian businesses trying to develop
business relations with South Africa. I was assigned to shepherd
the chief around town," says Mr.
GRAY/GREY. "
Starr was to accompany
his lady, the lovely Princess Irene, whose sole interest was
to shop -- especially at Zellers. As they made their departure
laden down with Zellers bags. I think the princess gave Starr
a tip for her services."
The pair also worked together on an unsuccessful campaign to
stop the Canadian National Railway from eliminating railway cabooses.
"The cabooses disappeared, but to this day, the Save the Caboose
sweatshirt has been the most comfortable sweatshirt in our respective
wardrobes," says Mr.
GRAY/GREY.
Over the years Ms.
SOLOMON volunteered her public-relations skills
for many campaigns. She was a founding member of the Legal Education
and Action Fund, which was established to advance women's equality
rights, and served on the board of directors of the Ottawa Civic
Hospital.
As a couple, the
SOLOMONs were known in Ottawa for throwing glamorous
parties, some planned, some spontaneous, that attracted the leading
cabinet ministers, writers and journalists of the day. Ms.
SOLOMON
entertained and amused guests with her wit and political insights,
while her husband was an engaging conversationalist whose business
and political insights held the attention of politicians and
bureaucrats.
Those who attended their soirees remember Ms.
SOLOMON as a welcoming
hostess and terrific cook, whose specialty was Greek and Mediterranean
dishes. When guests arrived, she was always beautifully dressed
and "the records were on the turntable," recalls Mr.
GRAY/GREY. "
Patsy
Cline was her favourite. But also lots of jazz -- her friend
Brian Browne, Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones." Often guests would
sing and dance around the
SOLOMONs' dining-room table.
"We did have serious discussions on serious subjects, from time
to time," adds Mr.
GRAY/GREY.
Former Ottawa Citizen food editor and restaurant reviewer Kathleen
WALKER remembers Ms.
SOLOMON as "literally . . . the kind of
person who danced on tabletops. She was just wonderful and wild.
We had a ball together. Great sense of humour. A terrific lady."
She will also be remembered as a great friend "who was there
in thick and thin if you had a problem," says Mr.
GRAY/GREY.
After her husband died in 1991, Ms.
SOLOMON moved back to Toronto,
where she did volunteer consulting and public relations work
for various organizations, including Legal Education and Action
Fund and a Greek nursing home. She was also a trustee of the
Hyman SOLOMON
Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism,
established to honour her husband's legacy.
Ms. SOLOMON leaves her two sons, Adam and Ben, two grandchildren
and two brothers. A celebration of her life is to be held at
the National Press Club in Ottawa on January 29 at 5: 30 p.m.
Starr SOLOMON, journalist, public-relations specialist; born
Ottawa, February 27, 1938; died Toronto, January 3, 2003.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-27 published
Jet pilot helped hold North American Air Defence Command fort
Career military man proud how command handled Russian false alarm
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Monday, January 27,
2003, Page R7
Lieutenant-General Robert
MORTON became interested in flying
as a youngster in the Ottawa Valley community of Almonte, where
he often spent long hours gluing photographs of aircraft into
his scrapbook.
"He wanted to be a fighter pilot, he was always talking about
airplanes," recalled his wife Pat. "Later in life, he once told
me: 'I can't believe they are paying me to fly.' He loved it
so much."
Gen. MORTON, who received his pilot's wings in 1960 and went
on to become deputy commander-in-chief of the North American
Air Defence Command in Colorado, died on December 7 in Ottawa.
He was 65.
He attended Almonte High School, which, despite having 360 students,
turned out a handful of Canadian Armed Forces air-force generals,
including Major-General B.R.
CAMPBELL and Don
STEWARD/STEWART/STUART and Murray
RAMSBOTTOM, both brigadier-generals. They jokingly referred to
themselves as the Almonte Mafia.
Prior to graduation, Gen.
MORTON toyed with the idea of becoming
a pharmacist but opted for a career in the military, which would
pay his way through university and cater to his interest in flying.
After Grade 13, he joined the air force and spent two years at
Royal Roads Military College in Victoria, before finishing his
studies at the Royal Military College in Kingston. It was the
beginning of a 37-year career. He learned to fly during the summers
and received his wings when he graduated from Royal Military
College with a B.Sc.
"He was bright, energetic and full of life," recalls Gen.
RAMSBOTTOM,
retired and living in Cumberland, Ontario "In our high-school
days, I'd say his interest in flying was not all apparent. We
were more interested in basketball, academics and socializing."
After pilot training, Gen.
MORTON was posted to France where
until 1963 he served as a fighter pilot with 421 Fighter Squadron
in Grostenquin, flying CF-86 Sabres, the Korean War-era jet.
During his career, he flew many different types of aircraft,
including the CF-101 Voodoo twin-engine interceptor, the T-39
Saberliner and the T-33 Shooting star, which was Canada's main
advanced fighter trainer for decades. He also flew the CF-104
Starfighter, a tricky supersonic plane nicknamed the "widow maker"
by German pilots.
He returned to Ottawa in 1963 and was assigned to air-force headquarters,
holding several administrative jobs. From 1966 to 1968, he was
a flying instructor in Gimli, Manitoba His first posting to Colorado
Springs was in 1968 as a major, his second in 1978 as colonel
and his third as lieutenant-general in 1989. In between, he held
a number of posts, including commander of the North American
Air Defence Command base at North Bay, Ontario, chief of staff
operations of Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force in Hiedelberg,
Germany, and base operations officer and flight commander, 416
Squadron at Canadian Forces Base in Chatham, New Brunswick.
He was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general in 1982, major-general
in 1984 and lieutenant-general in 1989.
During one of his stints with North American Air Defence Command,
which was established to protect Canada and the United States
from surprise attacks, Gen.
MORTON was command director inside
Cheyenne Mountain, the bunker carved out of a Colorado mountain
that was designed to withstand a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.
On a number of occasions during his career, there were false
alarms, including a burst of solar energy during the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan that set off radar stations in Alaska and across
the Canadian Arctic. This put North American Air Defence Command
and Strategic Air Command systems on a heightened state of alert
while the command and control network worked quickly to assure
it was not a real attack.
"This was a significant thing when you consider the consequences
of a bad decision," said Gen.
MORTON's son Bruce. "In the post-event
analysis, after the mountain had made the ultimate decision that
it was not an attack and our forces were ordered to stand down,
my father, his people and North American Air Defence Command,
were proud that they had all done their jobs properly."
While working with North American Air Defence Command, Gen.
MORTON
knew the Soviet Union tested North American defences by sending
flights along the Arctic and Labrador coasts. On one such trip,
he ordered CF-18 fighters into the air to photograph the Canadian
fighter shadowing the Soviet plane, proving to the North American
public that the defence system had a real job to do.
Gen. MORTON retired in 1992 to become a member of the Air Command
Advisory Council, a body set up to advise Canada's air-force
leadership. He also served as honorary national president of
the Air Force Association of Canada from 1994 to 1999 and under
his leadership it grew to 20,000 members from 12,000, said executive
director Bob
TRACEY.
The association is a lobby group with the
goal of improving Canada's military.
Mr. TRACEY, who worked for Gen.
MORTON in Colorado, remembers
his former boss as a commander who understood the needs and wants
of his troops. "He could get an awful lot of work out of people
with him."
Gen. MORTON, a devoted family man, met his wife in Grade 5; they
started going steady at age 15, and married at 23. They had two
children, Bruce and Jennie. Gen.
MORTON also leaves his father
Stanley.
Robert MORTON, air force officer; born in Almonte, Ontario, March
23, 1937; died in Ottawa, December 7, 2002.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-11 published
The nurse and the little princess
The Dutch royal family, sheltering in Ottawa during the Second
World War, never forgot the Ottawa nurse who helped deliver Princess
Margriet
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, February
11, 2003, Page R7
For years, an autographed photograph of the Dutch royal family
was one of Janet
JONES's most prized possessions. Another was
a picture of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.
Both were given to Mrs.
JONES, an Ottawa nurse, for helping deliver
the Dutch princess, who was born during the royal family's stay
in Canada during the Second World War.
The last of three surviving nurses who assisted with the delivery
at the Ottawa Civic Hospital on January 19, 1943, Mrs.
JONES
has died in Ottawa after a struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
She was 91.
She was a young nurse at the hospital when Princess Juliana sought
refuge with her two daughters in Ottawa to escape the Nazi occupation
of the Netherlands.
Princess Juliana, who later became Queen Juliana, delivered her
third daughter during her stay and three special nurses, including
Mrs. JONES, were appointed to care for her.
A four-room suite and a sun room were cordoned off for the royal
mother and were guarded by Dutch security officers.
So that the child could be born on Dutch territory, Canada declared
the delivery room a part of the Netherlands. At the time, and
for the first and only time in Canadian history, a foreign flag
flew on the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.
"It was rather fun to be in the midst of it," Mrs.
JONES said
in a 1995 interview.
On the day of the birth, Mrs.
JONES ran to alert the princess's
husband, Prince Bernhard, of the imminent delivery, but when
they arrived in the suite, Princess Margriet, dubbed "Canada's
Princess," had already been born. She was named after the marguerite,
the flower worn by the Dutch during the war as a symbol of the
resistance to Nazi Germany.
Mrs. JONES is remembered as a loving nurse and tireless volunteer
whose career began in the early 1930s when she was determined
to leave the family dairy farm near the Eastern Ontario community
of Maxville, her son Eric
JONES says.
"On the farm back then, it was said you could do one of three
things: Marry a farmer, be a teacher or become a nurse," says
Mr. JONES, an Ottawa police officer. "She had nursing in mind
as a teen, and nursing is what she decided to do."
At 18, she left Baltics Corners and trained at the Ottawa Civic
Hospital, where she worked as a nurse for many years. In 1977,
at age 66, she retired as head nurse at the hospital's cancer
clinic but continued to do volunteer work at the clinic and the
Ottawa Heart Institute until she was 83.
"She only gave up the volunteering because her hearing was bad,"
Mr. JONES says. "She had trouble pronouncing the names of new
Canadians and it embarrassed her."
Mr. JONES said that for many years the Dutch continued to thank
his mother for helping deliver Princess Margriet.
In the mid-1990s, when the princess visited Ottawa to help celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by
Canadian soldiers, Mrs.
JONES was invited to the event as a guest
of honour. For years, she kept a pass that would allow her to
enter the royal family's palace in the Netherlands.
"All she had to do was present the card at the front gate of
the palace and she could get in -- but she never went," Mr.
JONES
says.
When the royal family returned to the Netherlands after the war,
Mrs. JONES was given the autographed photograph of the family,
which hung in her bedroom, as well as a decorative plate from
the Royal Dutch Historical Society, which featured a map of the
Netherlands. The plate was displayed on a wall in her dining
room for many years.
On several occasions over the years, a large limousine arrived
at Mrs. JONES's home and out would jump a representative of the
Dutch embassy in Ottawa with a vase full of tulips.
"He'd tell her exactly how to keep them looking fresh," Mr.
JONES
recalls.
Ottawa's and Mrs.
JONES's connection to tulips began when Princess
Margriet's mother gave Ottawa thousands of Dutch tulip bulbs
to thank Canada for its hospitality while the royal family lived
here from 1940 until the end of the war in 1945. The gift led
a few years later to the launch of the Canadian Tulip Festival
in Ottawa. The original gift was part of a lifetime bequest,
and every year since, the capital receives new bulbs from the
Netherlands.
The gift was to acknowledge the wartime sanctuary the family
had experienced in Rockcliffe, a suburb of Ottawa. The long and
dangerous journey there began on May 9, 1940, the night before
the German invasion. The palace received its first warnings and
plans to relocate to England swung into action. Early the next
morning, the whole family, including Prince Bernhard and Queen
Wilhelmina, were taken to a secret hiding place for three days
and from there they were escorted to the only Dutch port not
in German hands and spirited aboard a British frigate.
Prince Bernhard returned briefly to the Netherlands but within
four days the Dutch forces, faced with overwhelming German superiority,
surrendered and the Prince again escaped to England. The Queen
and Prince Bernhard remained in Britain to keep in contact with
the Dutch government-in-exile, but Princess Juliana and her children,
along with a nurse, boarded a Dutch warship and headed for Canada.
Prince Bernhard, who remained in London with Queen Wilhelmina,
visited his family in Canada on several occasions during the
war.
Although the royal family returned to the Netherlands soon after
the war in Europe ended, Princess Margriet reinforced her links
to Canada over the years. In 1980, her mother abdicated and her
sister Princess Beatrix ascended to the throne, an event that
saw an increase in Princess Margriet's palace duties. Her last
royal visit to Canada occurred in May when she opened the 50th
anniversary of the tulip festival. She stayed at Government House,
a stroller ride from the house in Rockcliffe that had been her
home as a young child.
Sadly, Princess Margriet's festival visit went unnoticed by Mrs.
JONES, who was ill. After her death, her family received a letter
of condolence from a representative of the Dutch embassy in Ottawa.
Mrs. JONES leaves her husband Chris and son Eric.
Janet JONES, nurse; born Baltics Corners, Ontario, February 11,
1912; died, Ottawa, January 14, 2003.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-05 published
Politician, chef, farmer cooked for presidents
He first came to Canada after the Second World War at the invitation
of the Dutch ambassador
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, March 5,
2003 - Page R9
Ottawa -- Anton
WYTENBURG was a proficient chef who had little
time to prepare meals for his wife and 10 children because he
was often too busy cooking for others, including presidents and
other dignitaries.
"He was never a chef at home, because he was always working in
a hotel somewhere or at the bakery, " says his son Rudy of Ottawa,
who says his father's specialties were Dutch pastries and cakes.
At one point, Mr.
WYTENBURG was a cook at the venerable Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York, where he helped prepare meals for
U.S. presidents Dwight
EISENHOWER and Harry
TRUMAN, and president-to-be
John F. KENNEDY. In 1945, he worked as a chef for General Henry
CRERAR at a Canadian Officers' Club in Holland.
Mr. WYTENBURG, a native of Delft, the Netherlands, died in Ottawa
on January 30. He was 83.
The son of a Dutch tailor, Mr.
WYTENBURG completed Grade 8 in
Delft and landed a job at a bakery. Later, he moved to Scheveningen
to work as a sous chef in an oceanside hotel.
While working there, he learned to speak German, French and English
and, during the Second World War, used his language skills as
part of the Dutch resistance in its fight against the invading
Germans.
Later, while working for Gen.
CRERAR,
Mr.
WYTENBURG was asked
by Dr. Jan
VAN
ROYEN, the Dutch ambassador to Canada, to come
to work for him as a chef at the Dutch embassy in Ottawa.
"Anton gladly accepted the opportunity. The Dutch were and are
forever grateful for the support of the Canadians during the
war, " said Rudy. In 1947, he came to Canada to work at the embassy
in Ottawa.
In 1950, when the Dutch ambassador was transferred to Washington,
Mr. WYTENBURG worked as a chef at the French embassy in Ottawa
before buying a bakery in Ottawa that became the first Dutch
pastry shop in the city. The business, renamed Anton's Select
Pastries, later expanded to include five outlets.
In 1952, he married Catharina
VAN
VUGT, also a native of the
Netherlands, whom he met when she was a nanny for the secretary
to the Dutch ambassador. That year, Dutch Queen Juliana paid
a visit to one of Anton's bakeries.
While running their bakeries, the
WYTENBURGs made many Friends,
including some who farmed outside Ottawa and spoke highly of
life in the country. This led them to buy a small farm west of
Ottawa in 1962 and in 1964 would see the family give up its bakeries
in favour of full-time agriculture on larger Ottawa Valley spreads,
first in Richmond and later in Renfrew, where dairy farming would
become the family's bread and butter.
As a farmer, Mr.
WYTENBURG took a keen interest in agricultural
organizations and committees. "He had a way with people, he could
diffuse tense situations and always find a solution, " says Rudy.
Over the years, Mr.
WYTENBURG's sons took on more of the farming
responsibilities, leaving their father with more time for the
many organizations he worked with, including the Ottawa-Carleton
Safety Council and the Richmond Agricultural Society. In the
late 1970s, Friends and neighbours urged him to consider politics.
In 1978, he won a councillor's seat in the rural ward of Goulbourn
in 1980, he ran for mayor but lost; he tried again in 1982 and
was successful, sitting as Mayor of Goulbourn Township from 1982
through to 1991. He was also on the council of the former Regional
Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.
Moving a large family around the community and the farm was difficult,
until Mr. WYTENBURG bought a used, fully stretched Cadillac limousine.
"It sure raised a few eyebrows when we were being chauffeured
to the hay fields in a black limo, " recalls Rudy. "It often
made for a bit of fun when the boys would ask an unsuspecting
gal out on a date."
Mr. WYTENBURG left politics and farming in 1991 at age 72. After
retiring, he continued to volunteer his time to help out on committees
and task forces and as a strong supporter of the church. At the
age of 75, he was the oldest participant in a walkathon for a
local charity.
Mr. WYTENBURG leaves 10 children who live in California, Vancouver,
Calgary, Toronto, Renfrew, Ottawa and
in England. Two of them
continue to operate the family's 440-hectare farm near Renfrew.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-06 published
Journalist and musician was at centre of smalltown life
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Thursday, March 6, 2003 - Page R9
Ottawa -- It's a wonder Steve
FORSTER wasn't late for every appointment he ever made.
Whether he was strolling along the main drag in Perth, Ontario,
where he lived and once ran the weekly newspaper, or cruising
the corridors at Algonquin College in Ottawa where he taught
journalism, Mr.
FORSTER often bumped into someone he knew.
Inevitably, he'd crack a joke, tell a story or initiate a conversation
about music, politics or work.
"He was probably one of the most well-known citizens in Perth,
says Ralph
WILLSEY, a Perth resident and Ottawa Citizen copy
editor, who was best man at Mr.
FORSTER's wedding in 1992. "He
couldn't walk down the street without someone yelling 'hello.'"
He was also a popular figure at Algonquin College.
"He was a big guy... you couldn't help but notice him and he
certainly knew lots of people both inside and outside the journalism
faculty, says Abla
SHERIF, dean of the school of media design
at the college, where Mr.
FORSTER was on staff for 14 years.
Mr. FORSTER, who was diagnosed with cancer in May, 2001, died
at his home in Perth last month. He was 53.
For the better part of his life, journalism and music were Mr.
FORSTER's passions. These, as well as his gregarious nature,
deep voice, love of storytelling and physical stature -- six-foot,
three inches and 290 pounds -- gave him a presence wherever he went.
Mr. FORSTER was born in England into an air force family and
came to Canada at age six, living for a time on a military base
near the southwestern Ontario community of Centralia where his father Alan was a firefighter.
He spent his teen years in Ottawa and studied journalism at Algonquin
before landing his first journalism job in 1970 at The Courier,
a weekly newspaper in Perth, about an hour west of Ottawa. He
left briefly to work at The Windsor Star and The Ottawa Citizen,
but returned to Perth to become editor of the Courier. He joined
Algonquin College in 1989 and remained there until illness forced
him to take leave in 2001. He also served four years on Perth town council.
"Nobody will ever fill Steve's shoes -- they don't make them
like that any more, says Mr.
WILLSEY, who met Mr.
FORSTER in
1979 when both were reporters covering the Perth area.
Mr. WILLSEY feels his friend's greatest achievements may have
been as a musician. Mr.
FORSTER, who played bass and guitar,
was well-known in the Perth area as the lead singer of rhythm-and-blues
groups Powersnooze, and later, Big Steve and the Mudcats, both
of which helped him win a wide following in Perth and recognition
on the streets of the community. He also played in a band with
staff at Algonquin.
He loved rhythm and blues and was a great admirer of James Brown
and Smokey Robinson. Musically his work resembled Long John Baldry.
"He could really belt out a song... not everybody can make an
arena full of people dance. That was quite an achievement, "
said Mr. WILLSEY, who for years jammed with Mr.
FORSTER and other
musicians, often playing R&B standards such as In the Midnight
Hour by Wilson Pickett and Sweet Little Angel by B. B. King.
The bands he fronted played the bar scene in Ottawa, Kingston,
Ontario, and Lanark County and often appeared at the Crown and
Thistle and the Red Fox, both popular nightspots in Perth.
"Other than writing, I would have to say music was right up there
as one of his favourites, says Mr.
FORSTER's wife
Rachel, who
sang with Big Steve and the Mudcats. "He was involved in music
from his days as a young teen until he passed away."
Mr. FORSTER was also a fiercely dedicated journalist and teacher.
As editor and columnist with the Perth Courier, he had a nose
for news and distaste for politicians who wasted public money,
said Mr. WILLSEY.
After being diagnosed with cancer, Mr.
FORSTER wrote several
columns about his illness and the treatment he was receiving.
"You can't measure success by money, power or prestige, " said
one column. "Success is measured in personal fulfillment, in
the joy of life and in the goodness found in Friends, neighbours and family."
In May, 2002, he received the Silver Quill Award from the Ontario
Community Newspapers Association for 25 years of service in community journalism.
Mr. FORSTER leaves his wife
Rachel, daughter Natasha, father
Alan, mother Beatrice and sister Susan.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-26 published
Lumber king of the Ottawa Valley
For 75 years, he dominated logging in the region and provided
all the wood for Inco mineshafts
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, March 26,
2003 - Page R9
Ottawa -- Hector
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER never let his age stand in the way
of a day's work. In 1928, at age 12, he was working full-time
for his father's logging company in the Ottawa Valley near Pembroke,
Ontario, and by 14 was running his own operation.
On a cold February morning 73 years later, Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER, who
was known as Hec Sr., drove 150 kilometres to his family's lumber
camp near Mattawa. He toured the site and chatted with his sons
and two of his grandchildren who run the family owned business,
before driving home in his pickup truck, accompanied by his spaniel.
Three days later, on February 9, Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER suffered a heart
attack and died at his Pembroke home. He was 87.
"To the day he died, he was an integral part of the company,
said his son Hector
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER
Jr.
During his 75-year association with the logging business, Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER operated lumber operations in the Ottawa Valley and
as far north as Sturgeon Falls and Blind River, Ontario For a
time, Hector
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER and Sons was one of the largest local employers.
Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER also built the Northwood Hotel near Pembroke and
owned Northwood Stables, which bred, trained and raced pacers
and trotters. At one point, he had 150 horses.
Born in Petawawa in February 1, 1916, his beginnings as an Ottawa
Valley success story began in the early 1920s when a shortage
of money in his family forced him to leave elementary school
to work at his father Thomas's lumbering operation. Within two
years, he bought a horse and started his own business, delivering
logs to the Pembroke Splint Lumber Co.
In his first year in business, the red and white pines felled
by Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER's company produced 400,000 board feet of lumber,
double his father's production.
"He said his father's operation was nice and neat and tidy but
that it wasn't making enough money, " said Hector Jr., who is
a former Member of Parliament for the riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke
and is now an adviser to Prime Minister Jean
CHRÉTIEN.
In the 1930s and 40s, the diminutive Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER expanded the
business and modernized his equipment. His operation prospered
during the Second World War. In 1945, he married Molly
SMITH,
a nurse from the Ottawa Valley community of Pakenham. The couple
raised 10 children on their 375-acre farm located between Pembroke
and Petawawa.
His company continued to operate in Renfrew County until about
1950 when he moved north to the Sturgeon Falls area to launch
a new operation that employed 160 workers and cut enough trees
to yield 10 million board feet of lumber a year. Later, he opened
a second near Elliot Lake, Ontario, employing an additional 140
employees and producing another 10 million board feet of lumber
annually. For many years, his company provided all of the pine
for the shafts at the Inco mines in Sudbury. Eventually, the
company diversified into pulpwood and, in the 1980s, provided
kits for building log homes.
In 1960, the family returned to Pembroke so that the children
would have easier access to schools. Sadly, 11 years later, Molly
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER died, leaving her husband to raise their children.
He never remarried.
"We used to tease him about that and he'd say: 'Are you crazy?
I couldn't find a woman crazy enough to look after you kids,
' " Hector Jr. said.
During his years in the logging industry, Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER saw horses,
broad axes and crosscut saws replaced by trucks, power saws,
skidders and tree fellers that could cut and delimb trees in
a matter of minutes. Over time, technology reduced crews from
200 to 30.
"The mechanization saddened him because he always felt the bush
was kept cleaner with horses, and he felt good about employing
so many people, " Hector Jr. said.
Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER
Sr., a skilled log driver, was known as an innovator.
Among his inventions was a device he nicknamed the "submarine."
Using a winch, a generator and a floating wooden platform, it
replaced dynamite as a way of breaking up logjams that blocked
rivers. The submarine was soon adopted by competitors after premature
detonations had killed log drivers.
Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER also had a passion for horses that stemmed from
a love for the hard-working animals that for years had pulled
his logs out of the bush.
He bought his first horse in 1951 for $100 and raced it at the
Perth Fair where he got into an accident and broke his arm. He
began breeding horses in 1955 and at one point had more than
150 racehorses. Among his most noted pacers was Barney Diplomat,
which raced successfully for trainer Keith
WAPLES in the mid
1950s and JJ's Metro, which won purses totalling $350,000.
His Northwood Stables and the Northwood Hotel were located across
from each other on what is now County Road 17 west of Pembroke.
His daughter Sandra and Hector Jr. drove horses for their father's
stable.
Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER was a past president of the Quebec Harness Horseman's
Association, was one of the longest serving directors of the
Canadian Standardbred Horse Society and helped found the Ontario
Harness Horse Association, which in 1961 began representing the
interests of horse owners, drivers, trainers, grooms and their
families on matters such as track conditions, pension plans,
disability insurance and purses.
"Hec Sr. was one of the founding fathers of organized horsemen
in Ontario who helped negotiate purses so that people could have
a career in horse racing, said Jim
WHELAN, president of the
Ontario Harness Horse Association in Mississauga. "He was a pioneer.
A strong secondary interest after racing was fishing. When he
was not working, Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER often disappeared to fish favourite
lakes with a favourite dog.
Mr. HIGGINSON, who knew Mr.
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER for 35 years, said his
friend had a soft spot for children who loved sports but couldn't
afford the equipment.
"If a kid needed new skates, all of a sudden there would be a
pair of skates for that child and nobody ever said where they
came from. That side of him developed from what went on in his
own family that was not well off at the start. Hec knew what
it meant to be scratching out an existence -- he was interested
in what was going on around him."
Mr. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER was predeceased by his wife, four sisters and seven
brothers. He leaves five sons and five daughters. Sons Tom, Willy
and Jimmy, plus grandchildren Clyde and Shannon, run the family
logging company.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-04-04 published
'Gentle Ben' town mayor transformed his community
When first elected in 1970, Nepean, Ontario, was $22-million
in the red but 30 years later his careful leadership had eliminated
the entire debt
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Friday, April 4, 2003
- Page R13
Ottawa -- For Ben
FRANKLIN, there was no such thing as a two-minute
drive to the corner store for a newspaper or a quick trip to
a local supermarket for groceries. Inevitably, the former mayor
of Nepean, Ontario, now amalgamated with Ottawa, would meet people
along the way, and what started as a quick errand would extend
to several hours of mingling and chit-chat with those he'd encounter
along the way.
"He'd often say he was popping out for two minutes to go to the
store and six hours later he'd come home," says Mary
PITT, who
recalled how his wife, Sherry, remembers her husband.
Ms. PITT, who worked as Mr.
FRANKLIN's administrative assistant
for 18 years before succeeding him as mayor in 1997, said Mr.
FRANKLIN never put on any airs with his constituents, and for
that, he was universally well liked. "He wasn't one to go around
saying 'I'm Ben
FRANKLIN and you've got to pay attention to me.'
He was just Ben, Gentle Ben as some called him."
Mr. FRANKLIN,
Nepean's longest-reigning mayor, died on March
22 at age 60, while awaiting a heart transplant. "Gentle Ben,
" as he was known for his engaging and friendly personality,
had been at the Ottawa Heart Institute since February 1, and
had an artificial heart implanted March 3. He died from bleeding
in the skull, caused by a weakness of blood vessels in his brain.
Mr. FRANKLIN was born on August 15, 1942, in Elgin, Ont, a community
near Smiths Falls, south of Ottawa. Like his mother, he became
a teacher. While teaching high-school geography in Ottawa in
the early 1970s, he began writing a column for a weekly newspaper
in Nepean and eventually developed an interest in politics.
He won a seat on Nepean's council in 1972 and took office in
January, 1973. At the time, it was a part-time job, and Nepean
was a township.
"One day he decided that if change was to happen he would have
to get into politics," says Ms.
PITT, who campaigned door-to-door
for Mr. FRANKLIN the year he was first elected. He became mayor
in 1978 and Ms.
PITT joined his staff as administrative assistant
two years later when he gave up his teaching job.
He left the mayor's office in 1997 because of his heart disease,
his dwindling energy, and concern that continuing stress might
lead to further problems.
Al LONEY, a former Nepean councillor who entered politics the
same year as Mr.
FRANKLIN, said Mr.
FRANKLIN leaves a legacy
of sound fiscal management and plenty of parks and recreational
facilities in Nepean, which became part of Ottawa in January,
2001, when 11 municipalities were amalgamated to become the new
city of Ottawa.
When Mr. FRANKLIN took over as mayor in 1978, Nepean was $22-million
in debt, and its taxes were higher than the regional average.
Thanks to Mr.
FRANKLIN's pay-as-you go philosophy, the debt was
eliminated and by the time Nepean was absorbed into the amalgamated
Ottawa-Carleton in 2001, it also had the lowest taxes in the
region.
"He emphasized the need to put more money into reserve funds,
so when the time came to buy a fire truck or put up an arena,
the money was there," says Mr.
LONEY, who often played golf
with Mr. FRANKLIN. "
When we built the new city hall in 1980,
it cost $24-million and we had all the money we needed to pay
it off."
The former city hall building, which also houses a theatre and
a public library, is now known as Ben Franklin Place. A park
now under construction in the former Nepean will also bear Mr.
FRANKLIN's name.
Mr. FRANKLIN's frugal bent extended to his dress, which was usually
casual. His casualness "may have contributed to the fact that
nobody felt intimidated by him," says Mr.
LONEY.
A well-known story about Mr.
FRANKLIN's lack of concern for appearances
occurred when Mr.
LONEY and the mayor went to California on city
business. Because most of his clothes were being cleaned, Mr.
FRANKLIN brought along only one pair of dress pants and Mr.
LONEY
had to stand in front of him at most of the meetings they attended
because the mayor had dripped ketchup on his pants on their first
day out.
Around the Nepean council table Mr.
FRANKLIN was known as a consensus
builder, who rarely let issues or political opponents get under
his skin, adds Mr.
LONEY. "
He'd have six of the seven votes he
needed and I'd say 'That's all you need.' He'd say, 'Give me
a few days and I'll get that last one.'"
For two days after his death, Mr.
FRANKLIN's body lay in state
at Ben Franklin Place where he had presided over dozens of council
meetings and where his funeral service was held on March 26.
Appropriately, his casket was green, the official colour of the
former city of Nepean.
He leaves his wife, Sherry; son, Brent; daughter Suzanne; brother
Bill and sister Anita.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-15 published
Radio pioneer built network
He founded Ontario's first French-language radio station in 1951
when his local station denied francophones airtime.
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Monday, June 16, 2003
- Page R7
He started in business as a butcher, and later was a soldier
and a hotelier, but Conrad
LAVIGNE's first love was show business.
Whether he was operating the television stations in Northern
Ontario that became the largest privately owned television broadcast
system in the world, appearing at the staid proceedings of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission,
or at conventions, Mr.
LAVIGNE often delighted those within earshot
with jokes, stories, witty comments -- even singing.
Like the time he sang grace during the annual meeting of the
Association for French Language Broadcasters in the 1970s.
"Members of the head table, including myself and Premier Bill
DAVIS, walked into the room and stood behind our chairs," recalls
Pierre JUNEAU, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission from 1968 to 1975.
"Mr. LAVIGNE, who was chairman of the French-language broadcasters
group, began singing grace in French, and with his very strong
voice. People felt sort of strange with this."
When he was done, Mr.
LAVIGNE looked at Premier
DAVIS and quipped:
"Well, Mr. Premier, this is to show you that when you are chairman,
you can do whatever you like."
J. Lyman POTTS, former vice-president of Standard Broadcasting,
remembers the time in the early 1960s when Mr.
LAVIGNE appeared
before the Board of Broadcast Governors -- predecessor of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission --
in support of a radio or television station licensing application.
At the beginning of his presentation, Mr.
LAVIGNE expressed his
regrets that Board of Broadcast Governors member Bernard
GOULET
had died at few days earlier. Then, without skipping a beat,
he looked toward the ceiling and said: "If Bernie were here today,
I think he would vote for my application."
"It broke up the room," says Mr.
POTTS. "If ever a meeting got
dull he'd liven things up. It was a joy to find him at meetings.
He was a unique personality."
Mr. LAVIGNE, who was born in the small town of Chénéville, Quebec,
on November 2, 1916, and raised in Cochrane, Ontario, died in
Timmins, Ontario on April 16 following a lengthy battle with
emphysema. He was 86.
Friends, family and business associates say Mr.
LAVIGNE had show
business in his blood in his late teens. On many evenings, the
young man who moved to Timmins from Cochrane at age 18 to open
a small grocery store and butcher shop with his uncle would act
in plays in the hall of a local church. But he didn't get into
the entertainment business in a big way until after he helped
Canada's war effort, got married and started his life as an entrepreneur
in the hotel business.
In 1942, he sold his butcher shop and enlisted in the Canadian
infantry. He became a commando training officer while stationed
at Vernon, British Columbia, and in 1944 headed overseas. While
on a furlough from Vernon he returned to Timmins and married
Jeanne CANIE.
The couple raised seven children.
Mr. LAVIGNE returned to Canada in 1946 and bought the Prince
George Hotel in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, which at the time was
a booming gold-mining town. He sold the business in 1950.
He entered the world of media and entertainment by founding
CFCL,
the first French-language radio station in Ontario in 1951, in
what, essentially, was his way of ensuring the area's large French-speaking
population had a voice in the North.
Michelle DE
COURVILLE
NICOL of Ottawa said her father launched
the station after a group of francophones that he was part of
in Kirkland Lake was told by the manager of an English-language
radio station that they would no longer be given regular air
time to discuss issues of interest to French people.
"He was very proud of being a francophone," says Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL. "
When he was told that his compatriots would no longer
be welcome on the local station he said, 'Oh, ya!' and got the
idea of starting a French-language radio station. He moved to
Timmins, applied for a licence and got it."
CFCL soon attracted a faithful audience, especially in Northwestern
Quebec, where it could be heard more clearly than French stations
in Montreal.
In a 1988 interview with Northern Ontario Business, Mr.
LAVIGNE
remembered the time he hired a relative unknown named Stompin'
Tom CONNORS to perform live on
CFCL.
The radio station was located
above a jewellery store and the pounding from Mr.
CONNORS's size-11
boots caused china to fall off the shelves in the store below.
Radio was his first love until the mid-1950s when, on a business
trip to southern Ontario, he saw his first television broadcast,
on WHAM from Rochester, New York He fell for the concept of television
and he and an engineer friend drove to Rochester and learned
everything they could about the magic medium of television.
Back in Timmins, Mr.
LAVIGNE bought a hill in the north end of
the town, named it Mont Sacré-Coeur, built a road to the foot
of his hill, and began blasting rock and working in earnest to
put a television station on the air. By 1956,
CFCL-television
was a reality.
"There was always the fear of failure because of the sparse population,"
Mr. LAVIGNE said at the time. "But we had an engineer with us
named Roch
DEMERS, who later became president of Telemedia, and
together we started putting up rebroadcasting stations between
1957 and 1962."
Kapuskasing's rebroadcasting station was the first such facility
in Canada, and it added another portion of the sparsely populated
northeastern Ontario market to the growing station's network.
Eventually, Mr.
LAVIGNE built rebroadcasting stations in Chapleau
and Moosonee, Ontario and Malartic, Quebec, and by the time expansion
was completed,
CFCL-television served 1.5 million people. Eventually,
he built the station into the world's largest privately owned
system.
For many years he appeared on a very popular
CFCL program known
as the President's Corner, during which he would sit on camera
in a comfortable chair and read and respond to letters from viewers.
Between 1962 and 1970, Mr.
LAVIGNE's television network entered
the world of high technology with its own microwave network.
Mr. LAVIGNE had the northeastern Ontario television market virtually
all to himself for about 20 years until the Canadian Television
Network (CTV) arrived on the scene. He reacted by building new
stations in North Bay and Sudbury with a rebroadcasting station
in Elliot Lake to serve Manitoulin Island. Expansion continued
in 1976 with the purchase of a bankrupt television station in
Pembroke, in the Ottawa Valley. Eventually, Mr.
LAVIGNE's private
network stretched from Moosonee to Ottawa, and from Hearst to
Mattagami, Quebec
"When we first started we had the market all to ourselves," he
told Northern Ontario Business. "We had 20 hours a week of local
programming, and it was beautiful. We gave the North a unified
voice. One time, during a forest fire near Chapleau, our messages
arranged for accommodations for 1,000 people in Timmins."
Mr. LAVIGNE divested himself of his broadcasting holdings in
1980, primarily because he was refused permission to operate
a cable television service in the North. He remained a director
of Mid-Canada Television, the network that grew from his little
Timmins station in 1956, and was chairman of the board of Northern
Telephone Ltd. For a number of years, he served on the board
of the National Bank of Canada, and for 10 years served on the
board of ICG
Utilities (formerly Inter City Gas.)
His life after broadcasting also included 20 years as a property
developer in the Timmins area.
"He was always a physically active person," says Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL. "In the years he was setting up his television stations
he would often go out with the engineers. He was not as happy
sitting behind his desk."
Mr. LAVIGNE was elected to the Canadian Broadcasting Hall of
Fame in 1990. His wife died in 1995. He leaves Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL and six other children, Marc, Andrée, Nicole, Jean-Luc,
Pierre and Marie-France.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-14 published
Philanthropist extraordinaire
Francophone students were among the many beneficiaries of her
generosity
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Monday, July 14, 2003
- Page R7
Ottawa -- Before he died in February, 1993, millionaire Baxter
RICARD urged his wife
Alma to spend the couple's fortune wisely.
''Put it back into the community, " he told her. ''Spend it well.''
Mrs. RICARD did not let her husband down.
In the 10 years following the death of Mr.
RICARD, who owned
a chain of radio, television and cable stations in Northern Ontario,
she earned a reputation as one of Canada's most generous philanthropists,
highlighted by a $23-million donation in 1998 to a fellowship
fund that promotes higher education to francophone students across
the country.
Mrs. RICARD, who was born in Montreal on October 4, 1906, died
at her home in Sudbury on June 2. She was 96.
To date, the Ottawa-based Fondation Baxter and Alma Ricard has
given 81 students a total of $4.2-million to further their postsecondary
education. Other beneficiaries of the couple's generosity have
included colleges, hospitals, church groups and universities
in Sudbury and Toronto.
''Mrs. RICARD is one of the biggest philanthropists in Canada,"
said Alain
LANDRY, executive director of the foundation, which
was formed in 1988 to distribute the
RICARDs' money to various
charitable causes. The fellowship fund was set up a decade later.
Mrs. RICARD, formerly Alma
VÉZINA, moved to Sudbury in 1931 after
responding to a job advertisement from a hardware store run by
Félix RICARD, father of Baxter
RICARD.
She was trained as a secretary
at the time.
''She took the train and arrived at 4 a.m.," says Mr.
LANDRY.
''In those days, a young lady was not to be seen with a man going
to a hotel, so she and Baxter went to a church where they sat
until daylight, and she fell in love with him.'' She worked as
an administrative assistant to the elder Mr.
RICARD and eventually
married Baxter, who in later years inherited his father's hardware
store and ran it with the help of his wife.
In 1947, the
RICARDs left the hardware business and began building
a broadcasting empire in Northern Ontario, starting with two
radio stations in Sudbury and growing to include numerous radio
and television stations. Radio stations established by the couple
included CHNO, the first bilingual radio station in Ontario,
CFBR and
CJMX-FM.
In 1974, when cable television started to expand, Baxter
RICARD
and some colleagues obtained a licence for cable distribution
in northern and eastern Ontario and created Northern Cable Holdings
Ltd., which served the greater Sudbury area and areas as far
north as Hearst, Ontario In 1980, the company acquired two television
stations to serve the same areas and gave it the name Mid-Canada
Television. Mr.
RICARD also had an interest in a Toronto cable-television
company.
Alma RICARD was her husband's ''right-hand person" and took an
active part in the broadcasting business and all other ventures
he was involved in, including the city-planning committee in
Sudbury, the board of directors at Sudbury General Hospital and
the Central Canada Broadcasting Association. ''They were inseparable
in all those activities," says Mr.
LANDRY.
Like Felix
RICARD,
Baxter and Alma
RICARD were strong believers
in a Canadian mosaic that included French-speaking citizens.
In an era when Ontario's francophones were not permitted to study
in French, Felix
RICARD didn't have the financial means to promote
the francophone culture and lobby for French schooling, so he
became an outspoken trustee on the local school board.
As a trustee, he was ''a defender of the rights of francophones
in matters of French education... [who] made significant gains
for the francophone population of that region. A school in Sudbury
bears his name," says a document obtained from Fondation Baxter
& Alma Ricard. Baxter and Alma
RICARD, on the other hand, made
millions in the broadcasting industry and had the financial wherewithal
to further the francophone cause, including the struggle for
a quality education for French-speaking Ontarians.
''Baxter had no family and the couple had no children so they
had to think of who would inherit their money," says André
LACROIX
of Sudbury, a lawyer, business associate and long-time friend
of the RICARDs. ''Fairly early in the game they realized most
of their assets should be used for charitable purposes. That's
when they developed the idea of a charitable foundation.'' In
its initial years after Mr.
RICARD's death, the foundation donated
$600,000 to Cambrian College and $1-million each to Sudbury General
Hospital, the University of Sudbury, and Laurentian University,
all in Sudbury, and a total of more than $4-million to the University
of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
In the early 1990s, the
RICARDs and their associates sold their
radio and television stations to Baton Broadcasting and their
cable distribution company to
CFCF
Ltd. In 1998, on the strength
of money reaped from the sale, the fellowship fund was started
and aimed specifically at francophone Canadians living permanently
in a minority situation outside of Quebec who need money to advance
their studies beyond a bachelor's degree.
Based on Baxter
RICARD's idea, the fund was created jointly by
businessman Paul
DESMARAIS
Sr., now chairman of the executive
committee of management and holding company Power Corporation
of Canada. Mr.
DESMARAIS and Mr.
LACROIX, plus Paul
DESMARAIS
Jr., are members of the board of directors of Fondation Baxter
& Alma Ricard.
It was launched with the original $23-million donation from Ms.
RICARD and despite many disbursements, today sits at $25-million
thanks to interest earned on the principal, says Mr.
LANDRY.
Until her death, Mrs.
RICARD was president of the board and until
three months ago, continued to sign cheques, says Mr.
LACROIX,
who remembers Mrs.
RICARD as a ''generous and kind person who
helped people with problems.''
''Baxter's father would be proud of what Alma has accomplished
since Baxter died. It is well along the way to what he had promoted
for many years," says Mr.
LACROIX.
In addition to donations in the millions of dollars over the
years, Mrs.
RICARD once helped out a person who couldn't handle
her mortgage payments and was about to lose her home; she also
donated to a religious group that raised money for the poor.
Mr. LACROIX remembers Mrs.
RICARD as a woman who loved to have
fun.
''From age 70 onward she didn't mind going on until 1 a.m. or
2 a.m. She enjoyed going out at night, she loved to dance," he
says. ''She was also quite religious, church attendance was sacred.''
Mrs. RICARD also loved to collect hats: ''She had hundreds of
hats and they were attention-getters," says Mr.
LACROIX, who
knew the RICARDs for more than 30 years.
Of all the recognition she received over the years, Mrs.
RICARD
cherished most the Officer of the Order of Canada bestowed on
her in 2000, says Mr.
LACROIX. Governor-General Adrienne
CLARKSON
travelled to Sudbury to present the honour to Mrs.
RICARD in
her sick bed, at her home, in September, 2002.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-21 published
Canadian Football League wide receiver 'was always there' and
rarely missed a pass
All-round athlete was also a prolific artist who amused teammates
and Friends with his skillful caricatures
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Monday, July 21, 2003
- Page R5
Ottawa -- Kelvin
KIRK was an artist on and off the football field.
On the gridiron, the former Canadian Football League wide receiver
was known as an all-round athlete with tremendous breakaway speed
who rarely missed a pass within his grasp; in the locker room,
at home and in his second career in the advertising department
at an Ottawa newspaper, he was skilled with pen, pencil and paintbrush.
His humorous caricatures often left his teammates and fellow
employees grabbing at their sides with laughter.
Mr. KIRK, who was born on December 13, 1953, died on July 2 of
an apparent heart attack while playing pickup basketball in Ottawa.
The 49-year-old native of Mt. Pleasant, Florida, began his football
career at Dunbar High School in Ohio where he caught 13 touchdown
passes in two years for the Dunbar Wolverines.
In 1973, the 5-foot-11 (1.79 metre), 175-pound (65-kilogram)
receiver joined the Dayton Flyers at the University of Dayton
in Ohio, where he was the Flyers' top pass receiver for three
straight years and was voted the team's most valuable player
in 1975.
When he left after three seasons, he held the school's record
for receiving yardage, with 1,676 yards. In the Flyers' record
book, he continues to hold fourth place in career receiving yardage,
says Doug HAUSCHILD, director of media relations and sports information
at the University of Dayton.
After being selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 17th round
of the 1976 National Football League draft, Mr.
KIRK walked out
of training camp when he sensed he wasn't getting a legitimate
opportunity to make the club.
He was named "Mr. Irrelevant" because as the 487th selection,
he proved to be the last player taken in the draft, says Shawn
LACKIE, a public-relations spokesman for the Canadian Football
League.
He signed with the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts
in 1977 and led the team in pass receptions.
He also played for the Calgary Stampeders, Saskatchewan Roughriders
and the Ottawa Rough Riders. He was Ottawa's most valuable player
in 1981 when the Rough Riders made it to the Grey Cup that year
but lost 26 - 23 to the Edmonton Eskimos.
His quarterback that year was J.C.
WATTS, who would later become
an Oklahoma congressman.
During his Canadian Football League career he caught 153 passes
for 2,942 yards and 16 touchdowns. He returned 163 punts for
1,678 yards and 82 kickoffs for another 1,922 yards. His runbacks
produced seven touchdowns.
"When the ball was thrown to him, he was always there. He had
great breakaway speed," says Rick
SOWIETA, a teammate of Mr.
KIRK's when both broke into the Canadian Football League with
the Argonauts.
"He had good speed, great hands -- he was our deep threat," says
Jeff AVERY, one of Mr.
KIRK's former Ottawa Rough Riders teammates,
and now a radio commentator for the Ottawa Renegades of the Canadian
Football League. "I remember one game when he caught three touchdown
passes to help us whip the Montreal Concorde." Most of his former
Rough
Riders' teammates remember Mr.
KIRK's biggest missed pass,
though the failed reception wasn't his fault.
"It was the 1981 Grey Cup game in the third or fourth quarter
and Kelvin was streaking down the sidelines in the clear. J.C.
[WATTS] overthrew him by about six inches. Had he made the catch,
it was a touch-down and we would have won the cup," says Mr.
SOWIETA, now a restaurant owner in Ottawa.
A professional artist and trained art teacher, Mr.
KIRK joined
the advertising department at The Ottawa Citizen in 1989 in an
order entry position and eventually worked on layouts and processing
copy for advertisements, before moving into desktop publishing,
which involved the creation of ads.
"There was nothing you could put on his desk that he couldn't
handle," says Rejéan
SAUMURE, manager of advertising services
at the Citizen.
"Kelvin never complained. He took it all on with a smile that
was worth a million bucks.
"He was the kind of guy who, as soon as he walked into the office,
everyone liked. He had a magnetism about him. He warmed a room."
Besides staying in tip-top shape, Mr.
KIRK kept involved in football
by helping coach the Ottawa Sooners of the Ontario Football Conference.
He was also a prolific artist, one of his specialties being caricatures
that amused his former teammates and Citizen colleagues.
During his years as a player, he would often sneak into the locker
room prior to practice and draw cartoons on a chalk board, usually
poking fun at teammates, coaches and various on-field happenings,
says Mr. AVERY. He continued his antics as a coach with the Sooners
as a way of keeping the mood light, adds Mr.
SOWIETA.
"Before practice, players always checked the board to see who
was being picked on that day by this mystery drawer. His work
could be hilarious," says Mr.
AVERY.
At the Citizen, where one of his dreams was to become a newsroom
artist, Mr.
KIRK often drew caricatures of co-workers and members
of his own family.
His drawings often appeared on the birthday cards that circulated
around the office.
"People would be quite amused," says Mr.
SAUMURE. "
His work was
not always flattering but it always captured those he was drawing."
Mr. KIRK leaves his 20-year-old son, Jonathan, and his wife
Joann
LARVENTZ, from whom he was separated.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-09-02 published
Lobbyist was an aviation 'visionary'
By Randy RAY
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, September
2, 2003 - Page R7
Ottawa -- It was a case of boredom that helped propel Angus
MORRISON
into a flying career and saw him become the aviation industry's
top lobbyist for nearly a quarter of a century.
"Frankly, I was bored. I had been a regimental officer, and I
wasn't really interested in what was going on. The war was over,
so I decided I was going to learn to fly," Mr.
MORRISON said
in a 1989 interview.
The Toronto native's interest in flying and his expertise at
representing the interests of Canadian airline operations and
manufacturers through the Air Transport Association of Canada,
earned him a spot in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.
Mr. MORRISON, a resident of Almonte, Ontario, near Ottawa, died
on June 30 after a brief illness. He was 84.
"My uncle, Brigadier General Arthur
MORTIMER, spent his whole
career in the military and that wasn't for dad," says Mr.
MORRISON's
son Jamie. "He had a lust for flying, he wanted to spread his
wings, so to speak, and not be a career military man. He felt
he was built for more than that.'' When his father, a stockbroker,
died during the market crash of 1929, Mr.
MORRISON, who was born
on April 22, 1919, moved to Ottawa and spent much of his childhood
with the family of Mr.
MORTIMER.
Eventually, he returned to Toronto
and was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop's College,
before joining the military.
"He enlisted in the navy but uncle Arthur would not have it.
He hauled him out and said he had to enlist in the proper form
of the military, which was the army," says Jamie
MORRISON.
During the Second World War, he served with the 21st Canadian
Armoured Regiment, Governor-General's Footguards, serving in
North Africa and Italy, advancing to the rank of captain.
In 1946, shortly after earning his wings, Mr.
MORRISON formed
Atlas Aviation, based at Ottawa International Airport and five
years later, sold his share in the company to join the Air Industries
and Transport Association, as executive secretary. The association
later split, to form the new Air Transport Association of Canada,
which represents most airline companies, from the smallest flying
school in Canada to Air Canada.
He became president of Air Transport Association of Canada in
1962 and held the job until he retired in 1985.
"Angus was a visionary, as were many of his board," Don
WATSON,
former president of Pacific Western Airlines said in a statement
read at Mr.
MORRISON 's funeral. "Many of the plans for the future
of our air transport were near to impossible but Angus would
smile and say, 'If we can dream, we can do it.' Angus fully represented
[the] air transport industry not only to our government but also
to the governments of many countries around the world.'' In 1986,
Mr. MORRISON was given the C.D. Howe Award by the Canadian Aeronautics
and Space Institute, for planning and policy-making. He was inducted
into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1989.
On its Web site, the hall of fame cites Mr.
MORRISON for his
work in convincing the federal government to liberalize flying
rules and standardize training. He also helped federal officials
negotiate the first bilateral air agreement with the U.S., says
Jamie MORRISON, who is a pilot and vice-president and general
manager of Montreal-based Execaire Inc., which manages aircraft
on behalf of corporations.
After retiring, Mr.
MORRISON began working by correspondence
courses toward a degree in naval architecture at the Boston Institute
of Naval Architecture in Massachusetts to further his lifelong
love of the sea and boats.
Mr. MORRISON, who was also an Almonte town councillor during
the 1960s, leaves sons Jamie, Christian and Mark and daughter
Sandra. His wife died in the fall of 2002.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-14 published
The 'godfather' of Ottawa's retail auto industry
After more than three decades of hard work, he went on to become
the first full-time executive director of the Ottawa New Car
Dealers Association
By Randy RAY,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, October
14, 2003 - Page R7
Ottawa -- During a career in the auto industry that spanned more
than 50 years, Don
MANN was tagged with his share of complimentary
nicknames. As a Datsun dealer in Ottawa in the 1960s, 70s and
80s, he was known as "Don Mann, your Datsun Mann," a phrase used
in his dealership's advertising.
Later, as executive director of the Ottawa New Car Dealers Association,
he was often referred to as the "godfather" of the city's retail
auto industry and an "ambassador" for Ottawa's new-car dealers.
When he first started in the automotive business, working with
Industrial Acceptance Corporation to help dealers finance their
inventory of vehicles, he had a reputation as hard-working, honest
and friendly. Mr.
MANN died in Ottawa on August 12. He was 76.
Born in Toronto on October 16, 1926, he spent about 15 years
working for Industrial Acceptance Corporation in Sudbury, Sarnia,
London and Ottawa before deciding to go into the car business
for himself. In 1969, he opened Don Mann Datsun Limited in Ottawa.
He sold out to an Ottawa General Motors dealer in 1983 and after
a brief retirement, joined the Ottawa New Car Dealers Association,
becoming the first full-time executive director of the group,
which was formed in 1957 with about 25 dealers and now has more
than 60 members.
"He was a great ambassador for new car dealers in Ottawa," said
Pat McGURN, president of Surgenor Pontiac Buick
GMC. "He was
the guy who lobbied with a local college to establish training
programs for our employees when there was a shortage of qualified
people." Over the years, he secured more than $250,000 in dealership
training dollars from government, said Mr.
McGURN.
"I determine a need, find a trainer, agree upon a program, then
I go to the dealers," Mr.
MANN once told an interviewer, adding
that dealers pay for the programs because there's less training
money available from government.
In his capacity as executive director of the car-dealers association,
Mr. MANN also worked with the Workplace Safety and Insurance
Board to ensure dealers provided healthy and safe working conditions.
He worked closely with Algonquin College in Ottawa and Georgian
College in Barrie, Ontario, to set up financial awards for top
graduates. In 2002, a local apprenticeship committee established
a Don Mann Award, given yearly to a major contributor to Ottawa's
apprenticeship program.
"Don was the glue that kept things together," said Mr.
McGURN.
"He made decisions that have made dealers in Ottawa stronger
and made things better for consumers." Mr.
MANN, who worked as
a police officer in Toronto for six years before switching to
the automobile business, helped launch the Ottawa-Hull International
Auto Show about 20 years ago and over the past two decades built
its profile to the point that it now attracts 35,000 visitors.
Money raised through the show helps fund training programs, said
Mr. McGURN.
Mr. MANN was known for his solid grasp of issues that affect
the auto industry at the dealers' level and at the legislative
level where laws are constantly changing, said Mr.
McGURN, who
notes that Mr.
MANN's leadership and organizational skills kept
local dealers working as a coherent group.
Ever the diplomat, at one point he convinced Ottawa's fiercely
competitive car dealers to close on Saturdays during summer long
weekends so staff could enjoy a holiday like everyone else. It
was also his job to keep dealers current on legislation and guidelines
dealing with used-car sales, consumer protection and advertising.
"His forte as executive director of the Car Dealers Association
was his access to politicians, and on the education side, his
contact with car dealers," said his son Brian of Ottawa. "He
knew little about cars when he first started... It took long
hours of hard work to build that knowledge.
"He was a great one for the job, he saw his role as an ambassador."
Mr. MANN was also known as someone who could bring people together
to get a job done, said his son, whether it was organizing dealers
to speak with one voice to governments, or to pull together a
golf tournament at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.
Fellow club member Gordon
EDWARDS remembers Mr.
MANN as an adept
snooker player and golfer with great patience.
"He was able to concentrate well, ... he was deliberate and careful,
always calculating each shot to make sure he got it right," said
Mr. EDWARDS, who played in Mr.
MANN's foursome for 17 years.
Mr. MANN leaves wife
Verna and children Maureen, Brian and Bruce.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-30 published
Making the world a better place
Toronto textbook publisher was a tireless community activist,
environmentalist and philanthropist
By Randy RAY,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Thursday, October
30, 2003 - Page R9
From the moment he arose in the morning until it was time to
lie down at night, Gage
LOVE's goal as a textbook publisher,
community activist and philanthropist was to make the world a
better place.
"He felt his job on this planet was to make bloody well sure
that the Earth was better when he left than when he found it,"
says son David
LOVE of King City, north of Toronto.
To that end, Mr.
LOVE gave a piece of himself to so many causes
that he was often chided by his wife and accountant for trying
to do too much.
"He was a $100 donor to between 100 and 200 charities every year.
It used to drive mom crazy," says David
LOVE. "
His accountant
used to say, 'You're giving away too much.' To which dad would
reply, 'It's no big deal.' Mr.
LOVE, a successful businessman
and a relentless and passionate philanthropist, with a broad
scope of interests including health care, education and the environment,
died at his home in King City on September 5. He was 85.
Born in Toronto on September 17, 1917, Mr.
LOVE graduated from
the University of Toronto in 1939 with a bachelor's degree in
history. While a student he worked at W.J. Gage Publishing, a
Toronto company operated since 1880 by his maternal grandfather,
Sir William
GAGE, and later run by his father Harry
LOVE.
The
company published a variety of textbooks for schools and was
also involved in the envelope and stationary business.
"He started out as a stock boy and did most jobs, all part of
a plan put in place by his dad to teach his son the ropes," Mr.
LOVE says.
In 1941, he married Clara Elizabeth (Betty)
FLAVELLE, whom he'd
first met when he was four years old and had begun dating in
his teens. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1942 and
served on Canada's West Coast, ending the war as an officer on
a mine sweeper.
After the Second World War he became president of W.J. Gage.
When he took over the company, it was a small shop on Spadina
Avenue in Toronto; during his presidency, the company in the
late 1950s moved to larger and more modern quarters in the Toronto
suburb of Scarborough. By the time Mr.
LOVE had left, it had
become one of Canada's foremost educational book publishers.
With Mr. LOVE at the helm, W.J. Gage, in the mid-1940s, acquired
the rights to Dick and Jane, a popular American educational book
designed to make reading fun for children, and began publishing
it in Canada. But his greatest legacy by far, and one of his
proudest achievements, says David
LOVE, was A Dictionary of Canadianisms
on Historical Principles, which W.J. Gage published as its centennial
project in 1967.
It was the first dictionary to publish distinct Canadian words
such as "inspectioneer," a whaling word, "suicide squad," from
the Canadian Football League, "cradle-hole," a cradle-shaped
hole left in the ground when a large tree is overturned by a
gale and "keg angel," a whisky trader.
"The introduction to the book made the case that Canadians have
quite a vibrant language," said David
LOVE, whose first summer
job was proofreading the dictionary. "The book contained words
from coast to coast that no one else knew about." Faced with
stiff American competition, Mr.
LOVE in 1971 made the controversial
decision to sell 80 per cent of the publishing company's shares,
a move that made him unhappy, says his son.
"He was offered government money, but a handout was out of the
question because as an old-school businessman, he did not believe
the taxpayers of Canada should be made to pay for his company.
He felt it should rise or fall on it own merits as a successful
business." Six years later, a Canadian company bought it back,
much to Mr.
LOVE's delight.
After leaving publishing, Mr.
LOVE turned his attention to philanthropy,
a path also taken by his grandfather, Sir William
GAGE, who had
endowed many hospitals and charities, and for this work was given
a knighthood in 1918.
"Dad used the fruits of what he earned at the publishing company
to give back to the community," says David
LOVE. "He wanted to
make Toronto a better place to live for everybody." Over the
years, he served as chair of the Gage Research Institute, which
researches tuberculosis, the Ina Grafton Gage Home, an old-age
home, and West Park Healthcare Centre, all in Toronto, and was
president of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto. In 1981,
he co-founded the Toronto Metropolitan Community Foundation,
now the Toronto Community Foundation, which connects potential
philanthropists with community needs.
Among his largest donations was $250,000 in June, 2001, to the
West Park Healthcare Centre, which was founded by Sir William
GAGE in 1904. He was also a regular donor to Pollution Probe
and the World Wildlife Fund.
"Seven months after founding Pollution Probe in 1969, we needed
advice and help, so we went looking for it from people in the
establishment," says Monte
HUMMEL, one of the founders of Pollution
Probe and now president of World Wildlife Fund. "Gage was one
of those. He said, 'You [Pollution Probe] have got something
to say and some of us in the business community need a kick in
the pants.' He supported us with money, he sat on our board and
he appealed to his peers to support Pollution Probe. In those
days, that was a really courageous thing for him to do."
Mr. LOVE's sons are carrying on their father's philanthropy and
his work in community and environmental affairs. David
LOVE has
been involved in the not-for-profit sector for 30 years, including
24 years with World Wildlife Fund; Geoff
LOVE is a waste-recycling
expert who played a significant role in developing Ontario's
blue-box recycling program and Peter
LOVE is a green-energy expert.
A fourth son, Gage, is a teacher.
In addition to his wife and sons, Mr.
LOVE leaves grandchildren
Austin, Bryce, Melanie, Jennifer, Adrian, Charmian, Colin, Gage,
Gaelan, Allie, Kate, Jesse, and great-grandchildren Ava, Makayla
and Olivia.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-05 published
'Nobody beats Arthur'
Victoria native left mark on Ottawa's business scene, while setting
swimming records when he was over 70
By Randy RAY,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, November
5, 2003 - Page R7
Ottawa -- When Arthur
INGLIS moved to Ottawa from Victoria in
the late 1960s, his goal was to leave his mark on the nation's
capital. By all accounts, he succeeded, both in the world of
business and in the swimming pool.
"When he arrived he thought he could make a difference," said
his partner of 20 years Kimberly
CROSS. "
The place was a wasteland
back then, but he did manage to leave an imprint."
Mr. INGLIS, who as recently as May set a world swimming record,
died on September 1. He as 71.
After moving to Ottawa, Mr.
INGLIS, who was born in Victoria
on March 28, 1932, worked as director of store design for Hudson's
Bay Co. and redesigned a handful of department stores purchased
from their local owner by the Bay.
In 1976, he started two Vanilla Boutique clothing stores and
later operated the Ecco Restaurant in downtown Ottawa. He founded
the Mags and Fags newsstand that same year after he realized Ottawa
didn't have an outlet with the variety of magazines and newspapers
available in New York or London. The business also included Immigration
and Naturalization Service News Service, which distributes newspapers
and magazines to Ottawa's business and government sectors.
With a reputation as an innovative member of Ottawa's business
community, Mr.
INGLIS and a partner built Mags and Fags into one
of the biggest newsstands in Canada, said Mr.
CROSS, who added
that local media individuals often visited the Elgin Street shop.
During the early 1980s, Mr.
INGLIS and a business partner designed
a bar named Shannon's in honour of Shannon
TWEED,
Miss
Ottawa
Valley of 1977 and Playboy Magazine's 1982 Playmate of the Year.
TWEED, partner of Gene
SIMMONS, bassist for rock band
KISS, named
her dog Vanilla after Mr.
INGLIS's women's fashion shops.
His boutiques carried innovative lines of clothing from France
and Italy that couldn't be found elsewhere in Ottawa. His Ecco
restaurant and club was a downtown hotspot known for its elegant
yet homey setting.
"It was hot, hot, hot with a library and outdoor terrace on the
second floor, like something you'd find on 3rd Avenue in New
York," Mr.
CROSS said. "It was the place where all of the city's
movers and shakers went, real estate people, fashion people --
you name it."
Mr. INGLIS and a partner also designed and introduced several
Ottawa shopping centres to the sales kiosks that are now commonplace
in most malls.
In 2000, when Mr.
INGLIS was 68 and still operating the newsstand,
his life took a dramatic turn because of cholesterol and blood-pressure
problems. His doctors placed him on medication but instead of
relying on pills, he quit drinking, adopted a healthier diet
and started swimming and weight-training.
In 2002, he sold his share in Mags and Fags to concentrate on travel
and competitive swimming, which he had excelled at as youngster
and into his teens.
Mr. INGLIS's athletic prowess in his younger days also included
skating with the Ice Capades, touring North America with his
sister May in the 1950s.
To pursue his interest in swimming and to improve his fitness,
Mr. INGLIS joined the Technosport masters swim and triathlon
team in Ottawa and was soon setting Canadian and world swimming
records in the 70-and-over age group. As his health problems
eased, he challenged the best in the world in masters swimming
in various locales, including New Zealand and Hawaii.
When he died, he held 17 Canadian or Ontario records in backstroke,
breaststroke, freestyle and individual medley, including all
Canadian backstroke records in all distances in the 70 to 74
age group, said teammate Pat
NIBLETT, who keeps track of records
set by members of the Technosport team. Mr.
INGLIS was also a
member of an Ontario swim relay team that set a world record
in New Zealand in 2002.
Ms. NIBLETT, who often travelled to swim meets with Mr.
INGLIS,
remembers her teammate as a "tall slim man with the twinkling
eyes and wonderful sense of humour. I only had the privilege
of knowing Arthur for three short years. I felt as if I had known
him for a lifetime. There is a saying in our house that 'nobody
beats Arthur.' This is true of everything that Arthur did."
At the Canadian National Masters Swim Championships in Montreal
in May, Mr.
INGLIS broke his own 200-metre backstroke record
and set Canadian records in the 100 and 200 individual medley
events.
Technosport coach Duane
JONES, who was among those shocked by
the incredibly fit Mr.
INGLIS's death, said the swimmer worked
out about five times a week.
"When we first met, he was 30 pounds overweight, he was not a
healthy eater and he was lethargic. But soon after, he was setting
records; when he was 71-years-old he had the body of a 35-year-old.
He paid attention to detail and did his workouts, swimming, biking
and weight-training consistently.
"The first time he dove into the water I could not believe how
beautiful his strokes cut the water. I've coached more than 6,000
athletes during the past 35 years and have never seen a guy like
Arthur INGLIS."
Ramona FIEBIG, manager of Mags and Fags for more than 14 years,
said Mr. INGLIS was a dedicated businessman who did his best
to ensure the newsstand had the best selection of titles in the
city. He often showed up for work on weekends as early as 3 a.m.
"There are thousands of titles in the store. It was no small
chore to keep on top of what was new, to find new magazines and
locate suppliers."
To the day he died, Mr.
INGLIS was an innovator, Mr.
CROSS said,
adding that as his health deteriorated, he wanted to try a novel
drug treatment to prolong his life.
"After his stroke, the options were paralysis on his left side
or trying a new drug," Mr.
CROSS said, adding that the side effect
was a 16-per-cent chance he would suffer massive bleeding in
his brain. "His feeling was that if he didn't survive, the next
person who came down the shoot might have a better chance."
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-25 published
A world-class forensic scientist
Expert in hair and fibre analysis and
DNA techniques helped revolutionized
police investigations worldwide
By Randy RAY,
Special▲▼ to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, November
25, 2003 - Page R7
Ottawa -- A simple demonstration using a red pullover and an
ultraviolet light during one of the United State's most infamous
murder cases helped cement Barry
GAUDETTE's reputation as an
internationally renowned forensic scientist.
While testifying as an expert witness during the 1981 trial of
Wayne WILLIAMS for the murder of several black children in Atlanta,
Mr. GAUDETTE asked members of the jury to pass the sweater back
and forth. Then he switched off the lights in the courtroom and
shone an ultraviolet light on the jury members, revealing fibres
from the pullover all over them..
His testimony made a strong connection between carpet fibres
from Mr. WILLIAMS's residences and vehicles, and fibres found
on several of the young victims, including some whose bodies
were found submerged in water. Soon after, Mr.
WILLIAMS was convicted
as the first black serial killer in the U.S.
"It was a graphic, innovative and very compelling demonstration
that showed how fibre transfer worked, and it led to a conviction,"
said Skip PALENIK, a forensic scientist and president of Microtrace
in Chicago, who was involved in the
WILLIAMS trial.
"Barry's demonstration helped the jury buy into the theory of
fibre transfer... they were hostile to the idea that a black
man could kill other blacks, but it tied
WILLIAMS to the victims.
It was the kind of demonstration that brought science home to
a jury.'' Mr.
GAUDETTE, a native of Edmonton, died in Ottawa
on October 1 after a brief battle with multiple myeloma. He was
At the time of the Atlanta child-murders case, Mr.
GAUDETTE,
a forensic scientist by training, was an expert in hair and fibre
analysis. Later, he would help implement the use of
DNA technology
in Royal Canadian Mounted Police laboratories across Canada.
His findings in hair and fibre analysis and his legwork in
DNA
helped revolutionize police investigative tools in Canada and
around the world, so much so that his work became instrumental
in tracking down society's most feared criminals.
Born in Edmonton on April 2, 1947, the oldest of six children,
Mr. GAUDETTE received an honours bachelor of science degree in
chemistry from the University of Calgary in 1969 and that year
was hired by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to work as a forensic
scientist in its hair and fibre section in Edmonton. In 1971
he married Leslie Ann
CLARK, whom he'd met while the pair worked
at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., in Pinawa, Manitoba
He worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Edmonton until
1980, during which time he wrote a groundbreaking paper and published
various research articles on the high probability that human
scalp hair comparisons could be used to link persons to crimes.
"His work proved hair comparisons were even more conclusive than
blood," said Ms.
GAUDETTE, an epidemiologist for Health Canada
in Ottawa.
"Barry showed for the first time scientifically that human hair
comparisons were a legitimate type of examination to pursue.
His work put what had been conventional wisdom onto a scientific
footing," adds Mr.
PALENIK, whose company provides expert scientific
analysis and consultation in the area of small-particle analysis.
After undergoing a year's training with the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police in hair and fibre analysis, Mr.
GAUDETTE was accredited
in 1970 as an expert witness and often testified in court cases
in Edmonton and later across Canada and in the United States.
In 1980, he was transferred to Ottawa to be the chief scientist
for hair and fibre analysis at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's
central forensic laboratory.
"Barry developed the hair and fibre field and brought it to prominence
in the world arena," said John
BOWEN, chief scientific officer
for Royal Canadian Mounted Police Forensic Laboratory Services
in Ottawa, who was trained in hair and fibre analysis by Mr.
GAUDETTE in the mid-1980s.
"He was an individual with a lot of vision, a world-class expert
in his field.'' In the late 1980s, Mr.
GAUDETTE envisioned the
potential of
DNA analysis in forensic science. He helped implement
the technology in Royal Canadian Mounted Police labs across Canada
and worked to promote the national
DNA databank legislation that
came into force in 1997.
"Barry did not invent
DNA testing," said Mr.
PALENIK, "but he
saw that it was a powerful tool that could give investigators
an ultimate kind of identification. Blood, semen and hair were
good, but he recognized that
DNA was as good as a fingerprint.
He was the one who said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police should
put all of its resources into developing
DNA as a forensic tool.
He said 'let's not waste time on our old ways.' "
It's no stretch, said Mr.
PALENIK, to link Mr.
GAUDETTE's work
in DNA to the conviction of many criminals linked to crimes by
their DNA and exoneration of others whose
DNA did not match
DNA
samples taken from crime scenes.
"Barry GAUDETTE made a large contribution to the
DNA business
because it has significantly changed the investigation procedures
in policing," said John
ARNOLD, chief scientist for the Ottawa-based
Canadian Police Research Centre, a collaboration of the National
Research Council, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian
Association of Chiefs of Police, which was set up to develop
tools for use by police.
"Today, they are solving cases that could never have been solved
before without this kind of technology."
In 1999, Mr.
GAUDETTE became manager of the Canadian Police Research
Centre, where his innovative ways continued. Before retiring
in 2002, he helped develop a website, scheduled to be up and
running next year, to provide Web-based training for police.
He was also involved in developing a cross-Canada standard for
protective equipment worn by police. The standard is expected
to be in place by the end of 2004, Mr.
ARNOLD said.
Even when he was in the twilight years of his career, Mr.
GAUDETTE
had an appetite for fieldwork and was never content to sit in
a cushy office chair and watch his subordinates do all of the
work.
"When some people get into management they don't want to work.
They want to be the one who directs it. That wasn't Barry," Mr.
ARNOLD said.
His stellar reputation led to a position on the U.S./Canada bilateral
counterterrorism research and development committee from 1999
to 2002. He received numerous accolades for his pioneering forensic
work. In 1996, he was awarded the government of Canada Public
Service Award of Excellence, and in 2003 a Golden Jubilee Medal.
Friends and colleagues said that away from the job, Mr.
GAUDETTE
enjoyed time with his family and took part in community affairs.
Mr. GAUDETTE leaves his wife
Leslie and children Lisa, 18, and
Darrell, 22.
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RAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-12 published
'Galloping Ghost' of Canadian football made five halls of fame
By Randy RAY,
Special▲ to The Globe and Mail Friday, December
12, 2003 - Page R17
Ottawa -- If Gordon
PERRY had one regret following his illustrious
career in Canadian sports, it's that he never competed as a sprinter
in the Olympics.
A glance at the Moncton native's résumé clearly shows why he
never ran for Canada at the Games: He didn't have time.
Mr. PERRY, who died in Ottawa on September 18 at the age of 100,
competed successfully in seven sports. His extraordinary feats
earned him a place in five Canadian sports halls of fame: Canadian
Football Hall of Fame, Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, Quebec Sports
Hall of Fame, New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame and Ottawa Sports
Hall of Fame.
Friends and colleagues have compared him to Canada's Lionel
CONACHER,
who played hockey and football, and American Deion
SANDERS who
was both a baseball and football player. Mr.
PERRY, however,
excelled in football, baseball, hockey, boxing, track and field,
curling and swimming.
As a kid, "all he ever wanted to do was play sports," says his
son Gordon
PERRY
Jr. of Ottawa. "It seemed like he always had
a baseball glove on his hand or skates on his feet. And he could
run like a deer." Born of Welsh ancestry in Moncton on March
18, 1903, Mr.
PERRY went to school in Moncton and Quebec City.
His father Harry, was a composer and musician who played the
organ at a church in Quebec City.
Mr. PERRY, who began his working career in banking and stocks
in Carleton Place, Ontario, boxed as an amateur in Quebec City
and was a goaltender in the Bankers' Hockey League, a highly
competitive loop in the 1920s and '30s that played at the Montreal
Forum. As a sprinter, Mr.
PERRY posted times of 10 seconds and
under for 100 yards.
But he's best known for his role as captain of the undefeated
Montreal Amateur Athletic Association Winged Wheelers that beat
the Regina Roughriders 22-0 in the 1931 Grey Cup game. Small
and quick, and standing at just at five foot eight and 165 pounds,
PERRY was nicknamed the "Galloping Ghost" because of his elusiveness.
He was a four-time Eastern all-star in the Canadian Rugby Union,
precursor to today's Canadian Football League. In 1931, he won
the Jeff Russel Trophy as the player who best combined athletic
ability with sportsmanship. Sir Edward
BEATTY, president of the
Canadian
Pacific
Rail, awarded
PERRY the trophy, which earned
him $200 on top of his football salary of $1,200.
From 1928 to 1934, the Wheelers squad was built around Mr.
PERRY.
"I played both ways," he told The Ottawa Citizen on the eve of
his 100th birthday. "I didn't often sit down, that's for sure."
He once told the Montreal Gazette the secret to his success against
bigger men was that "You can run like hell when you're scared."
There was one time, however, when Mr.
PERRY couldn't run fast
enough.
"He was playing in Montreal against Ottawa and he laughed at
a lineman," recalls his son. "When the teams came back here [Ottawa],
the guy caught up with my dad and he was carried off the field
with three broken ribs. He did not always get away." Mr.
PERRY
often said baseball was his favourite sport, a game he played
with grace and skill. He was invited as a young teen to go to
Boston to play but his father would not let him leave Moncton.
Later, as a centre-fielder in Montreal, he helped his Atwater
Baseball League team win five championships in seven seasons.
After retiring from football in 1934, Mr.
PERRY, took up curling.
After settling down in Ottawa in 1941, he won curling's Royal
Jubilee Trophy in 1953 and 1956. At age 60, he scored a rare
eight-ender while competing in a provincial event, says his son,
who is president of the Ottawa Curling Club, which for 42 years
has run a spring bonspiel in his father's name.
In Ottawa, he worked in several positions with the Bank of Canada.
When he retired in the early 1970s, he was involved in the printing
and distribution of Canada Savings Bonds -- ironically, working
alongside Ron
STEWARD/STEWART/STUART, who was once a fleet-footed running back
with the Ottawa Rough Riders.
Mr. PERRY continued to curl until he was 90 and played his last
round of golf at 98. At 100, the honours continued to pour in.
In the 1903 Canadian Football League season, Mr.
PERRY was named
honorary captain of the Montreal Alouettes.
Mr. PERRY and his first wife, Jay
KEITH, had three children,
Gord Jr., Pat and Lynn. His second wife was Betty
THOMAS. Ms.
KEITH and Ms.
THOMAS died in their 60s; at age 91, Mr.
PERRY
married Muriel
TAGGART, then a 72-year-old widow. He leaves his
wife and three children.
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