BISAILLON
BISHOP
BISMONTE
BISSELL
BISSON
BISSONNETTE
BISAILLON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-06 published
BISAILLON,
Ronald
Bruce
(Ron)
After a sudden illness at the Kingston General Hospital on Tuesday,
March 4, 2003 with his family by his side. Beloved husband of
Lise PEPIN. Dear son of Ruth of Kingston and the late Gerard
BISAILLON. Dear father of Brad (Tracey,) Jamie (Martin) and step-father
of Stephane
LEGAULT
(Kathi) and Marc
LEGAULT. Dear grandfather
of Faith and Julia. Dear brother of Gerry (Joan), Robert (Janet)
and brother-in-law of Maurice (Francine), Jean-Guy (Henriette),
Gaetan (Claire), Pierre (Sylvie), Paul, Nicole and Yvon (Rollande).
Survived also by several nieces and nephews. Friends will be
received at the Gordon F. Tompkins Funeral Home, Township Chapel,
435 Davis Drive (Waterloo Village) on Friday evening from 7-9
p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. till 11: 00 a.m. Service will be
held in the Chapel on Saturday March 8th at 11: 00 a.m. Cremation.
Friends desiring may contribute in Ron's memory to the Lung Association
or the Kidney Foundation. In the care of the Gordon F. Tompkins
Funeral Homes Township Chapels 546-5150 gftompkins-township.ca
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BISHOP o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-09 published
Last fighter pilot of the Great War
Canadian aviator, a bankteller in peacetime, was 'just doing
his duty'
By Allison
LAWLOR
Thursday,
January 9, 2003, Page R7
Henry BOTTERELL, the last of the fighter pilots that fought in
the First World War, has died in Toronto. He was 106.
Mr. BOTTERELL, who up until in his late 90s was swimming almost
every day, died peacefully at the Sunnybrook Veterans Hospital,
now part of Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre,
on Friday, less than two months after celebrating his 106th birthday.
One of 16 surviving Canadian veterans of the First World War
profiled in a Globe and Mail series in November, Henry
BOTTERELL
was believed to be the last fighter pilot from the 1914-1918
conflict, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Mr. BOTTERELL declined to take part in the series of interviews,
but at a special air-force celebration four years earlier he
recalled his days as a fighter pilot.
"I had good hands," he said then. "I didn't have the fighting
acumen of some, like Billy
BISHOP. I was just a bank clerk. I
wasn't one of the very best, but I had my share of action."
On August 29, 1918, Flight Lieutenant
BOTTERELL flew his Sopwith
Camel over Vitry, France. After dropping four bombs on a railway
station, he was heading back to his airfield when he encountered
a German observation balloon. He fired 400 rounds into the balloon
with his aircraft machine gun.
With the balloon ablaze, the soldier leaped from the basket and
opened his parachute. As the flaming remains of the balloon fell
to the ground, Mr.
BOTTERELL had enough time to swing around
and shoot his enemy, but didn't. Instead, he snapped him a chivalrous
salute before heading back to base. The moment was captured by
aviation artist Robert
TAILOR/TAYLOR, in his painting Balloon Buster.
"He was an adventurer," said Jon
STRAW, a friend and former director
of the Great War Flying Museum in Brampton, Ontario Mr.
STRAW
is also working on a book on Canadian pilots who served in the
First
World
War with Allan
SNOWIE, a retired naval aviator who
is now a pilot with Air Canada.
Like many of the veterans from the First World War, Mr.
BOTTERELL
didn't consider his war efforts to be heroic.
"He didn't think it was any big deal, he thought he was just
doing his duty," Mr.
STRAW said.
In 1916, Mr.
BOTTERELL was working for the Bank of North America
(now the Bank of Montreal) when his older brother Edward, who
played football for the Toronto Argonauts, was killed overseas
by a sniper. A few months later, Henry, then 20, enlisted with
the Royal Naval Air Service and was sent to England to train
as a fighter pilot.
His sister, Edith, who worked as a secretary for an admiral at
the time, had helped him get what she thought would be a safer
assignment in the war. But that didn't prove to be true. At one
point in the war, new pilots had a life expectancy of three weeks.
Mr. BOTTERELL's flying career got off to a difficult start. Engine
failure caused him to crash on only his second takeoff in September,
1917, at Dunkirk, France. He suffered head injuries, a fractured
leg, and broken teeth and spent six months in hospital. He was
eventually demobilized as disabled and discharged. But he later
re-enlisted and qualified as a fighter pilot again and returned
to France in early 1918.
His flight log reveals that he was attached to the 208th Squadron
serving in France from May 11 to November 27, 1918. His records
show that during that time, he flew patrols and fought over places
including Serny, Estrées and Arras. He then transferred to Belgium,
according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Wing
Commander
Neil
MEADOWS, the commanding officer of Royal
Air
Force 208 Squadron, said in his condolences to Mr.
BOTTERELL's
family that Henry "remains, an inspiration to our trainee pilots.
I do feel that we have lost a tangible part of what we are, and
what we aspire to be.
"Undoubtedly, he did not view his actions as out of the ordinary,
but his courage and dedication to duty are an example that I
hope our trainees will emulate in their own flying careers,"
he wrote on behalf of the squadron. "I am sure, therefore, that
his spirit will live on with the young pilots that continue to
serve on 208 Squadron."
During his war service, Mr.
BOTTERELL flew a variety of planes,
but the Camel, which got its name from the hump created by two
machine guns imbedded under its cowling, was his favourite. He
had one particular close call, when on a flight a bullet ripped
through his ear and smashed his goggles.
"I went out like a light for a few minutes, and I recovered just
before I crashed," he once said.
Henry
John
Lawrence
BOTTERELL was born in 1896 in Ottawa to Henry
and Annie BOTTERELL.
His mother raised him after his father died
of pneumonia when Henry was a young boy. Henry attended Lisgar
Collegiate Institute in Ottawa. An athletic young man, he played
football like his older brother and remained physically active
throughout his life.
"He was a loner," said his son Edward
BOTTERELL, adding that
his father enjoyed sports he would do alone such as swimming,
cross-country skiing and sailing. In 1919, he returned to Canada
and to banking as an assistant chief accountant. He remained
with the Bank of Montreal until his retirement in the 1960s.
As a souvenir from the war he brought back a Belgian fence post
that had snagged the wing of his Camel on a low-level flights.
It is now in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
In 1929 he married and moved with his wife Maud to Montreal.
They raised two children before his wife died in 1983 after suffering
several strokes. During the Second World War, Mr.
BOTTERELL commanded
an Air Cadet Squadron, in Quebec, though he himself never took
to the air. After returning home in 1919, he gave up flying.
In 1999, Mr.
BOTTERELL was the guest of honour at a mess dinner
commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air
Force. That same year he celebrated his own 102nd birthday at
a hotel in Lille, France, where he and other Canadian veterans
were marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the War.
Despite his failing memory, his son Edward said his father was
"moved by the experience."
Mr. BOTTERELL is survived by daughter Frances
MARQUETTE of Houston,
Texas, and son Edward
BOTTERELL of Mississauga, Ontario
Henry BOTTERELL, aviator and banker; born in Ottawa on November
7, 1896, died in Toronto on January 3, 2003.
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BISHOP o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-05-12 published
Melba Rosamond
SWEET
By Jean BISHOP
Monday,
May 12, 2003 - Page A16
Pioneer, farmer, daughter, sister, aunt, friend. Born December
20, 1900, in Malahide Township, Ontario Died January 17, in St.
Thomas, Ontario, of natural causes, aged 102.
Melba SWEET, youngest child of John and Rosamond McKenney
SWEET,
was deeply rooted in pioneer tradition.
Beginning in 1842, her grandfather cleared the land and built
all the buildings on what came to be her farm, just one road
north of Aylmer, Ontario In addition, a tragic event in the
McKENNEY
family had a great influence on Melba's life. In November, 1869,
diphtheria struck. In five weeks time, six of the youngest of
the 11 McKENNEY children died as a result. Three years later,
a little girl named Rosamond was born. She was Melba's mother.
Parents, and siblings ranging in age from 12 to 20, lavished
love on this baby and vied with each other to teach her pioneer
skills.
Rosamond's three children, Gene, Maud and Melba, thrived in the
atmosphere she created with her sunny disposition, great sense
of humour and mastery of all sorts of skills from breaking and
riding horses to gardening or making hairpin lace.
Melba was a true pioneer, herself. She was in her thirties before
electricity came to the farm. That meant cooking and heating
with wood, no refrigeration or electric washing machine, milking
cows by hand, no indoor bathroom. In those days, if you needed
something, you made it yourself. And there wasn't much that was
beyond Rosamond's skills -- and that she didn't teach to Melba.
Practically all meat, fruits and vegetables were grown and preserved
on the farm. Melba's father used to say, "You won't find any
tin cans on this place." Clothes for both women and men were
sewn at home; soap was made from wood ashes and lye. This meant
working long hours. All her life Melba felt she should rise at
4: 30 a.m. to get everything done.
From an early age she took over food preparation. Cooking on
a wood-burning range she produced incredible meals for her family
and for parties with Friends. Food was always plentiful and delicious.
Melba fondly remembered those years when her sister, Maud, after
a few years of teaching and working as a bookkeeper in Detroit,
came home to stay. They expanded their mother's gardens, adding
extensive plots of spring bulbs along the road and a 50-foot
long row of delphiniums for bouquets to decorate the church.
In the winters, Melba and Maud worked on handicrafts with Rosamond,
making beautiful quilts and hooked rugs, handmade lingerie and
pillow cases with crocheted lace borders and inserts. The years
passed so happily that Melba declined several offers of marriage
to stay on at home.
Melba and Maud took tender care of their father and mother, who
lived to celebrate their 72nd wedding anniversary. Their father
lived to the age of 96 and Rosamond, who was born in that house,
lived there all her 98 years.
After Maud's death from a heart attack 34 years ago, Melba took
over the farm books and work on the grounds. Into her 90s, she
mowed two acres of lawn, kept two large freezers filled with
food for herself and her farming partner, who worked the dairy
farm on shares. She also did seasonal jobs, such as cleaning
out eavestroughs or going out an upstairs window onto the kitchen
roof to put on storm windows.
Determined to live life in her own way, Melba managed to stay
in her home with the help of good Friends and homecare workers
until a fall put her in hospital in May, 2002. Friends and family
and caregivers cherished the special individual she remained
until the end.
Jean BISHOP is Melba's niece.
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BISHOP o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-08 published
VILA,
Helen
Jeanette
59, died on Sunday, July 6, 2003, at her home in Scotch Hill,
Pictou Co., Nova Scotia. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, she was a
daughter of the late Alan P.
VILA and Jeanette
(McVICAR)
VILA.
Helen attended schools in Chippawa, Ontario, and Baldwin, New
York, where she excelled in sports and music. She graduated with
Honours in English from McGill University and with a master teacher
certificate from the Ontario College of Education at the University
of Toronto. For several years, Helen taught English at Lawrence
Park Collegiate Institute and film arts at Sheridan College in
Toronto.
Later, she and her late companion Trini
PEREZ had a
home craft business in woodworking and jewelry in Stoney Creek,
Ontario, which they continued in Pictou. In recent years, Helen
sang in the Hosannah Gospel Choir at the United Church of Canada,
Lyons Brook, served as a volunteer at the Maritime Odd Fellows
home, and worked at the job placement center and the library.
She is survived by her sisters and brothers, Mary
SHAW and her
husband Robert of Palo Alto, California; John
VILA and his partner
Terry BISHOP of Guttenberg, New Jersey; James
VILA and his wife
Tanya of Tilton, New Hampshire; Elizabeth
ROGAN and her husband
Edward of Glastonbury, Connecticut; and Anne
VILA and her husband
Steven JACOBS of Needham, Massachusetts; and by five nieces --
Catherine VILA,
Carolyn
ROGAN, Jenny
ROGAN, Julia
JACOBS, and
Anne ROGAN; four nephews -- Mark
SHAW,
Andrew
SHAW, Jonathan
SHAW and Daniel
JACOBS; four grandnieces -- Jessica, Kaeli, Alissa
and Zoë; one grandnephew -- Max; and two stepnieces -- Tracy
MESSINGER and Kerri
PACHOMOW.
Helen will be dearly missed by
her companion, Margaret
MacCULLOCH, who cared for her during
her long illness. Visitation will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. on
Friday, July 11, at the McLaren Funeral Home, 246 Faulkland Street,
Pictou. The funeral will be held at the United Church in Lyons
Brook at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 12, Mary
MacDERMID officiating.
Interment at the Scotch Hill Cemetery will be followed by a reception
at the church hall. Her family requests that, in lieu of flowers,
memorial donations be made to the Canadian Cancer Society --
Nova Scotia Division, the Humane Society of Canada, or to Palliative
Care of the Aberdeen Hospital.
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BISHOP o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-11 published
The crash of a Canadian hero
Lest we forget, Roy
MacGREGOR traces the spectacular feats and
the sad fall of a flying ace
By Roy MacGREGOR,
Tuesday,
November 11, 2003 - Page A1
Ottawa -- Here is as good a place as any to lay a small poppy
on Remembrance Day.
It is nothing but a concrete dock ramp on the Ontario shore of
the Ottawa River, not far downstream from the Parliament Buildings.
There is nothing here to say what happened that cold March day
back in 1930, and on this, a fine brisk morning in November,
73 years later, there is only a lone biker, a man walking two
setters along the path that twists along this quiet spot, and
a small, single-engine airplane revving in the background as
it prepares to take off from the little Rockcliffe airstrip.
Seventy-three years ago, another small plane took off from this
airfield, turned sharply over the distant trees, flew low and
full-throttle over the runway and went into a steep climb that
eventually cut out the engine and sent the new Fairchild twisting
toward this spot -- instantly killing Canada's most-decorated
war hero.
Will BARKER, 35, of Dauphin, Manitoba
Perhaps you've heard of him. Likely not. He is, in some ways,
the test case for Lest We Forget.
Lieutenant-Colonel William George
BARKER won the Victoria Cross
for what many believe was the greatest dogfight of the First
World War.
He was alone in his Sopwith Snipe over Bois de Marmal, France,
on October 27, 1918, when he was attacked, official reports say,
by 60 enemy aircraft -- Mr.
BARKER, who rarely talked of his
war experience, always said 15 -- and he shot down three before
passing out from devastating wounds to both legs and his arm,
only to come to again in mid-air, turn on the fighter intending
to put an end to him and bring down a fourth before he himself
crash-landed in full view of astonished British troops, who were
even more amazed when they got to the plane and found him still
alive, if barely.
The four that one day took Mr.
BARKER's list to 50 downed aircraft.
He returned to Canada as Lt.-Col. William George
BARKER, V.C.,
D.S.O. and enough other medals to lay claim to being Canada's
most honoured combatant -- if he'd ever cared to do so. As British
Air
Chief
Marshal Sir Philip
JOUBERT wrote, "Of all the flyers
of the two World Wars, none was greater than
BARKER."
He came home and went into the aviation business with another
Canadian
Victoria
Cross winner, Billy
BISHOP. He married Mr.
BISHOP's wealthy cousin, Jean
SMITH, and had a miserable next
dozen years. The business failed, the marriage teetered, he suffered
depression and terrible pain from his injuries, and the previous
non-drinker soon became a drinker.
It seemed life was taking a turn for the better in January of
1930 when Fairchild hired him to help sell planes to the Canadian
government. A test pilot had been sent to show off the plane
at Rockcliffe, but the veteran fighter unfortunately insisted
on taking it up himself for a run.
Some say he committed suicide here; some say he was showing off
for an 18-year-old daughter of another Rockcliffe pilot; his
biographer believes he was just being too aggressive with a new,
unknown machine and "screwed up."
They held the funeral in Toronto, with a cortege two miles long,
2,000 uniformed men, honour guards from four countries and 50,000
people lining the streets. As they carried the coffin into Mount
Pleasant Cemetery, six biplanes swooped down, sprinkling rose
petals over the crowd.
"His name," Sir Arthur
CURRIE announced, "will live forever in
the annals of the country which he served so nobly."
His name, alas, is not even on the crypt -- only "
SMITH," his
wife's snobbish family who never really accepted the rough-hewn
outsider from Manitoba.
Somehow, he became all but forgotten. Though Mr.
BISHOP called
Mr. BARKER "the deadliest air fighter that ever lived," it is
Mr. BISHOP who lives on in the public imagination. Often, if
Mr. BARKER is mentioned at all, "Billy"
BARKER, as he was known
to his air colleagues, is confused with "Billy"
BISHOP.
A request for a government plaque to commemorate his Manitoba
birthplace was rejected the first time, but there is now some
small recognition thanks in large part to the work of Inky
MARK,
the Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan Lake and the excellent
military biography,
BARKER VC, produced a few years back by Wayne
RALPH.
Mr. RALPH, a Newfoundlander now living in White Rock, British
Columbia, thinks Mr.
BARKER was simply too much "the warrior"
for the Canadian appetite.
"He was an international superstar," says Mr.
RALPH. "
BARKER
had all the traits of the great Hollywood heroes. He was disobedient,
gregarious, flamboyant. He was a frontier kid, a classical figure
in the American style of hero. Born in a log cabin, went on to
fame and fortune, and died tragically at 35.
"Now he is basically buried in anonymity. To me, it's the perfect
metaphor for Canada, where we bury our past."
Today, though, even if it is only a poppy dropped at the end
of a concrete boat ramp, we will remember.
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BISHOP o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-28 published
MURRAY, Mari-Ellen
It is with great sorrow that we announce the death of Mari-Ellen
MURRAY on Saturday, November 22nd, 2003 while vacationing in
South Africa. A vibrant and determined woman, Mari-Ellen lived
life as a perpetual adventure, unaltered by her battle with breast
cancer. She died quickly and mercifully while pursuing her love
of travel with her cherished husband Andrew
BISHOP.
Beloved daughter
of Norman and Nerina
MURRAY; granddaughter of Luigia
SINELLI,
sister of Jacqueline, Stephanie and Rob
WATSON,
Marisa and Paul
GRETHER, and Christine; treasured Aunt Mimi of Madeleine and
Cole WATSON; much-loved daughter-in-law of Trevor and Barbara
BISHOP; sister-in-law of Timothy and Michael. Our inspiration
and pillar of strength, she will be sorely missed by all who
knew her. Visitation at Kopriva Taylor at 64 Lakeshore Road West
in Oakville from 2: 00 to 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday,
November 30th, 2003. The Funeral Mass will take place on Monday,
December 1st at 1: 30 p.m. at St. Basil's Church, 50 St. Joseph
Street at Bay Street in Toronto. In lieu of flowers, donations
to The Princess Margaret Hospital, 610 University Ave. Toronto,
M5G 2M9 or Willow Breast Cancer Support and Resource Services,
785 Queen Street East, Toronto, M4M 1H5 would be greatly appreciated.
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BISMONTE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-09-05 published
A life cut short by severe acute respiratory syndrome
The only doctor to have died from the virus in North America,
he was a caring professional and a loving family man
By Bill GLADSTONE
Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, September
5, 2003 - Page R13
As the only doctor in North America to die of severe acute respiratory
syndrome, Toronto physician Nestor
YANGA may have gained more
prominence in death than by anything he had accomplished in life.
He was a dedicated general practitioner, church volunteer and
family man who was passionate about everything he did, according
to Friends. A former president of the Canadian Filipino Medical
Association, he loved dancing, gardening and spending time with
his wife and two sons.
In the early days of the city's outbreak of severe acute respiratory
syndrome, as doctors were still scrambling to identify and contain
the alarming new disease, a patient turned up at Dr.
YANGA's
east-Toronto clinic who was a family member of one of the first
carriers in Canada; two more family members came to see him two
days later. In medical parlance, all would be known as "super-secretors"
for the highly virulent and infectious strains they carried.
"He saw them in the waiting room and told them they'd better
go to the hospital," said his friend, Dr. Bina
COMENDADOR, a
Richmond Hill, Ontario, psychiatrist.
Shortly afterwards Dr.
YANGA came down with a slight fever, then
a dry cough. When the symptoms worsened, he visited a newly instituted
screening centre for severe acute respiratory syndrome and was
told to get to Sunnybrook Hospital right away. "Being the doctor
he was, he drove himself to the hospital and he never came out,"
Dr. COMENDADOR said.
He died after a four-month struggle with the disease on August
13 at the age of 54. He was the 44th severe acute respiratory
syndrome victim in the Toronto area.
An estimated 2,000 people, including many provincial dignitaries,
medical professionals and members of the city's Filipino community,
paid their last respects to Dr.
YANGA at a funeral in Toronto's
St. Michael's Cathedral. In eulogies, he was depicted as a hero
who had fallen on the front lines of medicine's unrelenting battle
against illness of every kind.
"He contracted the disease while caring for one of his patients,"
said Dr. Larry
ERLICK, president of the Ontario Medical Association.
"It's a risk that physicians face every day."
As if to underscore that risk, two of the three doctors who worked
with Dr. YANGA in the Lapsley Family Doctors Clinic were also
infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome last April; one
remains hospitalized while the other is still too weak to resume
his medical duties; the fourth recently reopened the clinic and
is struggling with a fourfold increase in patient load. As well,
two nurses in the Toronto area have died of the virus after caring
for severe acute respiratory syndrome-stricken patients.
Born in Malabon, the Philipines, on October 8, 1948, Nestor
YANGA
studied medicine at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila
he specialized in surgery and graduated in 1975. He emigrated
to Canada in 1981 and was married the same year in Toronto, having
met his prospective bride, Remy, during a visit two years earlier.
Passing a rigorous set of medical exams in Canada, Dr.
YANGA
interned at a Newfoundland hospital for two months, then at two
hospitals in Toronto. Intending to become a psychiatrist, he
studied at McMaster University and at the University of Toronto,
but withdrew in his third year, telling Friends he preferred
to practise family medicine.
Toronto psychiatrist Dr. Dulce
BISMONTE recalled that Dr.
YANGA
had inspired her to enter psychiatry and that she was very saddened
when he told her he was leaving that field. "He was so compassionate
and caring, he would have made an excellent psychiatrist," she
said.
As a general practitioner, Dr.
YANGA got to know many of his
patients as people and often spent more time with them than strictly
necessary, to the occasional consternation of patients in his
waiting room. Any annoyance would invariably melt away, however,
as the meticulous but easygoing doctor would bestow a similar
level of care and warmth upon each waiting patient in turn.
"He was the kind of person you could respect and really care
about, and I think his patients felt that too," Dr.
COMENDADOR
said. "He would make you feel that you were special and that
you were the most important patient."
Dr. YANGA sometimes assisted with surgeries at Centenary Hospital
and worked as a volunteer at the sexual assault clinic at Grace
Hospital. He and his wife were also dedicated members of the
Filipino-dominated charismatic Catholic group Bukas Loob Sa Diyos.
Having performed in his youth with a dance group, which toured
all over Southeast Asia, Dr.
YANGA retained a passion for ballroom
dancing, which he did with his wife, and line dancing, which
he did apart from her, with others. "Nestor loved to dance,"
Dr. BISMONTE observed. "He might have been on the chubby side,
but he was a very graceful dancer."
He was, above all, a consummate family man who always reserved
plenty of time to be with his family and usually took them with
him to medical conferences at resorts. "His loss is a tragedy
to his family as well as to all of his patients, and I don't
know how we're going to overcome it," Dr.
ERLICK said. "He had
a huge following and it's hard to replace a physician like that."
Nestor YANGA leaves his wife
Remy, sons Nelson, 20, and Ronald,
16, brother Emmanuel and father Lauro, all of Toronto.
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BISSELL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-31 published
The dean of Canadian sociology
The first chair of a new University of Toronto department trained
a generation of scholars
By Carol COOPER,
Special to the Globe and Mail Friday, October
31, 2003 - Page R13
In 1938, with a doctorate in political science and anxious to
achieve his dream of becoming a professor, Samuel Delbert
CLARK
reluctantly took the only position available to him at the University
of Toronto, as its first full-time lecturer in sociology.
In doing so, S.D.
CLARK became one of the country's early anglophone
sociologists. During his career, his immense intellect, painstaking
scholarship and prolific writing brought credibility and respect
to the fledgling discipline. At a time when Canadian universities
had few sociology departments, Prof.
CLARK trained a generation
of sociologists who spread out across the country, establishing
sociology departments in other centres. And as an administrator
at U of T, Prof.
CLARK brought leading sociologists to the school.
The first sociologist born, raised and trained here, Prof. S.
D. CLARK has died at the age of 93.
Incorporating the staples theory of his mentor, leading Canadian
political economist Harold
INNIS, the work of American historian
F. J. TURNER, and sociologists Carl
DAWSON and E. C.
HUGHES of
McGill University, among others, Prof.
CLARK developed his own
approach.
He studied social change on Canada's economic frontiers such
as the fur trade, Western wheat farming, and the lumber and mining
industries. He traced the development of those communities as
the residents there, far from the cultural and financial institutions
that controlled their lives and contending with distance and
poverty, took their communities through a period of simultaneous
disorganization and reorganization. From the struggle emerged
new organizations and religious sects, such as the Co-operative
Commonwealth Federation and the Social Credit Party.
Reflecting his university training in history, sociology and
political science, Prof.
CLARK brought a multifaceted approach
to his research.
"He looked at things that were happening in Canada almost uniquely
and tried to understand them and not to reduce it to some simplistic
international generalization," said William
MICHELSON, the S.
D. Clark professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.
"He really wanted to look into a multiplicity of factors."
Not everyone liked Prof.
CLARK's approach to sociology, but nor
did Prof. CLARK favour the Chicago School approach then taught
at McGill University. Although he later altered his research
methods, Prof.
CLARK at first viewed the American approach dimly,
seeing it as one of doorbell-ringing in order to ask stupid questions,
one that scientifically quantified what happened in the present
without exploring the past. Instead, he pored over archival material,
studying the development of Canadian society from a historical
perspective.
Books by Prof.
CLARK, such as The Social Development of Canada,
drew fire from historians, who challenged his theory and said
sociology and history were incompatible. But the publications
brought attention to the new discipline.
Born to a farming family on February 24, 1910, in Lloydminster,
Alberta.,
Samuel
Delbert
CLARK was the second of five children.
The family of Northern Irish descent had been established in
Ontario since 1840 until it moved West in 1905.
Showing an early aptitude for school and a strong interest in
history, Prof.
CLARK graduated from the University of Saskatchewan
with an honours B.A. in history and political science and an
M.A. in history. Brushing aside suggestions that he become a
high-school teacher and politician, Prof.
CLARK aimed instead
for a university position.
He entered University of Toronto in 1931 to do a doctorate in
political science and economic history. While the studies proved
dry and disappointing, it was there that he first met Harold
INNIS, read the works of Marx, Engels and North American left-wingers,
and attended meetings of the radical League for Social Reconstruction.
Disillusioned with his studies and short of funds, Prof.
CLARK
accepted a Saskatchewan Imperial Order of the Daughters of the
Empire scholarship and headed for the London School of Economics
in 1932. At the school, he received his first exposure to sociology,
including the works of Prof.
DAWSON at McGill.
After leaving London in 1933, Prof.
CLARK arrived in Montreal,
again strapped for cash. Hoping to collect a debt from a friend,
who was then studying at McGill, Prof.
CLARK stopped by his house.
With the friend not home, Prof.
CLARK then visited Prof.
DAWSON,
who offered him a research fellowship. After working on a project
studying Canadian-American relations for two years and receiving
an M.A. in sociology, Prof.
CLARK returned to Toronto to continue
his doctorate in political science.
In 1937 he accepted an appointment to teach political science
and sociology at the University of Manitoba and stayed a year
before returning once again to University of Toronto to complete
his thesis and begin his career there.
As a proponent of a more British style of sociology, Prof.
CLARK
was favoured for the job over another Chicago-trained candidate,
setting the academic direction for the school. Sociology was
then run as a section under the department of anthropology, to
be transferred a year later to the department of political economy.
Except for occasional leaves, Prof.
CLARK remained a fixture
on campus, impeccably dressed in a woollen suit and sporting
a pipe, until his retirement in 1976.
Shy and quiet, Prof.
CLARK constantly cleared his throat and
jingled the change in his pocket while lecturing.
"He never cracked a joke.... It was serious scholarship. You
had to ask serious questions," recalled retired York University
sociology professor Edward
MANN, an early undergraduate student
and later a doctoral student of Prof.
CLARK. "
Their [
INNIS and
CLARK] religion was scholarship."
In that vein, Prof.
CLARK never talked to the press about daily
issues, saying it cheapened the discipline. And he practised
rigorous scholarship.
"He had a tremendous amount of integrity," said Lorne
TEPPERMAN,
a University of Toronto sociology professor and former student
of Prof. CLARK. "
This was a guy who knew what he stood for, what
he believed in. He was uncompromising. He had very high standards
for himself and other people."
During the fifties, Prof.
CLARK, an admirer of Lester
PEARSON,
exchanged his membership in the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation
for that of the Liberal Party, the one endorsed by his wife,
Rosemary. A graduate in economics from Columbia University, she
edited all his works. By the sixties, Prof.
CLARK had begun to
study social change and urbanization, writing The Suburban Society
and later, The New Urban Poor. Despite altering his research
methods, dropping his historical research and adopting the American
style of conducting questionnaires to collect data, he stopped
short of tabulating them, arguing in The Suburban Society that
"to lay claim to scientific precision... would be to falsify
the competence of sociology."
And the man who studied social change became buffeted by it.
While the sociology section had remained small during the forties
and fifties, it ballooned during the sixties, becoming an independent
department in 1963 with Prof.
CLARK as its appointed head.
A capable administrator, Prof.
CLARK brought feistiness to the
job. "He was a very honest man," said Prof.
TEPPERMAN. "He wasn't
afraid on an argument, he wasn't afraid of a fight. If he liked
you, he really liked you and if he didn't like you, he really
didn't like you."
With the huge increase in sociology-department enrolment but
small number of sociology graduates, Prof.
CLARK looked outside
the country to fill teaching positions. Most either came from
the United States, or had been trained there.
While some scholars hailed Prof.
CLARK for having eschewed American-style
sociology and maintaining a Canadian approach, the young and
sometimes radical newcomers with a markedly different approach
regarded him as an oddball and an anachronism. And as an older,
white, staunch Liberal Party-supporting male at the centre of
an old-boy network, he represented everything they were fighting
against. Accustomed to a more democratic academic culture at
other schools, the new staff agitated for a greater say in the
running of the department. When Prof.
CLARK resisted, he was
pushed out, and the chair became an elected position. He remained
at the university until his retirement in 1976.
Outside of the university, throughout his career, Prof.
CLARK
served as an editor of The Canadian Journal of Economics and
Political Science, and as president of the Royal Society of Canada.
In addition, he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Canada.
Despite the recognition he received, Prof.
CLARK always felt
that his older brother who took over the farm was the family
success, according to his son, Edmund. And he enjoyed such simple
pleasures as hockey. Once, while attending a dinner party at
Claude BISSELL's house, then the president of U of T, Prof.
CLARK
asked where the television was and sat down to watch the hockey
game. When questioned later, Prof.
CLARK replied, "Anyone stupid
enough to hold a party on a hockey night deserved to have the
guests watch television in the den."
S.D. CLARK died on September 18. He leaves his wife, Rosemary,
sons Edmund and Samuel, nine grandchildren and a sister, Grace.
His daughter Ellen predeceased him.
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BISSON o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-01-29 published
Lawrence Stephen
MIGWANS
In loving memory of Lawrence Stephen
MIGWANS,
September 26, 1925 to January 13, 2003.
Larry MIGWANS, a resident of the Wellness Centre, M'Chigeeng, passed
away at the Manitoulin Health Centre, Mindemoya on Monday, January
13, 2003 at the age of 77 years. He was born at M'Chigeeng, son of
the late David and Madelene
(DEBASSIGE)
MIGWANS.
Larry joined the
army at the age of 16 and served overseas in World War 2, and was a
member of Branch #177 Royal Canadian Legion, Little Current. He also
enjoyed playing the violin and guitar, and working in his garden.
Predeceased by his wife Desira
(BEBONING)
MIGWANS. Loving father of
Mabel NOLAND, Caroline
BEBONING, Patrick
BEBONING, Martina
MIGWANS,
Lorraine, Patsy, Carol, Kerry and Brenda
WEMIGWANS. Loved
grandfather of several grandchildren and great grandchildren. Dear
brother of Agnes (predeceased,) Annie
BISSON,
Regina,
Raymond
(predeceased,) Pauline
CORBIERE (predeceased,) Melvina
GERARD
(predeceased,) Christine
PAGE,
Nora
MIGWANS, Maurice,
Kenneth and
Francis MIGWANS.
Also survived by many nieces and nephews.
Friends called at the M'Chigeeng Complex. The funeral mass was
celebrated at Immaculate Conception Church, M'Chigeeng, on Friday,
January 17, 2003 with Father Robert
FOLIOT as celebrant. Interment
in M'Chigeeng Cemetery. Culgin Funeral Home
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BISSON o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-11-05 published
WABINOGESHIG
Maxie
Isadore
ASSINEWAI
In Loving Memory of
WABINOGESHIG, Maxie Isadore
ASSINEWAI, Fish, Eagle and Bear Clan, 49 years.
Max began his Spirit Journey Sunday, November 02, 2003 at his
favourite place, Perch Lake in Sheguiandah First Nation.
Beloved husband and best friend to Shauna (née
PITAWANAKWAT)
ASSINEWAI.
Loving father to Derek, Adrienne, Nicole, Brian and
Maggie. Proud grandfather of Cole and Eric. Dear son of Evelyn and
Jacob ASSINEWAI (predeceased) and Isabel and John
McGRAW of
Wikwemikong. Will be sadly missed by special in-laws (Walter
GONAWABI of Wikwemikong, Gail
JACOBS of Serpent River and Ken
BISSON
of M'Chigeeng). Dear brother to Steven, Wendy, Raymond, Josephine,
Julius (wife Mary), Thomas (predeceased), Jeanette (husband Darcy
PAQUET,)
Norman (wife
Frances) all of Wikwemikong. Son-in-law to
Malcom and Connie
PITAWANAKWAT of Wikwemikong. Cherished
brother-in-law to Rachel (Todd), Mark (Tanya), Lisa (Gord), Wendy,
Dawn, Walton, Ralphie (Wendy), Shannon, Raven, Alison and Tim
(predeceased). He is also survived by his many nieces and nephews and his
families of Birch Island, Rousseau River (Manitoba) and Red Lake (Minnesota).
Max's life path was guided by the culture and traditions of the
Anishinabek. He was Ogitch'dah, Eagle Staff Carrier, Pipe Carrier,
and respected spiritual healer. He will also be missed by his
traditional societies to which he belonged: Windigo, Big Drum,
Mide(win), Wiidehgokaan and Giiskaa.
His devotion to this people led him to be a political leader and advisor for
Sheguiandah First Nation, neighboring First Nations and the Metis Nation.
Max enjoyed hunting, gambling,
BINGO, cultural gatherings, pow-wows,
children, visiting, hockey and traveling extensively throughout Mother Earth.
Most of all, Max will be remembered for the time he took to share
with his sense of humour and for his willingness to always help others at anytime.
Wake Services was held at the Sheguiandah First Nation Community
Centre on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 at 1: 00 p.m. Funeral Services
will be celebrated on Friday, November 07, 2003 at 10: 00 a.m. at the
Sheguiandah First Nation Community Centre.
Interment at his residence, Feast to follow. Bourcier Funeral Home, Espanola.
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BISSONNETTE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-19 published
MYNARSKI's man
FRIDAY
Knocked unconscious, the young bomb aimer was saved when his
flight engineer pushed him out of their stricken Lancaster
By Tom HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, August
19, 2003 - Page R7
Victoria -- A Second World War bomb aimer who survived an ill-fated
mission during which his friend Andrew
MYNARSKI was later awarded
a posthumous Victoria Cross for trying the save a trapped fellow
crewman has died. Jack
FRIDAY, who spent his peacetime career
with Air Canada, died in Thunder Bay.
Mr. MYNARSKI's sacrifice awed a generation of children who learned
of it in their school readers. Mr.
FRIDAY was often asked to
recount what happened aboard his doomed Lancaster as it burned
over France. What many did not realize was that Mr.
FRIDAY only
learned the details of Mr.
MYNARSKI's heroism after the end of
the war.
On June 12, 1944, his Royal Canadian Air Force crew was assigned
to bomb the railroad marshalling yards at Cambrai. The mission
was similar to others in recent days, as No. 419 (Moose) Squadron
attacked German reinforcements being rushed forward to repel
Allied forces in Normandy.
Six days earlier, the crew had bombed coastal guns at Longues
in the early-morning hours before the invasion fleet landed on
D-Day. The Cambrai target -- their 13th mission -- was to be
attacked on in the early morning hours of June 13. Later, superstitious
survivors would speak of that coincidence as a missed omen.
Their Lancaster lifted off the runway at Middleton St. George
in Yorkshire at 9: 44 p.m. on June 12. After crossing the English
Channel, the bomber was coned -- caught in searchlights -- but
the pilot, Flying Officer Arthur DE
BREYNE, managed to manoeuvre
his craft out of the dreaded lights.
The reprieve did not last long.
Rear gunner Patrick
BROPHY, who sat in an isolated compartment
at the rear of the aircraft, spotted an enemy fighter below.
"Bogey astern! Six o'clock!" he shouted into the intercom, just
before a Junkers 88 attacked.
Mr. DE BREYNE threw the bomber into an evasive corkscrew. In
an instant, though, his plane was rocked by three explosions.
Both port engines were knocked out and the wing set afire. A
hydraulic line in the fuselage had also been severed and the
midsection of the plane was burning.
The pilot ordered the crew to evacuate as he struggled to prevent
the Lancaster from going into a dive. Mr.
FRIDAY's duty as bomb
aimer was to release the escape hatch. As he did so, the rushing
wind whipped the steel door open, striking him above the right
eye.
Flight engineer Roy
VIGARS was the first among the other crew
to clamber to the hatch.
"I made my way down to the bomb-aimer's position and found Jack
FRIDAY slumped on the floor, unconscious," Mr.
VIGARS told Bette
PAGE for her 1989 book, Mynarski's Lanc. "I rolled him over,
clipped on his parachute pack, and slid him over to the escape
hatch and dropped him through the opening while holding on to
the ripcord."
The act was risky, as the parachute could have wrapped around
the craft's tail wheel. Mr.
VIGARS saw that Mr.
FRIDAY's parachute
had opened clear of the bomber. He then jumped, followed by wireless
operator James
KELLY, navigator Robert
BODIE and the pilot, who
had recovered control of the bomber and set it on a gentle descent.
Unknown to those men, a terrible drama was being played out at
the rear of the flaming craft.
As Warrant Officer
MYNARSKI prepared to jump, he looked back
to see that Flying Officer Patrick
BROPHY was still at his rear-gunner's
position.
Mr. MYNARSKI, the mid-upper gunner, crawled through the burning
fuselage, his uniform and parachute catching fire. Mr.
BROPHY
was trapped in his seat and the men struggled desperately to
free him.
Finally, Mr.
BROPHY told Mr.
MYNARSKI to jump without him.
Mr. MYNARSKI crawled back through the fire, stood at the door,
saluted his doomed comrade, and leapt into the inky sky with
his uniform and parachute in flames.
Aboard the Lancaster, Mr.
BROPHY prepared for certain death.
Some miles away, Mr.
FRIDAY floated unconscious to earth by parachute,
landing near a chateau at Hedauville. A pair of farm workers
found him in a vineyard the next morning. He was taken to a local
doctor who feared reprisals for treating an Allied airman. The
injured man was turned over to the Germans.
Mr. FRIDAY finally regained consciousness on June 17, wakening
in a prison cell in Amiens. He feared he had lost his eye. A
fellow prisoner peeked beneath Mr.
FRIDAY's bandages and saw
that a flap of skin was blocking his vision. The wound had not
been stitched.
Mr. FRIDAY was reunited with Mr.
VIGARS as their captors prepared
to transport prisoners to Germany.
The pair were sent to an interrogation centre near Frankfurt,
before being transferred to Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau, outside
Breslau (now Wroclaw), in Silesia near Poland.
The men were separated again on January 18, 1945, as the Germans
marched prisoners out of the camp ahead of the advancing Soviet
army. The forced march was arduous. Many died of disease, exposure
and exhaustion. Mr.
FRIDAY survived by stealing frozen beets
and potatoes from farmer's fields. He would later remember the
only warm night of the march was spent in a barn, where he snuggled
overnight with a cow. Mr.
FRIDAY was at last liberated by the
Soviets in April.
He returned to England in May, where, as recounted in the 1992
book, The Evaders, he prepared a statement, the brevity of which
perfectly captured his sense of the dramatic events. "Took off
from Middleton St. George. Do not remember briefing or takeoff.
First thing I remember is coming to in a hospital in Amiens."
Only later did he learn what happened aboard the Lancaster. As
the bomber crashed, the port wing struck a tree, causing the
plane to veer violently to the left. The force freed Mr.
BROPHY
from his turret prison and he landed against a tree, far away
from the burning wreckage. He had survived.
Mr. MYNARSKI, the
son of Polish immigrants and a leather worker
in civilian life, was not as fortunate. He was found by the French,
but was so badly burned that he soon died from his injuries.
He was 27.
The other crewmen, including Mr.
BROPHY, evaded capture with
the assistance of French civilians.
John William
FRIDAY was the third son born to a pharmacist in
Port Arthur, Ontario, on December 21, 1921. He graduated from
Port Arthur Collegiate Institute before joining the Royal Canadian
Air Force in 1942. He was demobilized with the rank of flying
officer. He worked as an Air Canada passenger agent for 31 years
before retiring in 1985.
In 1988, he joined his former crew mates in ceremonies marking
the dedication of a restored Lancaster at the Canadian Warplane
Heritage Museum at Mount Hope, Ontario The aircraft, which was
refurbished in the colours and markings of the crew's plane,
has been designated the
MYNARSKI
Memorial
Lancaster.
MYNARSKI's
name also graces a string of three lakes in Manitoba, as well
as a park, a school and a civic ward in his hometown of Winnipeg.
Mr. FRIDAY died of cancer in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on June 22.
He leaves Shirley (née
BISSONNETTE,) his wife of 54 years, five
children and four younger sisters. He was predeceased by two
brothers.
Mr. BROPHY, whose life he tried to save, died at age 68 at St.
Catharines, Ontario, in 1991. According to the second edition
of MYNARSKI's Lanc, Mr.
VIGARS, who saved Mr.
FRIDAY's life,
died in 1989 at Guildford, England; Mr. DE
BREYNE died at St.
Lambert,
Quebec, in 1991; and, Mr.
BODIE died in Vancouver in
1994. Mr. FRIDAY's death leaves James
KELLY of Toronto as the
only survivor.
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