"CAL" 2003 Obituary

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CALDARELLI o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-17 published
Gina CALDARELLI
By Christina CALDARELLI, Will LEMAY
Monday, March 17, 2003 - Page A16
Sister, lawyer, friend. Born July 27, 1972, in Sudbury, Ontario Died January 20, in Toronto, of a pulmonary embolism, aged 30.
Gina loved to bring Friends together, and she was usually the centre of the fun. It wasn't enough to celebrate her birthday for one day each year; Gina celebrated Birthday Fortnight, and was working her way up to Birthday Month. The festivities for Gina's 30th birthday culminated in a party she threw for herself and 70 of her closest Friends. Many of them squeezed into her home. The rest crowded onto a deck she had persuaded many of those same Friends to construct during an earlier "deck-building" party.
Gina grew up in Sudbury, where she enjoyed swimming, baseball, and music. She excelled in her classes without much effort, preferring to spend her boundless energy organizing high-school dances, giving her Friends fashion advice, and raising money for the school band. (After noticing a gap in the school concert band, she learned to play the bassoon so she could join them on their travels.)
During her undergraduate years at Queen's University, where she earned a commerce degree, Gina generally followed her mother's semi-serious rule that no one should ever have more than three drinks when socializing. However, Gina often used her own interpretation about the size of those drinks. (A picture of her taken in Austria shows Gina with a mug of beer only slightly smaller than her head.)
Gina continued travelling, enjoying herself and gathering Friends during her years at the University of Toronto law school, where she ran pubs for the students' law society and a legal assistance clinic for injured workers. At her first appeal before the Workplace Safety and Insurance Tribunal, Gina focused on the impact of an injury on a worker's life, rather than repeating the complicated medical/legal argument that hadn't worked for the client at the first hearing. When Gina showed videos of the worker both before and after the accident to the members of the tribunal, they found in her client's favour in less than five minutes. Gina's empathy, clear logic and her ability to bring clarity to complex legal issues served her well in her career as a lawyer, both in the General Motors legal department, and at Osler Hoskin and Harcourt.
Gina could make Friends with anyone, partly because she treated everyone with the same casual cheerfulness. As one friend put it, "She treated the janitor like the senior partner." Her conservative political views were the despair of many of her Friends, but they took pleasure in her company while strongly disagreeing with her. During one argument, a friend made a point; Gina just grinned and told him he had an astute command of the obvious and continued with her argument.
Gina could always make you laugh. She loved cheesy movies and knew all of the dialogue from Legally Blonde. She collected clothes and shoes and once asked a friend, with complete sincerity, how many pairs of shoes he typically bought in a week. She hated turkey and every year she named the (frozen) Christmas bird in an attempt to persuade her family to eat something else. ("Poor Hermina!") Despite Gina's easygoing ways, she took no guff from anyone. If she was teased in the school yard, she gave as good as she got. Decades later, a young man told her that no woman was as good at math as a man. "It's just a biological fact, " he assured her. We don't know exactly what Gina said to him, but several months later he still skulked behind pillars whenever he saw her.
When a family member died recently, Gina took some time for reflection. After much thought, she told us what she wanted us to put on her tombstone, if she should die before us: "Just say, 'Here lies G. She was a lot of fun.' " She was right.
Christina is Gina's sister; Will her friend.

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CALDER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-23 published
EZEARD, Muriel Mary (née RAVEN)
It is with great sadness that the family of Muriel EZEARD announces her passing on December 22, 2003. Muriel died peacefully at Christie Gardens in her 92nd year. She was the much beloved wife of the late George EZEARD and dear mother of Ken (Margot) and Dianne (Stephen HAIST.) ''Nana '' of Doug (Kim,) Debbie (Marc DOIRON) of Prince Edward Island; and Katherine, Susan and Evan HAIST of Toronto. Cherished great-grandmother of Jason, Janessa, Jacob, Jacayla, Julia and Caitlyn. Loved sister of Orma CALDER and Velma (Howie SMITH.) Friends may call at the Turner and Porter Yorke Chapel, 2357 Bloor Street West, at Windermere, east of the Jane subway, on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 from 10 a.m. until the time of service at 11 a.m. Interment Park Lawn Cemetery. If desired remembrances may be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation
''Muriel will be missed but forever loved and remembered''.

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CALDWELL o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-06-11 published
Genevieve Anne Dorothy McGREGOR
In loving memory of Zigos Genevieve Anne Dorothy McGREGOR who began her spiritual journey May 22, 2003 at Saint Peter's Health Care Centre, Hamilton, Ontario where she was met by her mother Julia RECOLLET McGREGOR and her father William McGREGOR Sr., and sisters Agnes, Helen, Florence, Barbara, Mary Louise, Marion, Susan and Veronica for their awaited reunion. Left to carry on her memory, love, kindness and generosity are her brothers Arthur and wife Violet, George, Murray Sr., and wife Marion McGREGOR all of Birch Island, her nephew Greg and his wife Linda McGREGOR of Barrie, and her best friend Betty CALDWELL of Hamilton. Also, survived by many nieces and nephews, grand nieces and nephews. Sadly missed by her relatives and Friends in Birch Island and her neighbours in Hamilton.
Visitation and wake service were held at the Whitefish River First Nation Community Centre. Funeral Mass was held at Saint Gabriel Lalemant on Monday May 26, 2003 with Reverend Michael STOGRE S.J. officiating. Interment in Birch Island Cemetery.

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CALDWELL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-04 published
Dorothy Della SCOTT
By Eugen BANNERMAN, Thursday, December 4, 2003 - Page A26
Mother, friend, practical joker. Born June 13, 1917. Died October 5, in Wingham, Ontario, of natural causes, aged 86.
Dorothy Scott's grandparents arrived with their family from England in 1876, and, several years later, rented a house and farm near Brussels, Ontario
It was a long journey by wagon over the rough, corduroy roads that wound through Huron County. They carried all their belongings with them. When they arrived, they found the house was still occupied, so the family had to make do in the barn's milking parlour. Dorothy's grandfather was a carpenter and boarded off one corner of the stable. Her grandmother scrubbed, whitewashed the walls and ceiling and tidied the place for her growing family, until the other family moved out.
Dorothy's grandmother was expecting, and it was here she gave birth to her fifth child (Dorothy's mother), and named her Thirza. Her grandfather took the newborn infant and wrapped her in a home-made blanket. He put clean straw in the cattle manger and laid her in it. "Just like the baby Jesus."
Dorothy told me this story on one of my first visits. I was the newly appointed United Church minister in Blyth, Ontario, and at 85, Dorothy was one of its oldest members. Old in years but not in spirit. Growing old should not keep us from laughing and having a good time, Dorothy often told me, for as soon as we stop laughing, we age rapidly. Dorothy's joie de vivre was spontaneous and infectious. Even when she was hooked up to plastic tubing supplying her with vital oxygen, the sparkle (and laughter) in her eyes was always present.
Dorothy Della SCOTT was born to Thirza (WALDEN) and John CALDWELL. She grew up on her parents' farm and on June 15, 1938, married Laurie SCOTT, also a farmer. She received a dining-room suite and a milk-cow as a wedding gift from her father. They had two children, Robert and Donald.
Dorothy SCOTT learned as a child to have fun and laugh. In spite of the hard work and deprivations of farm life, the years did not repress or smother her inner child. Often it burst forth in unexpected and unique ways.
Her worst prank, she told me, was when she was a nurse and decided to play a trick on a new orderly. She had the other nurses cover her with a sheet as she lay down on a trolley and "played dead." The new orderly was called and told to take the body to the morgue. She lay absolutely still until they were in the elevator. Then she sat up, and frightened the poor man, "really bad," as she said.
There was also a serious dimension to Dorothy's life. As a young mother, she almost died giving birth to her second son, Donald. But in the privacy of that moment, she had a near-death vision of Christ. "If this was death," [she] thought, "no one need be afraid."
Dorothy was unsentimental about many things but not her family. She concluded her memoirs, Dorothy's Memories (2002), by tracing her own happy life to a happy childhood and loving husband and family.
Shortly after my arrival in Blyth, Dorothy tested her new minister's tolerance for humour. She slipped a white envelope into my hand as I was saying goodbye to parishioners after worship. "Don't open it now. Give it to your wife and read it when you get home." It was the first of many jokes from the Internet that made us laugh with pleasure and anticipation.
We will miss Dorothy, her cheerful disposition, her countless stories, her white envelopes, and her cushion-seat in the third row of the sanctuary.
Eugen is Dorothy's friend and minister.

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CALE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-11 published
BREYFOGLE, Elizabeth ''Betty'' (née HOPWOOD)
Peacefully on March 5, 2003, at home in Victoria. Betty has gone to join her beloved husband, William A. BREYFOGLE, who died in Vermont in 1958. She is fondly remembered by her nieces and nephews, Peter and Jo BREYFOGLE, Joan and Derek BARTLETT, Christopher WILLIAMSON and their families. Many thanks go to her friend Joan MOODY and to Bruce CALE of Victoria for their Friendship and support.

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CALE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-13 published
RUSSELL, Kathleen▼ - Estate of
Notice To Creditors And Others
All▼ claims against the Estate of Kathleen RUSSELL, late of 602 Melita Crescent Toronto, Ontario, M5G 3B1, who died on or about August 5th, 2003, must be filed with the undersigned personal representative on or before the 30th day of January, 2004. Thereafter, the undersigned will distribute the assets of the Estate having regard only to the claims then filed.
Dated the 28th day of November, 2003.
Maralyn CALE, Executor▼
by McKechnie, Jurgeit and MacKenzie,
Solicitors, 655 Dizon Road, Rexdale,
Ontario, M9W 1J4
Page B6

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CALE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-20 published
RUSSELL, Kathleen▲▼ - Estate of
Notice To Creditors And Others
All▲▼ claims against the Estate of Kathleen RUSSELL, late of 602 Melita Crescent Toronto, Ontario, M5G 3B1, who died on or about August 5th, 2003, must be filed with the undersigned personal representative on or before the 30th day of January, 2004. Thereafter, the undersigned will distribute the assets of the Estate having regard only to the claims then filed.
Dated the 28th day of November, 2003.
Maralyn CALE, Executor▲▼
by McKechnie, Jurgeit and MacKenzie,
Solicitors, 655 Dizon Road, Rexdale,
Ontario, M9W 1J4
Page B5

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CALE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-27 published
RUSSELL, Kathleen▲ - Estate of
Notice To Creditors And Others
All▲ claims against the Estate of Kathleen RUSSELL, late of 602 Melita Crescent Toronto, Ontario, M5G 3B1, who died on or about August 5th, 2003, must be filed with the undersigned personal representative on or before the 30th day of January, 2004. Thereafter, the undersigned will distribute the assets of the Estate having regard only to the claims then filed.
Dated the 28th day of November, 2003.
Maralyn CALE, Executor▲
by McKechnie, Jurgeit and MacKenzie,
Solicitors, 655 Dizon Road, Rexdale,
Ontario, M9W 1J4
Page B5

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CALLAGHAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-04-22 published
He founded Readers' Club of Canada
Nationalist visionary struggled financially to publish Canadian writers
By Carol COOPER Special to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - Page R7
In the early 1960s, when writers asked Peter and Carol MARTIN where to publish their manuscripts on Canada, the couple realized how few choices there were. Inspired, the Martins, both voracious readers, staunch nationalists and founders of the Readers' Club of Canada, decided to start their own press. In 1965, Peter Martin Associates came into being. Last month, Peter MARTIN died of lung cancer in Ottawa.
In an industry overshadowed by American companies, Peter MARTIN Associates was among the first in a wave of independent publishing houses to open during a time of rising Canadian nationalism.
Launched in a downtown Toronto basement on a shoestring budget, skeleton staff, idealism and enthusiasm, the company flew by the seat of its pants. Its employees were often young and new to the business. But many, including Peter CARVER, Michael SOLOMON and Valerie WYATT, went on to become Canadian mainstays.
"It really was a time of Canadian nationalism and those of us who believed in that cause could see what Peter and Carol were doing," said Ms. WYATT, a children's editor who spent four years with the company in the seventies.
During the 16 years before its sale in 1981, Peter Martin Associates published approximately 170 works, mainly non-fiction. Its presses put out I, Nuligak, the autobiography of an Inuit man; The Boyd Gang by Marjorie LAMB and Barry PEARSON; Trapping is My Life by John TETSO; and the Handbook of Canadian Film by Eleanor BEATTIE. Others who came through their doors included Hugh HOOD, Robert FULFORD, John Robert COLOMBO, Douglas FETHERLING and Mary Alice DOWNIE -- all to have their works published.
Started with small amounts of seed money from private investors and no government funding, Peter Martin Associates constantly struggled financially. At one point, for a bit of extra cash, the office became the designated nuclear-fallout shelter for the street. Pat DACEY, once the firm's book designer, lugged suitcases of books up the street to sell at Britnell's bookstore with summer employee Bronwyn DRAINIE.
Working at Peter Martin Associates was always fun, Ms. WYATT said. "You went in to work happy and you stayed happy all day."
Still, in a time when Canadian works received little recognition, she remembers finding it difficult to get media interviews for the author of Martin-published book.
Yet another title caused trouble with its subject. The company was putting out a collection of previously published sayings of former prime minister John DIEFENBAKER, called I Never Say Anything Provocative, edited by Margaret WENTE. Mr. DIEFENBAKER heard about the project, called Mr. MARTIN and threatened to sue. Mr. MARTIN stood firm.
"He handled it with such élan," said writer Tim WYNNE- JONES, then in the art department. "He was suitably dutiful, but not in awe. Mr. DIEFENBAKER was just over the top, as was his wont."
The book went to press and Mr. DIEFENBAKER did not go to court.
Once listed along with Peter GZOWSKI in a Maclean's magazine article on "Young Men to Watch," Mr. MARTIN was born on April 26, 1934 in Ottawa to a dentist father and a mother who drove an ambulance in the First World War. The younger of two sons, he attended Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario and the University of Toronto, where he earned a degree in philosophy.
During a year in Ottawa as the president of the National Federation of University Students, Mr. MARTIN met his first wife Carol. They married in 1956 and moved to Toronto. Three years later, they founded the Readers' Club in Featuring one Canadian book a month, it distributed works by Mordecai RICHLER, Irving LAYTON, Morley CALLAGHAN and Brian MOORE among others, and supplied its members with coupons. While continuing to run the Readers' Club (sold in 1978 to Saturday Night Magazine and closed in 1981), the MARTINs started Peter Martin Associates.
Throughout his career, Mr. MARTIN spoke out for Canadian publishing. Alarmed by the sale of Ryerson Press and Gage Educational Press in 1970 to American firms, he called a meeting of publishers to discuss problems in the industry. Named the Independent Publishers Association, the group started in 1971 with 16 members and with Mr. MARTIN as its first president. In 1976, it was renamed the Association of Canadian Publishers and continues today with 140 members. As a result of the group's efforts, Canadian publishing began to receive federal and provincial funding.
In the late 1970s, the MARTINs went their separate ways. Afterward, Mr. MARTIN published a small newspaper, The Downtowner, and owned a cookbook store with his second wife, Maggie NIEMI. In 1983, they moved near Sudbury, Ontario, where Mr. MARTIN did freelance book and theatre reviews, then moved to Ottawa in 1985 to work as president for Balmuir Books, publisher of the magazine International Perspectives and consulting editor for the University of Ottawa Press.
After a spinal-cord injury in 1997, Mr. MARTIN was left a quadriplegic, except for limited use of his left arm. Even so, he remained active, maintained a heavy e-mail correspondence and spent time in the park reading while seated in a bright-yellow wheelchair.
Mr. MARTIN leaves his children Pamela, Christopher and Jeremy and his wife Maggie NIEMI. He died on March 15.

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CALLOWAY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-13 published
Gordon Kenneth FLEMING/FLEMMING
By Jack FORTIN Thursday, February 13, 2003, Page A30
Musician, husband, father. Born August 3, 1931, in Winnipeg. Died August 31, 2002, in Scarborough, Ontario, following a stroke, aged 71.
Gordie FLEMING/FLEMMING was a remarkable music talent, known internationally as a master of the accordion, especially in the jazz idiom. He was a life member of Local 149 of the Toronto Musicians' Association.
In show-business vernacular, Gordie was "born in a trunk." He began playing accordion when his older brother gave him lessons. His musical ability was such that he began performing publicly at the age of five. His schoolteachers often saw him being whisked away in a taxi to perform at theatres and radio stations in Winnipeg. By the age of 10, he was a working member of various bands in that city.
In 1949, Gordie lost his accordion in a fire at a Winnipeg hotel. With the insurance money, he headed for the bright lights of Montreal where he soon became an important part of that city's musical life. His accordion ability was complemented by the fact that he was also a gifted arranger and composer.
He had a marvellous ability to improvise and could string out complex bebop lines, leaving his listeners in awe. He often slipped a jazz phrase into ballads or commercial tunes, confirming that jazz was indeed his first love.
One of Montreal's busiest musicians, he wrote for local orchestras, shows, radio and television. He had perfect pitch and often wrote without reference to a keyboard. He was at home in every type of music from classics to jazz. For several years, he worked at the National Film Board as a composer and musician.
In Montreal, Gordie performed with many show business headliners: there was a wealth of home-grown talent in Montreal, such as Oscar PETERSON and Maynard FERGUSON, as well as other jazz musicians who were beginning to be noticed.
Gordie had said that when when he first heard bebop it was like entering another world. As his career indicates, he had no trouble in that world. He worked with many personalities including: Charlie PARKER, Mel TORMÉ, Hank SNOW, Lena HORNE, Englebert HUMPERDINCK, Dennis DAY, Gordon MacRAE, Cab CALLOWAY, Nat King COLE, Cat STEVENS, Rich LITTLE, Billy ECKSTEIN, Pee Wee HUNT, Arthur GODFREY and Buddy DEFRANCO.
He also performed with Tommy AMBROSE, Allan MILLS, Wally KOSTER, Tommy HUNTER, Bert NIOSI, Wayne and Shuster, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation jazz shows with Al BACULIS, and many other Canadian jazz musicians.
On Montreal's French music scene, Gordie performed on radio and television with Emile GENEST, Ti-Jean CARIGNAN, André GAGNON and Ginette RENO. He was a featured soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra on several occasions.
Internationally, Gordie toured France in 1952 and performed with Edith PIAF and Tino ROSSI. He had the honour to perform for former prime minister Pierre Elliot TRUDEAU at a Commonwealth Conference.
He participated with other top Canadian musicians in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tour to entertain Canadian and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Europe in 1952 and 1968.
For me, a memorable experience was playing in a group with Gordie for several winters in Florida. A popular member of the Panama City Beach family of musicians, Gordie looked forward to his winter trek south. Many of the American musicians will miss him, as will the many snowbirds who looked forward to hearing him each year.
His extensive repertoire allowed Gordie to author a book called Music of the World, in which he wrote the music to 280 songs from more than 30 countries.
Gordie leaves his wife of 47 years, Joanne, and seven children.
Jack FORTIN is Gordie's friend.

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CALLWOOD o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-12 published
Moms always liked him best
The Happy Gang's popular lead singer had a good reason for saying hello to his mom whenever the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio classic was on air
By James McCREADY Special to The Globe and Mail Saturday, July 12, 2003 - Page F10
The double knock on the door occurred every afternoon at 1.
"Who's there?"
"It's the Happy Gang."
"Well, come on in!"
Then Eddie ALLEN, Bert PEARL, Bobby GIMBY and the rest of the cast of Canada's most popular radio program would break into "Keep happy with the Happy Gang."
Mr. ALLAN, the show's main singer, accordion player and sometimes emcee, died last week, leaving Robert FARNON as the gang's sole surviving member.
Every day as many as two million Canadians tuned in The Happy Gang, which led the national ratings for most of its run on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1937 to 1959. Until television came along in 1952, Mr. ALLEN and his cast mates were among the most famous people in the country.
The show was the creation of Mr. PEARL, who'd come to Toronto from Winnipeg (his real name was Bert SHAPIRA) to study medicine. To pay for his education, he started playing piano on radio with a band that included violinist Blain MATHE, organist Kay STOKES and Mr. FARNON, a trumpet player who would go on to be the most successful of them all.
The band morphed into the Happy Gang and Mr. PEARL was the driving force behind it. Eddie ALLEN was hired as the fifth member of the troupe and stayed with the program until it went off the air.
He was born Edward George ALLEN on December 24, 1920, in Toronto, and came from a family of musicians. His father, Bill ALLEN, played the trombone and was in a military band in France during the First World War. When Eddie was 10, his father asked him what instrument he wanted to play. The boy thought about it for a while and made up his mind after seeing a huge piano accordion in a music-store window.
"It was bigger than I was," Mr. ALLEN remembered, "but dad bought it anyway."
In a couple of years, he was entertaining at small events with his accordion, making $5 or $10 a week. Better than a paper route. He also won some local singing contests. When he was 17, he started singing and playing three nights a week on a radio program called The Serenader. Bert PEARL heard it and called him in.
"I auditioned him with Bert PEARL, and we liked him right away," Mr. FARNON says from his home on Guernsey in the Channel Islands. "He looked about 12 years old and could barely see over the top of his accordion. He was terribly shy, no self-confidence like the rest of us. He was very popular with the ladies, a very good-looking little chap."
What impressed most was his voice. "There really wasn't a singer in the Happy Gang until he came along. I really liked his voice."
Mr. FARNON remembers an incident from a Happy Gang rehearsal. "Eddie was about to sing a song called, I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, and I came up behind him and said, 'If you bring the gasoline.' He laughed so much he couldn't sing it when we went on the air."
The Happy Gang was old Canada, when the country was more rural and white skinned. It is impossible to imagine the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation mounting something so corny and wholesome. How corny was it? The host, Mr. PEARL, was known as "that slap-happy chappy, the Happy Gang's own pappy."
He also knew that sentiment sold. Mr. ALLEN would sing The Lord's Prayer on the program, two or three times a year, such as Good Friday, and during the war he sang it as an inspiration for mothers and their boys overseas.
By that time, the show's "appeal was enormous," wrote Ross MacLEAN, the late Canadian Broadcasting Corporation producer and media critic who began listening as a child. "During the war years... its influence on the nation was profound. Its almost daily performance of There'll Always Be An England helped maintain home-front resolve and stirred at least this school kid into a frenzy of tinfoil collection, war certificate sales and the knitting of various items for the navy."
Among the cast, Mr. ALLEN was the kid. He was slight, about 5-foot-6, and looked as though he were too young to shave. A newspaper reported that while he was on his honeymoon in 1942, a hotel clerk in Hamilton didn't believe he was old enough to be married and refused to rent him a room. Even some of his fans were quoted by writer Trent FRAYNE as saying, "Oh my goodness, don't tell me that little boy's married."
On air, he always sang old-fashioned ballads. "Every mother would love the stuff he sang," said Lyman POTTS, a retired broadcaster who crossed paths with some of the gang. He recalled that one of the songs Mr. ALLEN performed on a Happy Gang recording was I'm a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch. It was popular on the program, maybe because it was the perfect example of the Happy Gang's sort of cornball humour.
Another example is the line Mr. ALLEN used almost every day in the early years of the program. Mr. PEARL had told him not to let fame go to his head -- "Don't ever get the idea that you're too big to say hello to your mother." So, for his first six years, Mr. ALLEN's opening words were "Hello mom."
During the war, they dropped the shtick for fear of hurting the feelings of mothers with sons in uniform. It sparked a letter-writing campaign. "Don't let Eddie stop saying 'Hello mom,' " Liberty Magazine reported in May, 1945. "He reminds me of my own boy overseas. I wonder if he could think of all of us mothers when he says hello."
Over the years, the show appeared 195 times, always live (tape had yet to come into use when it began), in the course of an annual 39-week season, most of the time with the same cast. Its time slot was moved when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation began running a 1 p.m. newscast, but the shift to 1: 15 EST didn't hurt the ratings. At first, it was produced in a studio on Davenport Road in Toronto and later in front of an audience of 700 to 800 on McGill Street near College and Yonge.
The program's mainstay was not talk or jokes but music, and the signature double knock on the door was an old-fashioned radio sound effect provided by Blain MATHE, who would move up to the mike and rap twice on the back of his violin.
Working together so closely did create some personality conflicts. There were practical jokes, usually aimed at the most uptight cast member: Mr. PEARL, a control freak who loved to plan the program in detail and had his own small office at the McGill Street studio.
One day, Mr. ALLEN and the other Happy Gang members set all the clocks forward by a few minutes. "We're late," they announced to Mr. PEARL, who raced into studio. After the opening, a couple of performers started to whine: "I don't want to do this."
Thinking they were actually on air, Mr. PEARL was shocked -- and didn't feel much better when he learned it was all a joke. It might have been one of the reasons he suffered a nervous breakdown (called "nervous exhaustion" for public consumption) and left the show in 1950 after 18 years and moved to the United States.
Eddie ALLEN took his place as emcee, but the incident rated an article in Maclean's by June CALLWOOD, the country's top magazine writer at the time, entitled: The Not So Happy Gang.
By then Mr. FARNON was long gone. During the war, he had joined the Canadian Army Show's band, and later led the Canadian band with the Allied Expeditionary Force, just as Glen MILLER led its U.S. ensemble. After the war he became a top arranger, working on Frank Sinatra albums and scores for such movies as Horatio Hornblower starring Gregory Peck.
Sinatra, however, was a little too flash for Eddie ALLEN, who preferred Bing Crosby. He was a sharp dresser, but his style was understated, almost always a conservative suit and muted shirt in a business where the shirt easily could have been orange.
His love of clothes gave him something to do when he left show business. Eddie ALLEN owned a men's clothing store in the west end of Toronto after he left the program. He later retired and moved to London, Ontario

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CALLWOOD o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-22 published
J. Helen CARSCALLEN
By Margaret NORQUAY Friday, August 22, 2003 - Page A18
Social worker, professor, broadcaster, actress. Born January 12, 1916, in Chengtu, China. Died May 28, in Toronto, of natural causes, aged 87.
Helen CARSCALLEN (the J stood for Jane) was born of missionary parents in China, and came to Canada with her family when she was 10. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1938 with a B.A. in the newly established program in sociology. Graduating during the war, her early jobs included work as a social worker with the Big Sisters Association, an agency that worked with disadvantaged young girls, and three years directing recreation for the employees of a large munitions factory, most of whom were women. At the age of 30, she decided she would change her career about every 10 years -- and managed to do it. In 1945, she went to Toronto Children's Aid, where her work in public relations engendered an interest in mass media.
In 1956 she joined the public affairs department of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her previous work experience had led to a deep interest in the quality of women's lives and in 1962 she became senior program organizer for Take Thirty, a daily afternoon television show aimed at middle class, stay-at-home women. It was not a program filled with food, fashion and household décor, but one that gave women something for the mind and alerted them to issues of social concern. A weekly discussion called Fighting Words presented a debate then raging about the need to change federal divorce laws. A much admired series, Under One Roof, looked at the whole family life cycle from courtship to empty nest; for this Helen recruited emerging author June CALLWOOD to research and write several programs. Another series, unique for its time, took Helen to Japan to bring back insights from a culture then unfamiliar to most Canadians. Adrienne CLARKSON, co-opted initially to review Canadian novels, became a host of the show. Convinced women's lives were worthy of examination, Helen organized a national conference sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called the Real World of Women -- the first of its kind in Canada. In 1966, at 49, Helen left broadcasting to pursue graduate studies in sociology, her dissertation focusing on the political machinations leading to the cancellation of This Hour Has Seven Days. Helen then became a professor at Ryerson University, teaching courses in communication. After 10 years there, it was time for another change: this time to become an actor.
Throughout each of her careers Helen maintained a passionate interest in theatre, acting in amateur groups and taking courses in acting and voice from George Luscombe, Dora Mavor Moore and others. She toured with the New Play Society and worked with Alumnae Theatre as actor, stage manager and producer. At 62, she auditioned for Robin Philips and played the nurse in the Stratford Festival's Uncle Vanya, which starred William Hutt, Martha Henry and Brian Bedford. She then moved to television and film, playing a variety of dramatic roles. At 81, she wrote that now -- visually impaired and no longer able to read scripts her ambition was to teach a series of seminars on multiple careers for women. Illness unfortunately prevented her reaching this goal.
Helen had a great capacity for Friendship. At a recent celebration of her life, colleagues, Friends and family spoke of the debt they owed her for the vision she gave them of their own unique abilities. Nieces, nephews and some grand-nieces spoke movingly about what a wonderful aunt she was -- how she never talked down, always treated them as adults, wanting to know what they were up to. Former colleagues talked about how Helen launched them in their careers, persuading them to believe in themselves and providing ongoing support. Helen gave something of herself to each of us and we were all enriched.
Margaret is a friend of Helen.

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CALVERT o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-19 published
LEWIS, Paul
Paul Lewis, age 90, died suddenly on Saturday, August 16, 2003 in Pembroke, Ontario. Beloved husband of Sarah Boone LEWIS (nee SMITH) and devoted father to Christine LEWIS (Gary CHANG;) Marion LEWIS (Billie BROCK;) Alan LEWIS (Kerry CALVERT.) Grandfather to Georgia BARKER, Robert CHANG and Ray LEWIS. Predeceased by sister Mary THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON. Brother-in-law to Davis (Catherine) SMITH of Sarnia Ontario; uncle to Ian THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON, the late Scott SMITH, and Grant, Sally Ross SMITH and Price SMITH. Paul was born in Toronto to Marion and Thomas LEWIS. He lived a full and varied life working as a chemical engineer on three continents. Raising his family in Deep River, Ontario, he retired from the Atomic Energy of Canada to Beachburg, Ontario where he continued his interest in gardening and his love of nature. A reception to celebrate his life for family and Friends will be held at Supples Landing Retirement Home in Pembroke on Friday August 22 at 2: 00. In lieu of flowers, a donation to your favourite charity would be appreciated.

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