CLONEY
CLOSE
CLOUGH
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER
CLONEY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-18 published
Nova Scotia's marathon man
Cape Breton boy was Boston's most surprising victor
By Kevin COX
Wednesday,
June 18, 2003 - Page R5
Halifax -- Johnny
MILES was first the determined champion, then
the gentle grandfather of Canadian distance running.
His first major running prize was a sack of flour in North Sydney,
Nova Scotia, in 1922 -- he finished third in the three-mile race
but was first to sprint by the store. After four years of training
including sprints behind his grocery cart, the humble, unknown
20-year-old Cape Breton delivery boy and Sunday-school teacher
stunned the running world by defeating its best athletes to win
the prestigious Boston Marathon.
It was a win that Mr.
MILES and his father had calmly predicted
to a policeman and a race official the day before. But even Johnny
MILES had his doubts on that chilly April Monday as he pounded
along the 26.2-mile course on his 95-cent shoes from the Co-op
store in his hometown.
At the 22-mile mark, Mr.
MILES was running stride for stride
with leader and Finnish running legend Albin
STENROOS when he
looked over and saw a blank and exhausted expression on his rival's
face.
"I knew right there that I had him and I had to make a move,"
he recalled with the gleam of a fierce competitor in his eye
in an interview 54 years later. "He was rubbing his side and
he had a stitch, so I didn't look back. I speeded up and I think
that took the heart out of him."
He is still widely hailed among running raconteurs as the most
surprising victor in the 107-year history of the event. Mr.
MILES's
time -- then a world marathon record -- was so unbelievable that
race officials measured the Boston course -- and found it 176
yards short of the classic 26-mile, 385-yard distance.
"I don't know what all the fuss is about," he said in an interview
in 1995. "I had a God-given gift and I used it."
Mr. MILES, his father and his mother arrived in Boston by train
a few days before the marathon. The day before the race, father
and son walked the course, got lost and ended up asking a burly
Irish policeman for directions and received some advice that
was not exactly a vote of confidence.
"My son needs to know the route because he's entered in tomorrow's
race." The friendly officer smiled and said, "Tell your son to
just follow the crowd."
On race day, Mr.
MILES wore a red, homemade maple leaf on a white
undershirt. His performance shattered the 1924 record held by
the other race favourite, Clarence
DEMAR, the four-time winner
of the event.
"That boy ran the best marathon since that Indian [Canadian Tom
LONGBOAT] in 1907," a stunned Mr.
DEMAR was reported to have
said.
A year later, he again challenged the gruelling course but suffered
an embarrassing setback when he had to withdraw from the race
with serious burns to his feet. His dad had taken a pair of his
95-cent sneakers and shaved down the soles with a straight razor
so they wouldn't be so heavy. His feet -- tops and bottoms --
had bled.
It was a rare retreat. Mr.
MILES, who trained on rural Cape Breton
roads, dominated Canadian distance running through the late 1920s
and early 1930s. He captured the Boston crown again in 1929 and
won a bronze medal at the British Empire Games in 1931 and also
ran the marathon in the Olympic Games in 1928 and 1932.
Born in Halifax, England, on October 30, 1905, Mr.
MILES moved
with his family to Cape Breton the following year. He worked
as a grocery delivery boy at the time of his big win. But his
first job as a young teen was in the Cape Breton coal mines.
He went to work there to help support his family when his father
went off to fight in the First World War.
Mr. MILES left the mines a few years later and entered his first
contest -- a three-mile race in Sydney, Nova Scotia -- with the
hopes of winning some fishing supplies.
He is revered in his home province of Nova Scotia even though
he moved to Hamilton, Ontario, to train and take a job with International
Harvester in 1927.
After his victories, some parents even named newborn children
after the marathon hero. One of those babies, Johnny Miles
WILLISTON,
went on to become a driving force in establishing the Johnny
Miles Marathon in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.
The victories on the tracks and roads by a local boy who had
worked as a child coal miner at the age of 11 injected some joy
and hope into Cape Breton's coal-mining towns at a time when
the industry was going through tough times and work underground
was brutish and dangerous.
After he hung up his thin-soled racing shoes in 1932, Mr.
MILES
became an ambassador for fitness and clean living. He became
a manager at International Harvester and worked in many parts
of the world for the company after being told by a company executive
that he could make something of himself if he put the same effort
into his work that he exerted in running.
When running regained popularity in the 1970s, he was startled
to become a celebrity among the new set of competitors who recognized
his accomplishments. While Quebec runner Gérard
CÔTÉ would dominate
the Boston Marathon in the 1940s, winning it four times, Johnny
MILES's time of 2: 25:40 stood as the Canadian record for the
event until Jerome
DRAYTON ran 2: 14:46 in 1977.
He was taken aback in 1967 at being named to the Canadian Sports
Hall of Fame.
"That I should now be in the same illustrious company as the
great stars of hockey, football, track and field, and other Canadian
sports was a bit mind-boggling," he told author Floyd
WILLISTON
in the biography Johnny
MILES: Nova Scotia's Marathon King in
He was also caught off guard by being named to the Order of Canada
in 1983.
"It's not going to change my life -- same hat size and shirt
size," he told the New Glasgow Evening News.
Mr. MILES, who regularly attended races in the Hamilton area
as a spectator in the 1980s, wondered how well he might have
run with the technology offered to runners today.
"I think now I wouldn't eat steak before a race and I'd get these
cushioned shoes and I'd know how to train," he said in an interview
in New Glasgow at the marathon that was created and named after
him in 1975 and still bears his name.
Mr. MILES and his wife
Bess were fixtures at the Johnny Miles
Marathon, which took place this past Sunday shortly after his
death. Runners best remember him for his personal attention,
anecdotes, quiet kindness and his enthusiasm for the sport.
Jerome BRUHM, a long-time Halifax runner and historian, remembered
his first encounter with the running legend at the Johnny Miles
Marathon in 1981.
"He was there and I'm nobody -- I'm just a runner. He came over
and I said it was my first marathon and I was kind of nervous.
He took me aside and talked to me and he said, 'Do you think
you'll win the marathon'? Mr.
BRUHM recalled this week. "I
said, 'No, I'm a slow runner.' So, he said, 'Then go out there
and do that -- finish the race and enjoy it.' He came over to
me after the race and asked me how I did and how I felt. I thought
that was fantastic that he would talk to me before the race and
come over and check on me after the race."
He was a humble, personable man, Mr.
BRUHM said.
"When he was inducted into the Canadian Running Hall of Fame,
I went over to talk to him and he only wanted to talk about other
people, not about what he had done."
Nova Scotia Premier John
HAMM praised Mr.
MILES for bringing
international attention to his home province.
"We will always remember with pride his athletic accomplishments
at the Boston Marathon and numerous other competitions as well
as his success in business and accomplishments in life," the
Premier said Monday.
In 2001, Boston Marathon officials celebrated the 75th anniversary
of his startling 1926 win -- but at the age of 95, Mr.
MILES
said his health prevented him from attending the festivities.
However, he promised to try to attend the 75th anniversary of
his last Boston triumph.
Will CLONEY, long-time Boston Marathon official, had only praise
for Mr. MILES. "
There hasn't been a Johnny
MILES in Boston since
Johnny MILES."
Now there never will be.
Kevin COX is Atlantic correspondent of The Globe and Mail. He
has completed 50 marathons -- including the Johhny Miles Marathon
and the Boston Marathon.
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CLOSE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-26 published
CLOSE,
Mary
Mills
Donald
Died peacefully, in her 95th year, in Markham, Ontario, on Sunday,
March 23rd, 2003, the beloved wife of the late Edward Robinson
CLOSE.
She is greatly missed by her son Allan and his wife
Sandra,
her son Donald and his wife Clare, and daughter Johanna and her
husband Bert
SPENCER.
She is survived and missed by her adoring
grandchildren Erin and Grant
SPENCER,
Alexandrina
CLOSE and her
husband Ravo
LAINEVOOL,
Andrew
CLOSE and his companion Kristina
SMITH, Sarah
WRIGHT, Nathalie
GLEESON, Paula
HUDSON; and her
sister Alexandrina (Mrs. P. B. F.
SMITH) of Halifax. Mary was
the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Alexander
DONALD of Hamilton
and Burlington, sister of the late Mrs. W. E.
BOAKE
(Ivadell,)
the late Mrs. Paul
FARREN
(Jane,) and the late George E.
DONALD.
A family service will be conducted at the graveside, Woodland
Cemetery, Hamilton, Ontario on March 28th, 2003 at 2: 30 p.m.
As an expression of sympathy, donations to the Canadian charity
of your choice would be appreciated by the family.
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CLOUGH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-20 published
Died
This
Day -- Jack
CLOUGH, 1987
Thursday, February 20, 2003 - Page R9
Cleric born in Toronto in 1905, educated at Jarvis Collegiate
and Trinity College, University of Toronto; in 1932, ordained
as an Anglican priest; served churches in Toronto, Port Perry
and Brooklin, Ontario, and Winnipeg; in Second World War, joined
army; appointed padre of Queen's Own Rifles; on D-Day, June 6,
1944, tended wounded, ministered to the dying; unarmed, captured
33 Germans; in peace time, rose through church ranks to become
Archdeacon of Peterborough, Ontario
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CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER 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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CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-05 published
Quebec actress gave up international career
Canadian Press, Friday, December 5, 2003 - Page R15
Montreal -- Quebec actress Suzanne
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER, who developed an
international film and stage career, has died of liver cancer.
She was 76.
Born in Ottawa in 1927,
CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER's most famous role was as Desdemona,
opposite Orson Welles in Othello in 1952. A year later she starred
with British actor Peter
USTINOV in the play No Sign of the Dove.
The couple fell in love and married in 1954. They had three children
before divorcing in 1971.
Known as a wide-eyed beauty with flawless, chiselled features,
Ms. CLOUTIER/CLOUTHIER made her debut as a 19-year-old in the 1949 film
Temptation. She moved to the stage the following year for one
season in New York then joined the Jean Daste Comédie Française
Touring Company in Paris. She moved back to Quebec 15 years ago.
Parisian sculptor Igor
USTINOV said his mother showed courage
through her life and death. "The fact that she hid her illness
from us is added proof of her big heart," he said. "My mother
always wanted to protect us. She wanted to do it until the end."
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