DES
DESCHNER
DESHAW
DESMARAIS
DESPRES
DES o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-05-02 published
Died This Day -- Adam
DOLLARD
DES
ORMEAUX, 1660
Friday, May 2, 2003 - Page R11
French soldier born in 1635; arrived in New France around 1658,
during period of war with Iroquois; served as commander of Ville-Marie
(new Montreal); in late April, 1660, led party of 16 other soldiers,
40 Hurons and four Algonquins on raiding party; ran into strong
force of Iroquois near present-day Hawkesbury, Ontario; held
out for week in abandoned fort until overrun and killed; regarded
as saviour of New France for staving off Iroquois campaign to
take Montreal.
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DESCHNER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-23 published
COLLINS, Joyce Amanda (formerly
WHITING, née
JOHNSON)
Died October 21, 2003 at St. Joseph's Villa, Dundas in her 83rd
year. She was born on February 1, 1921 in Maidstone, Saskatchewan
to Frank and Amanda
JOHNSON, the youngest of 6 children. She
is predeceased by her brothers Fred and Enos, sisters Ruth, Elma
and Hilda. Joyce is also predeceased by her first husband Frank
WHITING. Survived by her husband William and her sons Robert
WHITING (Lan Wei), Kenneth
WHITING (Jane), Douglas
WHITING (Darlene)
and daughters Margaret (Fraser
FLETCHER,)
Susan
WHITING (Alan
DESCHNER) and step-daughter Patti (Randy
SKINNER.)
Also survived
by 11 grandchildren and a great-grand_son. Special thanks to Bonnie
Bon for her special care and love during the past few years.
Joyce was a graduate from the College of Household Sciences (1941),
University of Saskatchewan and practiced as a hospital dietitian
in Ottawa and Fredericton. Cremation. A Celebration of Joyce's
Life will be held on Saturday, October 25 at Binkley United Church,
1570 Main Street West, Hamilton at 2 o'clock. Private inurnment
White Chapel Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, donations
may be sent to Joyce Collins Bursary c/o University of Saskatchewan,
Sasktoon S7N 5C9.
catteleatonandchambers.ca
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DESHAW o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-30 published
Eleanor
Ann
Veeder
SEGEL
By Rose DESHAW,
Monday,
June 30, 2003 - Page A18
Quaker, Raging Granny, canoeist, choral singer. Born May 29,
1933, In Rochester, New York Died February 20 in Kingston, Ontario,
of cancer, aged 69.
A national women's march against poverty, called Bread and Roses,
was winding its way from the West Coast and would spend a day
in Kingston, Ontario, in 1996. Some older women from various
city choirs had decided to form a gaggle of Raging Grannies to
officially greet the marchers. "Who else would be interested?"
someone asked.
"There's this Quaker who writes really good letters to the editor,"
an organizer said. "And she sings." I was commissioned to phone
Elly SEGEL.
"I'd rather like that," a husky, musical voice agreed when I
called to introduce the granny gaggle idea: scolding misbehaving
politicians with random hits of raucous public verse. At that
time, none of us knew much about the movement other than you
wrote your own songs, most of which made fun of the governmental
power-mad and their self-serving politics. When we started song
writing, Elly stood for fairness. "We can't call them 'liars,'"
she said. "A politician might be a misguided stinker but that
doesn't mean he isn't sincere."
Born in Rochester, New York where her father was a psychiatrist,
Elly was on her high-school cheerleading squad and went on to
take a master's degree from Harvard, after having spent a year
at St. Andrew's University in Scotland. With her husband, Stan,
she emigrated to Canada with their three children and became
a citizen during the 1960s. In 1974, when the Segels separated,
Elly took her master's degree in social work at Carleton University
and began work as a rehabilitative social worker.
In a recent granny gig on that campus, accompanied by kazoos,
Elly's trained voice harmonized on the Pink Ghetto number for
pay equity. "I had such a good time as a student here," she said.
Good times naturally associated themselves with her.
Forced to retire at 65, Elly rented a farmhouse on the Napanee
River, continuing the travelling ways that demonstrated what
flat-out committed living was all about. At this point she seemed
to have been spot-welded to a canoe. Not for her stale regrets
of missing backpacking through Europe, scrambling up New Zealand
mountains, or paddling Algonquin Park. If it was an adventure,
Elly was up for it. In the late 1970's, with no sailing experience,
navigational gear or radio, she helped crew a very small, leaky
sailboat across one of the largest stretches of open water in
the world, from Hawaii to Alaska.
She was a slightly built woman with a sense of humour the size
of a large forest and a laugh like the wind in its branches.
Her social work approach was as a friend sharing advice painfully
scraped from the granite surface of tenacious living. Perhaps
her Quaker belief in the value of silence made it possible for
her to hear so clearly what you meant to say. Serving on the
executive of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, and other
national committees, Elly never neglected her local Thousand
Islands meeting.
Diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer and given six months, she
filled the following four years with Friends and music. Coughing
more as the cancer advanced, Elly phoned shortly before her death
to ask if it seemed fair to go on singing with the Melos choir,
given her cough? Justice again. Anyone who ever sang with her
knew she was needed. A nervous first-timer standing next to her
at the Sing-Along-Messiah remembered Elly quietly tracing the
alto part with her finger, without being asked.
Attending services in Elly's memory were gourmet cooks, actors,
musicians, composers, artists, canoeists, writers, dancers, teachers,
scientists, scholars, activists -- all telling stories of this
comet who had streaked through our lives.
Rose "grannied" with friend Elly.
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DESHAW o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-26 published
Nicole BERUBE
By Rose DESHAW
Tuesday,
August 26, 2003 - Page A22
Writer, editor, photographer, French teacher. Born June 4, 1949,
in Gaspé, Quebec Died June 17 in Kingston, Ontario, of cancer,
age 54.
'They said I was Dead!" Nicole told me several years ago, outraged
that a local paper had reported as "posthumous" her receipt of
a special medal for outstanding volunteer work. This meant that
she was not invited to the award ceremony. She phoned the paper
after receiving several frantic messages from Friends but they
declined to put in, as she phrased it, "an oopsie."
An editor herself for many years of the biweekly L'Informel,
serving the French community in Kingston, Ontario, her vision
for the paper grew daily. Wanting it completely professional,
Nicole taught herself the most up-to-date graphics programs,
acquired a scanner and digital camera, upgraded her photographic
skills to artist level -- and put it all into the paper. She
fought for a bigger budget that could cover an outside print
run, and more pages in order to profile the work of French schoolchildren
whom she saw as the future of the community.
Eighteen-hour days were common. Nicole never had enough time
for all the travel, Friends, projects and writing she had planned.
She co-authored, with her friend Viv
EDWARDS in England, a bilingual
children's book series, including the title Who Stole Granny?
She promoted their work whenever there was opportunity. She also
gave workshops as a teaching professional when she wasn't hard
at work in the language department of the Royal Military College.
The success of her young officer cadets was everything to her
she was always pushing and cajoling them, inviting them over
for extra sessions at her cosy little duplex that she'd decorated
with posters and ornaments from her travels.
She mined popular culture for material that might make speaking
the language irresistible to her students; dating behaviour,
strange local customs, sports cars, food, until she became a
walking encyclopedia of odd facts in French that might tempt
a hitherto unresponsive cadet to try a little harder. How she
suffered as they struggled. The week of their oral exams by phone
was migraine time for her. "I have no other way to teach but
involved," she said once.
Although usually colourfully dressed in an array of saucy T-shirts
and a denim jacket that matched her big blue eyes, Nicole could
dress in the manner of the Queen (minus the hat) when it was
required. Living on her own as a single woman with a cat, she
lavished attention on her nephew and niece, children of her younger
sister and only living sibling out of four children.
She travelled back and forth on holidays to the small Quebec
town of Gaspé where she had grown up, where her family had been
clockmakers and jewellers for generations. Sent for her public
education to the sisters at the convent, Nicole had a lonely
childhood. It wasn't until enrolment at Laval University in Quebec
City that she came into her own. Taking part in the student protests
that followed the October Crisis, she told me once about hobbling
away because she had lost a shoe as the police bore down on them.
But by the time she reached Royal Military College, she had achieved
the highest security clearance, no longer a radical (if indeed
she had ever been) but a teacher whose first love was the young
faces in her classes.
One of her delights was a cadet from Bosnia, struggling to learn
both English and French at the same time. "She has a bright future,"
Nicole said in May, after the cadet had taken her out to dinner
in gratitude for all the help and encouragement that had enabled
her to successfully complete her exams. Nicole did not know that
her own future was near its end. On June 10, she went into the
hospital for routine tests and died unexpectedly from colon cancer
seven days later.
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DESMARAIS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-07-14 published
Philanthropist extraordinaire
Francophone students were among the many beneficiaries of her
generosity
By Randy RAY
Special to The Globe and Mail Monday, July 14, 2003
- Page R7
Ottawa -- Before he died in February, 1993, millionaire Baxter
RICARD urged his wife
Alma to spend the couple's fortune wisely.
''Put it back into the community, " he told her. ''Spend it well.''
Mrs. RICARD did not let her husband down.
In the 10 years following the death of Mr.
RICARD, who owned
a chain of radio, television and cable stations in Northern Ontario,
she earned a reputation as one of Canada's most generous philanthropists,
highlighted by a $23-million donation in 1998 to a fellowship
fund that promotes higher education to francophone students across
the country.
Mrs. RICARD, who was born in Montreal on October 4, 1906, died
at her home in Sudbury on June 2. She was 96.
To date, the Ottawa-based Fondation Baxter and Alma Ricard has
given 81 students a total of $4.2-million to further their postsecondary
education. Other beneficiaries of the couple's generosity have
included colleges, hospitals, church groups and universities
in Sudbury and Toronto.
''Mrs. RICARD is one of the biggest philanthropists in Canada,"
said Alain
LANDRY, executive director of the foundation, which
was formed in 1988 to distribute the
RICARDs' money to various
charitable causes. The fellowship fund was set up a decade later.
Mrs. RICARD, formerly Alma
VÉZINA, moved to Sudbury in 1931 after
responding to a job advertisement from a hardware store run by
Félix RICARD, father of Baxter
RICARD.
She was trained as a secretary
at the time.
''She took the train and arrived at 4 a.m.," says Mr.
LANDRY.
''In those days, a young lady was not to be seen with a man going
to a hotel, so she and Baxter went to a church where they sat
until daylight, and she fell in love with him.'' She worked as
an administrative assistant to the elder Mr.
RICARD and eventually
married Baxter, who in later years inherited his father's hardware
store and ran it with the help of his wife.
In 1947, the
RICARDs left the hardware business and began building
a broadcasting empire in Northern Ontario, starting with two
radio stations in Sudbury and growing to include numerous radio
and television stations. Radio stations established by the couple
included CHNO, the first bilingual radio station in Ontario,
CFBR and
CJMX-FM.
In 1974, when cable television started to expand, Baxter
RICARD
and some colleagues obtained a licence for cable distribution
in northern and eastern Ontario and created Northern Cable Holdings
Ltd., which served the greater Sudbury area and areas as far
north as Hearst, Ontario In 1980, the company acquired two television
stations to serve the same areas and gave it the name Mid-Canada
Television. Mr.
RICARD also had an interest in a Toronto cable-television
company.
Alma RICARD was her husband's ''right-hand person" and took an
active part in the broadcasting business and all other ventures
he was involved in, including the city-planning committee in
Sudbury, the board of directors at Sudbury General Hospital and
the Central Canada Broadcasting Association. ''They were inseparable
in all those activities," says Mr.
LANDRY.
Like Felix
RICARD,
Baxter and Alma
RICARD were strong believers
in a Canadian mosaic that included French-speaking citizens.
In an era when Ontario's francophones were not permitted to study
in French, Felix
RICARD didn't have the financial means to promote
the francophone culture and lobby for French schooling, so he
became an outspoken trustee on the local school board.
As a trustee, he was ''a defender of the rights of francophones
in matters of French education... [who] made significant gains
for the francophone population of that region. A school in Sudbury
bears his name," says a document obtained from Fondation Baxter
& Alma Ricard. Baxter and Alma
RICARD, on the other hand, made
millions in the broadcasting industry and had the financial wherewithal
to further the francophone cause, including the struggle for
a quality education for French-speaking Ontarians.
''Baxter had no family and the couple had no children so they
had to think of who would inherit their money," says André
LACROIX
of Sudbury, a lawyer, business associate and long-time friend
of the RICARDs. ''Fairly early in the game they realized most
of their assets should be used for charitable purposes. That's
when they developed the idea of a charitable foundation.'' In
its initial years after Mr.
RICARD's death, the foundation donated
$600,000 to Cambrian College and $1-million each to Sudbury General
Hospital, the University of Sudbury, and Laurentian University,
all in Sudbury, and a total of more than $4-million to the University
of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
In the early 1990s, the
RICARDs and their associates sold their
radio and television stations to Baton Broadcasting and their
cable distribution company to
CFCF
Ltd. In 1998, on the strength
of money reaped from the sale, the fellowship fund was started
and aimed specifically at francophone Canadians living permanently
in a minority situation outside of Quebec who need money to advance
their studies beyond a bachelor's degree.
Based on Baxter
RICARD's idea, the fund was created jointly by
businessman Paul
DESMARAIS
Sr., now chairman of the executive
committee of management and holding company Power Corporation
of Canada. Mr.
DESMARAIS and Mr.
LACROIX, plus Paul
DESMARAIS
Jr., are members of the board of directors of Fondation Baxter
& Alma Ricard.
It was launched with the original $23-million donation from Ms.
RICARD and despite many disbursements, today sits at $25-million
thanks to interest earned on the principal, says Mr.
LANDRY.
Until her death, Mrs.
RICARD was president of the board and until
three months ago, continued to sign cheques, says Mr.
LACROIX,
who remembers Mrs.
RICARD as a ''generous and kind person who
helped people with problems.''
''Baxter's father would be proud of what Alma has accomplished
since Baxter died. It is well along the way to what he had promoted
for many years," says Mr.
LACROIX.
In addition to donations in the millions of dollars over the
years, Mrs.
RICARD once helped out a person who couldn't handle
her mortgage payments and was about to lose her home; she also
donated to a religious group that raised money for the poor.
Mr. LACROIX remembers Mrs.
RICARD as a woman who loved to have
fun.
''From age 70 onward she didn't mind going on until 1 a.m. or
2 a.m. She enjoyed going out at night, she loved to dance," he
says. ''She was also quite religious, church attendance was sacred.''
Mrs. RICARD also loved to collect hats: ''She had hundreds of
hats and they were attention-getters," says Mr.
LACROIX, who
knew the RICARDs for more than 30 years.
Of all the recognition she received over the years, Mrs.
RICARD
cherished most the Officer of the Order of Canada bestowed on
her in 2000, says Mr.
LACROIX. Governor-General Adrienne
CLARKSON
travelled to Sudbury to present the honour to Mrs.
RICARD in
her sick bed, at her home, in September, 2002.
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DESPRES o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-09-12 published
NESBITT,
Robert
Samuel
Born 26 April 1913, died peacefully 11 September 2003, of complications
following a broken hip, in his ninety-first year. Beloved husband
of Jean (née
BOOTH) and loving father of Catherine (Bob
LECKEY,)
Shelagh (Doug
WHITFIELD) and Robbie (deceased.) Proud grandfather
of Bill (Shelly,) Rob and Aaron (Lynne
DESPRES)
WHITFIELD and
of Amelia BAILEY
(Mark) and Robert
LECKEY (Josý
NAVAS) and great-grandfather
of Amy and Ashley
WHITFIELD and of Corbin
BAILEY.
Predeceased
by sisters Joyce (Clarence
LOCKWOOD,)
Patricia
(Ben
THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON)
and, in childhood, Eleanor and brother George. Bob's life was
marked by his dedication to his family, Friends, neigbours, church
and community. The family will receive Friends at the Walas Funeral
Home, 130 Main Street, Brighton on Sunday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m.
Service will be held from St. Paul's Anglican Church, Brighton
on Monday, September 15th at 1 o'clock. Interment Mount Hope
Cemetery Cemetery, Brighton. As an expression of sympathy, donations
to St. Paul's Anglican Church, Belleville Hospital or The Red
Cross, care of Box 96, Brighton, Ontario K0K 1H0, would be appreciated
by the family.
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