NICHOLAS
NICHOLLS
NICHOLS
NICKLIN
NICOL
NICHOLAS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-23 published
GILLESPIE,
Harriet
Louise (née
MORTON)
Died peacefully on June 21, 2003. Harriet was born May 24, 1926
in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, daughter of Edith L. and
W. Douglas
MORTON.
Devoted wife of John B.
GILLESPIE, Q.C., Toronto, for
almost 55 wonderful years. Loving mother of Joan (Andrew
POTTINGER,)
Jill, Jay (Lili
HOFSTADER) and Susan (Paul
NICHOLAS). Grandmother
of Leigh and Drew
POTTINGER of W. Vancouver, Ben and Claire
SCOTT
of Sydney, Australia, Sean and Jackie
GILLESPIE of Toronto and
Hattie NICHOLAS of Ottawa. Sister of Douglas B.
MORTON and Scott
MORTON,
Nova
Scotia.
Service will be held on Wednesday, June
25, 2003 at 3 p.m. at St. Leonard's Anglican Church, 25 Wanless
Avenue. No visitation is planned. In lieu of flowers, donations
in Harriet's memory may be made to either Sunnybrook Hospital
or The Canadian Cancer Society.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICHOLAS - All Categories in OGSPI
NICHOLLS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-05 published
MacBRIEN,
Ann
Elizabeth (née
NICHOLLS)
Following a valiant battle with cancer, Ann left us peacefully
on March 1st, 2003, at home with her family beside her. Ann will
be greatly missed, in particular by Joe, her loving husband of
nearly 50 years, her children Jennifer, Marian, Julie, Susan
and Bill, and her grandchildren Megan, Mallory, Meredith, Martin,
Steven and Lauren. Cremation has been arranged. A Memorial Service
will be held in the chapel of the Morley Bedford Funeral Home,
159 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto, on Thursday, March 6th at
11: 00 a.m. A reception will follow at the funeral home. The family
wishes to express heartfelt thanks to the Hospice Palliative
Care Network personnel who were all so very helpful and supportive.
The family will appreciate donations in Ann's memory to the Princess
Margaret Hospital Foundation.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICHOLLS - All Categories in OGSPI
NICHOLS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-04 published
NICHOLS, Onetta Irene (Ret'd Executive Secretary - Parliment
Buildings, Toronto)
peacefully at the Grove Park Nursing Home, Barrie on Monday,
March 3rd, 2003; in her 93rd year. Onetta
NICHOLS, of Orillia,
beloved daughter of the late Mrs. Nellie
NICHOLS.
Predeceased
by her brother Orval. Lovingly remembered by Kathleen
NICHOLS
Roy NICHOLS (Barb); Helen
LYNCH (Ross); Lynne
WEIR (Don - her
'Favorite';) Susan
YOUNG
(Mark) and by her many great and great
great nieces and nephews. The late Miss Onetta
NICHOLS will rest
at the Mundell Funeral Home, 79 West Street, N., Orillia on Wednesday
evening from 7 - 9 p.m. Funeral and Committal Service in the chapel
on Thursday morning, March 6th at 11 o'clock. Spring Interment:
- St. Andrew's - St. James' Cemetery, Orillia. If desired, Memorial
Donations to your choice of any Children's Charity would be gratefully
appreciated. Messages of condolence are welcome at
www.mundellfuneralhome.com
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICHOLS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-21 published
ROBINSON, May Elizabeth (Tracy) née
TRACY-
GOULD
Born November 18, 1914 Newcastle (Miramachi City), New Brunswick,
died March 17, 2003 at Crofton Manor, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Predeceased by her husband James Emerson (Robbie), the love of
her life. She is survived by her three daughters, Susan (Mike
NICHOLS), Zora (Alf
SIMON), and Alice (Allan
HALLDORSON), her
grandchildren Jesse and Tracy, her brother Perley
TRACY-
GOULD
(Hester) and sister Zora
KEDDIE
(Ray) and their families. Tracy
graduated as a nurse from the Montreal General Hospital and joined
the Canadian Army as an operating room nurse in 1939. She served
from 1939-1945 following the troops through Europe. She met Robbie
in Italy and they were married in the town hall of Brussels,
Belgium on April 10, 1945. While raising her three daughters
she was active in her community. In Winnipeg this included the
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Deer Lodge Veterans Hospital, the
Children's Hospital Book Market and working in the canteen in
her local community centre. In Toronto she worked in the gift
shop of the North York General Hospital and has been a generous
donor to the foundation. In White Rock she worked at the Peace
Arch Hospital's Superfluidy Shop. She belonged to and worked
with a hospital guild in every city she lived in and remained
a member of the Royal Canadian Military Institute until her death.
She was an active member of the Nursing Sisters Association of
Canada, contributing in many ways over the years. Her hobbies
included baking for her family, Friends and charities, travelling,
gardening and corresponding with old Friends. Tracy had a real
love of life, with a wry sense of humour and a smile that could
win anyone's heart. It was such a pleasure to share time with
her; she will be sadly missed by family and Friends. Cremation
has taken place. A Memorial Service will be held and details
will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers donations
may be made to: Ghurka Benevolent Fund or the Heart and Stroke
Foundation or a charity of your choice.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICHOLS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-04-23 published
Evelyn NICHOLS
By Karl PREUSS
Wednesday,
April 23, 2003 - Page A16
Ballet accompanist, mother. Born May 19, 1918, in Hamilton, Ontario
Died January 26 in Victoria, British Columbia, following a stroke,
aged 84.
Our mother, Evelyn
NICHOLS, died during the wet, early dawn hours
of a winter morning. Her death was the outcome of complications
from a stroke suffered in October, 1998, which had left her with
impaired faculties. Arthritis had already confined her to a wheelchair.
A frustrating and ironic aspect of this story is that Evelyn
had been so proud of her health. She once remarked to her physician
daughter-in-law that she had not seen a doctor in 17 years. Her
reasoning: she hadn't been ill -- why see a doctor? Had Evelyn
seen a doctor, she likely would have learned that she had high
blood pressure, an asymptomatic high-risk factor for a stroke.
As with her final years, Evelyn's early life was difficult. After
she was born in Hamilton, Evelyn was adopted by parents whose
child-rearing practices were harsh. Grandma inflicted the Biblical
maxim that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. As well, fear
of rejection and abandonment dogged our mother, right up to her
final years.
Although remaining faithful to the ethical teachings of Jesus,
Evelyn abandoned organized religion soon after leaving home.
She also became an incorrigible romantic and found refuge in
stormy novels such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, W. Somerset
Maugham's Of Human Bondage and in later years in such reflective
literature as Dag Hammarskjold's Markings. But self-pity was
not a part of her emotional repertoire; Evelyn often scoffed
that she could limp better than most people could walk.
Early on Evelyn discovered music. It would be her salvation and
a treasure she would impart to others. Years later she wrote:
"My religion is music." After taking private lessons when her
parents had moved from Ontario to Michigan, Evelyn enrolled at
the Wilde Conservatory of Music in Lansing, where she also taught
she later took music courses at Michigan State University. During
and after her three troubled marriages, Evelyn immersed herself
in teaching and participated in community musical life.
Evelyn used the music of Brahms, Chopin and Mozart to introduce
her pupils to the wider world of culture and ideas. Her last
gesture in Ottawa, where she taught for several years before
moving to California in 1959, was to take her music class to
a concert by pianist Rudolph Serkin.
During her 11 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Evelyn taught
piano, accompanied for the San Jose Ballet School, and performed
with the San Jose Light Opera. Evelyn eventually tired of the
heat and smog of the Bay Area. In 1971 she pursued a dream and
moved to Burns Lake in northern British Columbia, sight-unseen,
where she taught voice and piano. Evelyn was single and 53.
Something of an elitist, Evelyn could be critical of those whom
she believed had surrendered to mindless convention. Yet Evelyn
could also empathize and she granted her pupils a forbearance
that she had never received as a child. Always attracted to the
exotic and unconventional, Evelyn offered her pupils a perspective
often beyond what they received at home. Evelyn's hearth became
a sanctuary for those who felt rejected or at odds with constrictive
and hypocritical social mores.
One former pupil came to regard Evelyn as her other mother. And
another wrote, in honour of Evelyn's 80th birthday, "I don't
think I've ever told you how much you've meant to me. Your presence
in my life has made me a better person, stronger and happier.
Your gifts to your students went far beyond music."
Sadly, these words now become our mother's epitaph.
Karl is one of Evelyn's three sons.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICHOLS - All Categories in OGSPI
NICKLIN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-13 published
EADIE, Lt. Colonel G. Fraser,
DSO, CD of the 1st Canadian Parachute
Battalion
Died peacefully at home in Oakville on August 11, 2003. Fraser
was born July 20, 1917 in Winnipeg. He worked with the Ford Motor
Company in assignments across Canada and Abroad. He retired from
Ford with 46 years of service having made many Friends and satisfied
many customers. Fraser served overseas during World War 2 earning
many decorations including: Distinguished Service Order, 39-45
Star, France and Gemany Star, Defence Medal, Canadian Volunteer
Service Medal and Class, War Medal 39-45 and the American Silver
Star.
Fraser is predeceased by his wife Lu (Kathleen
HALLILEY)
and son David. He is survived by his wife Eileen, sons Jim and
Rob, step daughter Kathy
NICKLIN, nieces Jane and Charlotte,
grandchildren Cayre, Steve, Diane, James, Sarah, Christopher,
Brant NICKLIN,
Lisa
NICKLIN and great grandchildren Ryan, Reese
and MacKenzie. Services will be held Friday August 15 at 2: 30
pm at St. Jude's Anglican Church, 160 William Street, Oakville,
Ontario with interment following at Trafalgar Lawn Cemetery.
Family and Friends are invited back to a reception at the Oakville
Conference and Banquet Centre (Holiday Inn, south east corner
Bronte Rd and Queen Elizabeth Way Oakville) at 4 p.m. In lieu
of flowers donations to the M.S. Society would be gratefully
appreciated.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICKLIN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-08-15 published
Godfather of Canadian paratroops
'Superb combat leader' led a courageous allied rush to the Baltic
in the closing days of Second World War
By John WARD,
Ottawa
Fraser EADIE, a legendary soldier who commanded the 1st Canadian
Parachute Battalion in the waning days of the Second World War
and went on to be the godfather to generations of post-war paratroopers,
has died at age 86.
During the war, Mr.
EADIE fought through northern Europe and
led his battalion to Wismar, on Germany's Baltic coast, as the
fighting ended.
His men remembered him as a disciplinarian who would nod at unorthodox
tactics that worked. In the postwar period, he was patron of
Canada's paratroop association. He served as honorary colonel
of the Canadian Airborne Regiment from 1989 until it was disbanded
in disgrace in 1994 after the Somalia affair.
In 1993, at the age of 76, he marked the Airborne's 25th anniversary
by making a parachute jump with the outfit.
"He was a natural leader, a superb combat leader," said Bob
LOCKHART,
a retired paratroop officer who knew Mr.
EADIE well after the
war.
Mr. EADIE began his military career as a militia soldier in the
1930s, serving as a private in both the Calgary Highlanders and
the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.
After the war broke out, he left his job with the Ford Motor
Co. for the army and went overseas as a lieutenant with the Rifles.
He was promoted to captain and then major, and took a parachute
course before joining the fledgling parachute battalion. As a
hockey player before the war, he was in top physical shape. He
breezed through gruelling training which left many gasping by
the wayside.
In March, 1944, the battalion took part in Operation Varsity,
leapfrogging the Rhine River into Germany.
The jump zone was heavily defended and the battalion commander,
Lieutenant-Colonel Jeff
NICKLIN, was killed. One story says he
died when he landed in a clump of trees directly above a German
machine-gun nest, but Jan
DEVRIES, who was a private at the time,
doubts that.
"NICKLIN was actually probably dead before he came into the trees
because he sailed right over a German machine-gun," Mr.
DEVRIES
said.
With the commander dead and the landing under heavy fire, the
Canadians were in a crisis.
"Fraser immediately assumed command," said Mr.
DEVRIES.
He rallied the men and despite heavy casualties -- 25 killed,
about 50 wounded and 20 missing out of 475 -- he led them to
seize their objectives.
The battalion jumped into Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, as
part of a larger British unit. The Canadians fought in Normandy
for weeks and helped break the German army in France.
Mr. DEVRIES said Mr.
EADIE showed a sense of humour even in combat.
He recalled an incident in Normandy when Mr.
EADIE spotted a
German tank and called for artillery support, telling the gunners
he faced a Tiger tank, a formidable piece of armour. When a corporal
pointed out that the tank was, in fact, a smaller though still
potent Mark IV, Mr.
EADIE smiled at him: "Don't spoil a good
story."
Mr. EADIE was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, promoted
to lieutenant-colonel and confirmed as battalion commander.
In the final weeks of the war, the battalion was paired with
a British armoured unit, driving into northern Germany. The Canadians
commandeered cars, trucks and other vehicles and outran the British,
Mr. Lockhart said.
"They were moving so fast with their captured cars and such that
the armoured battalion ran out of gas."
At one point, a British general arrived to inspect the regiment
and was shocked to find some soldiers decked out in German parachute
smocks, others sporting looted bowler hats.
Mr. EADIE was driving a big German staff car at the time and
was hardly in a position to complain. He remembered later that
the general was taken aback by the scorn for dress regulations.
He told Mr.
EADIE: "I saw one fellow wearing what looked like
a rugby sweater embossed with the words, Flin Flon."
Mr. EADIE said the general never did figure out what that meant
and no one enlightened him.
Mr. DEVRIES said the Canadians, in company with the Royal Scots
Greys, an armoured outfit, eventually ran into the Russians on
the Baltic.
"Their orders were to go to Denmark," Mr.
DEVRIES said. Mr.
EADIE
would have none of that and confronted the Russians, telling
his men "Get ready lads."
"He told the Russian officer, 'you better have 10 men for my
one.'"
The Russians backed down.
The official history of the Canadian Army notes: "Wismar, taken
by Lt.-Col.
EADIE's men and the Royal Scots Greys was in fact
the most easterly point reached by any Commonwealth troops in
this campaign and the first point where any Commonwealth troops
serving in it made contact with the Russian ally.
"It is satisfactory that a Canadian battalion was there."
The battalion went home in September, 1945, and was disbanded.
Mr. EADIE went back to Ford, where he spent 46 years in all.
Canadian Press
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICKLIN - All Categories in OGSPI
NICOL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-15 published
Radio pioneer built network
He founded Ontario's first French-language radio station in 1951
when his local station denied francophones airtime.
By Randy RAY
Special to The Globe and Mail Monday, June 16, 2003
- Page R7
He started in business as a butcher, and later was a soldier
and a hotelier, but Conrad
LAVIGNE's first love was show business.
Whether he was operating the television stations in Northern
Ontario that became the largest privately owned television broadcast
system in the world, appearing at the staid proceedings of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission,
or at conventions, Mr.
LAVIGNE often delighted those within earshot
with jokes, stories, witty comments -- even singing.
Like the time he sang grace during the annual meeting of the
Association for French Language Broadcasters in the 1970s.
"Members of the head table, including myself and Premier Bill
DAVIS, walked into the room and stood behind our chairs," recalls
Pierre JUNEAU, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission from 1968 to 1975.
"Mr. LAVIGNE, who was chairman of the French-language broadcasters
group, began singing grace in French, and with his very strong
voice. People felt sort of strange with this."
When he was done, Mr.
LAVIGNE looked at Premier
DAVIS and quipped:
"Well, Mr. Premier, this is to show you that when you are chairman,
you can do whatever you like."
J. Lyman POTTS, former vice-president of Standard Broadcasting,
remembers the time in the early 1960s when Mr.
LAVIGNE appeared
before the Board of Broadcast Governors -- predecessor of the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission --
in support of a radio or television station licensing application.
At the beginning of his presentation, Mr.
LAVIGNE expressed his
regrets that Board of Broadcast Governors member Bernard
GOULET
had died at few days earlier. Then, without skipping a beat,
he looked toward the ceiling and said: "If Bernie were here today,
I think he would vote for my application."
"It broke up the room," says Mr.
POTTS. "If ever a meeting got
dull he'd liven things up. It was a joy to find him at meetings.
He was a unique personality."
Mr. LAVIGNE, who was born in the small town of Chénéville, Quebec,
on November 2, 1916, and raised in Cochrane, Ontario, died in
Timmins, Ontario on April 16 following a lengthy battle with
emphysema. He was 86.
Friends, family and business associates say Mr.
LAVIGNE had show
business in his blood in his late teens. On many evenings, the
young man who moved to Timmins from Cochrane at age 18 to open
a small grocery store and butcher shop with his uncle would act
in plays in the hall of a local church. But he didn't get into
the entertainment business in a big way until after he helped
Canada's war effort, got married and started his life as an entrepreneur
in the hotel business.
In 1942, he sold his butcher shop and enlisted in the Canadian
infantry. He became a commando training officer while stationed
at Vernon, British Columbia, and in 1944 headed overseas. While
on a furlough from Vernon he returned to Timmins and married
Jeanne CANIE.
The couple raised seven children.
Mr. LAVIGNE returned to Canada in 1946 and bought the Prince
George Hotel in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, which at the time was
a booming gold-mining town. He sold the business in 1950.
He entered the world of media and entertainment by founding
CFCL,
the first French-language radio station in Ontario in 1951, in
what, essentially, was his way of ensuring the area's large French-speaking
population had a voice in the North.
Michelle DE
COURVILLE
NICOL of Ottawa said her father launched
the station after a group of francophones that he was part of
in Kirkland Lake was told by the manager of an English-language
radio station that they would no longer be given regular air
time to discuss issues of interest to French people.
"He was very proud of being a francophone," says Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL. "
When he was told that his compatriots would no longer
be welcome on the local station he said, 'Oh, ya!' and got the
idea of starting a French-language radio station. He moved to
Timmins, applied for a licence and got it."
CFCL soon attracted a faithful audience, especially in Northwestern
Quebec, where it could be heard more clearly than French stations
in Montreal.
In a 1988 interview with Northern Ontario Business, Mr.
LAVIGNE
remembered the time he hired a relative unknown named Stompin'
Tom CONNORS to perform live on
CFCL.
The radio station was located
above a jewellery store and the pounding from Mr.
CONNORS's size-11
boots caused china to fall off the shelves in the store below.
Radio was his first love until the mid-1950s when, on a business
trip to southern Ontario, he saw his first television broadcast,
on WHAM from Rochester, New York He fell for the concept of television
and he and an engineer friend drove to Rochester and learned
everything they could about the magic medium of television.
Back in Timmins, Mr.
LAVIGNE bought a hill in the north end of
the town, named it Mont Sacré-Coeur, built a road to the foot
of his hill, and began blasting rock and working in earnest to
put a television station on the air. By 1956,
CFCL-television
was a reality.
"There was always the fear of failure because of the sparse population,"
Mr. LAVIGNE said at the time. "But we had an engineer with us
named Roch
DEMERS, who later became president of Telemedia, and
together we started putting up rebroadcasting stations between
1957 and 1962."
Kapuskasing's rebroadcasting station was the first such facility
in Canada, and it added another portion of the sparsely populated
northeastern Ontario market to the growing station's network.
Eventually, Mr.
LAVIGNE built rebroadcasting stations in Chapleau
and Moosonee, Ontario and Malartic, Quebec, and by the time expansion
was completed,
CFCL-television served 1.5 million people. Eventually,
he built the station into the world's largest privately owned
system.
For many years he appeared on a very popular
CFCL program known
as the President's Corner, during which he would sit on camera
in a comfortable chair and read and respond to letters from viewers.
Between 1962 and 1970, Mr.
LAVIGNE's television network entered
the world of high technology with its own microwave network.
Mr. LAVIGNE had the northeastern Ontario television market virtually
all to himself for about 20 years until the Canadian Television
Network (CTV) arrived on the scene. He reacted by building new
stations in North Bay and Sudbury with a rebroadcasting station
in Elliot Lake to serve Manitoulin Island. Expansion continued
in 1976 with the purchase of a bankrupt television station in
Pembroke, in the Ottawa Valley. Eventually, Mr.
LAVIGNE's private
network stretched from Moosonee to Ottawa, and from Hearst to
Mattagami, Quebec
"When we first started we had the market all to ourselves," he
told Northern Ontario Business. "We had 20 hours a week of local
programming, and it was beautiful. We gave the North a unified
voice. One time, during a forest fire near Chapleau, our messages
arranged for accommodations for 1,000 people in Timmins."
Mr. LAVIGNE divested himself of his broadcasting holdings in
1980, primarily because he was refused permission to operate
a cable television service in the North. He remained a director
of Mid-Canada Television, the network that grew from his little
Timmins station in 1956, and was chairman of the board of Northern
Telephone Ltd. For a number of years, he served on the board
of the National Bank of Canada, and for 10 years served on the
board of ICG
Utilities (formerly Inter City Gas.)
His life after broadcasting also included 20 years as a property
developer in the Timmins area.
"He was always a physically active person," says Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL. "In the years he was setting up his television stations
he would often go out with the engineers. He was not as happy
sitting behind his desk."
Mr. LAVIGNE was elected to the Canadian Broadcasting Hall of
Fame in 1990. His wife died in 1995. He leaves Ms. DE
COURVILLE
NICOL and six other children, Marc, Andrée, Nicole, Jean-Luc,
Pierre and Marie-France.
N... Names NI... Names NIC... Names Welcome Home
NICOL - All Categories in OGSPI