Canadian Girls in Training is a religious international girls' organization that was founded in 1915, originally supported by the YWCA. It provided mid-week meetings of Sunday school classes and clubs for teenage girls. The organization today has over 150 groups.

In 1854 the beginnings of what would become Dominion Rubber, and the accompanying Rubber Machinery Shops were laid. It was in this year that William Brown, Ashley Hibbard and George Bourn met in Montreal to start Brown, Hubbard, Bourn & Co., the first manufacturer of Caoutchouc (Indian rubber) footwear in Canada. The company grew and in 1866 became the Canadian Rubber Company, manufacturing not just rubber footwear but also springs, machinery belts, and rubberized cloth.
By 1906 the Canadian Consolidated Rubber Company, as it was now known, had purchased many of the competing rubber companies in Canada and in February of 1907 purchased the Berlin and the Merchants rubber companies of Kitchener. A merger with United States Rubber in 1910 created the Dominion Rubber Company and more opportunities for growth and expansion.
By 1912 the Dominion Rubber Company saw a potential for a lucrative line of business as motorized vehicles began to take hold in Canada. With this in mind, the company set out to establish the Dominion Tire factory and began searching for locations. In a contest that included larger and more developed cities such as Hamilton, London, and Windsor, it was Kitchener (then still Berlin and only just declared a city) that won the bid, thanks in no small part to Talmon Rieder.
Talmon Rieder, a well-known Kitchener business man was working for the Dominion Rubber Company at the time in their head office in Montreal. His wife and family were in Kitchener, and it was he that convinced the company to build the new tire factory in the city. The land was purchased, and on Aug 9, 1912 ground broke on the new one million dollar factory on Strange Street.
The Dominion Tire factory opened Christmas of 1913 and began regular production in 1914. The first tire was built on Jan. 6 by Oscar Totzke of Kitchener, who had been sent to Detroit and Indianapolis to learn the craft. At the time it took Mr. Totzke an hour to assemble the tire and the factory’s goal was one tire, per man, per day. This pace was soon too slow for demand and by 1919 the factory employed 1,800 workers and produced 420,00 tires per year.
In 1917 an integral part of the Dominion Tire factory was opened, the Rubber Machinery Shops. Built next to Dominion Tire on Strange Street for the express purpose of creating machines for use in the factory, the Rubber Machinery Shops (RMS) designed and manufactured machines for use in the rubber industry (and eventually many others) at this location until 2009.
In 1966 RMS was bought by Uniroyal (the former United States Rubber Company that went into partnership with Canadian Consolidated Rubber) and its role changed. RMS became a self-sustained division of Uniroyal, operating and maintaining its own facilities for sales and manufacturing. Although Uniroyal would be RMS’ largest client during the period, economic conditions saw the company branch into other industries and begin manufacturing machines for such diverse purposes as producing medicated Band-Aids and cutting wooden bungs for whiskey barrels, and products such as portions of the peritelescopes on the CN Tower. RMS changed again in 1989 when Michelin purchased Uniroyal, and the focus again became producing machinery for the parent company.
In 1993 RMS became an independent corporation when it was purchased by the managerial staff. The company would continue to produce machines for various industries and sell to other corporations worldwide. No longer associated with a tire manufacturing parent company, the contracts accepted, and the variety of machines produced by RMS would increase substantially.
1999 saw the final purchase of RMS, by Pettibone Tire Equipment Group, owned by Heico Companies. During this period there was a great deal of employee unrest in the company that culminated in a 34 month long strike through 2001-2004. When the strike finally ended, none of the employees that were out returned to the company. Shortly afterward, in 2009, RMS headquarters moved to Akron, Ohio and production began there. Although RMS still has offices in Kitchener, it is no longer located in the space it occupied for almost one hundred years.

The Westmount Golf and Country Club was established on June 17, 1929 when the first meeting of the Board of Directors took place. By the fall of 1929 land on the outskirts of Kitchener, Ont. had been purchased and Stanley Thompson had been retained to design and supervise construction of the course. The club officially opened in 1931. Since that time a number of major golf tournaments have been held at the Club including the Canadian Open Golf Championship in 1957, the Canadian Ladies Open and Closed Championship in 1965, Canadian Amateur Golf Championship in 1969, Labatt's International Golf Classis for the C.P.G.A. in 1981, and the L.P.G.A. du Maurier Classic in 1990. Westmount has produced golf Chamions at the provincial, national and international level, including Gary Cowan, Mary Gay, Dan Maue, Colin Moskal, and Judy Ellis.
In 1963 a curling facility was added and the club began to operate year-round. Tennis was added in 1977.

The Muskoka Lakes Association was organized in 1894 by a group of summer cottagers, and since then has worked on behalf of permanent or part-time residents of Lakes Muskoka, Rosseau and Joseph. "The Association was established to unite all those interested in the lakes and their vicinities in order to protect and promote the interests of property owners, cottagers and tourists, preserve the safe, healthful and sanitary condition and scenic beauty of the lakes; and to encourage skill and prudence in aquatic sports ... Association members were instrumental in forming the Muskoka Lakes Golf and Country Club, which is the scene of the annual regattas and other Association-sponsored activities. The Association has had a major influence on the history of the lakes since the beginning of the century."
Issues of interest to the Association since its beginnings have always included both political and environmental concerns: roads and other transportation facilities serving the area, sanitation standards, well-marked waters, fishing, fire and police services, taxation, water and air quality, acid rain, boating safety, and any other factors contributing to the health, security and pleasure of those living in and around the lakes.

Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1880 and died there in 1958. Educated in Edinburgh, London and graduated with her Ph.D. from Munich, she was the first woman appointed to the science staff at the University of Manchester in 1904. Jointly with her husband H.V. Roe she founded the Mother's Clinic for Constructive Birth Control in 1921. It was the first birth control clinic in the world. She also published two books, "Married Love" and "Wise Parenthood: a Book for Married People."

The diaries of Rev. J. H. Shoults provide details of his life history over the period 1870-1884. Rev. Shoults worked as a minister with the Christian Church during this period. The majority of diary entries relate to his work with this church though reference is also made to his work as a teacher, family affairs, farming and gardening activities, shopping and errands, prices of food and farm goods, his personal finances, social visits (Rev. Shoults had many friends and acquaintances), and to weather conditions.
Rev. Shoults was born on Mar. 27, 1843. At the time of writing the diaries he has already married and many references are made to "Mrs. Shoults" or "Mrs. S." Diary entries also include references to his three children - Ella, Herschel, and Bertha. Rev. Shoults appears to have begun his career working as a school teacher and in 1870 (the first year for which the diaries are available) he was teaching and living on a farm in Whitevale, Ont. During this year he was also involved in the activities of both the Baptist and Christian churches, and he began to play a small part in preaching for the Christian Church working with Elder Jesse Tatton. In 1871 Rev. Shoults became involved in working as a Minister of the Christian Church on a full-time basis preaching in Bloomington, Ringwood, Markham, and Brougham. Rev. Shoults writes increasingly of his preaching, church meetings, funerals, and baptisms, and other activities of the Christian Church.
In Apr. 1872 Rev. Shoults moved from Whitevale to Altona, Ont. and in 1873 he moved from Altona to Little Britain, Ont. In 1879 he took up a new position as an Evangelist under the direction of the Mission Board and lived in a rented house in Newmarket, Ont. During 1880 Rev. Shoults moved from Newmarket to Kettleby and later in this same year he moved to live in J. Steven's house called "Mt. Pleasant" on the third line of King Township.
In 1883 Rev. Shoults' circumstances suddenly changed when he decided to rent a store and dwelling at 345 Yonge St., Toronto. However, his plan to open a store selling stationery and books was never realized, as he returned to the country and resumed working as a Minister with the Christian Church, first living at Bro. George's residence in Markham, and then in Oct. 1883 moving to Orono. In Feb. 1884 Rev. Shoults' daughter Bertha died of an illness. The final year covered by the diaries is 1884.
(Source : Materials in GA 110 Rev. J. H. Shoults Fonds.)

Ethel Carol Longfellow (b. 1881) and Anne Sewall Longfellow (b. 1883) were born in Byfield, Massachusetts to Horace and Hannah Longfellow on the family farm. The two sisters attended Smith College, both graduating in the class in 1906. After college both Anne and Ethel moved to Boston and worked in the stenographic and secretarial fields.

Robert T.G. Nicol, professional photographer and owner of Personal Studio, was born Aug. 16, 1922 in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. In 1927 the family moved to Stratford, Ont., where he attended local public and high schools. In 1940 his family moved again, this time to Kitchener, Ont; he finished high school at Kitchener Collegiate that year. His photographic career had started earlier, in 1939, when as a 16-year he took pictures of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when they stopped in Stratford on June 6, 1939 as part of their Royal Tour of Canada. The drugstore where he took the negatives to be developed marketed the photographs which subsequently appeared in many publications.
After completing high school Robert Nicol worked in a variety of jobs in Kitchener-Waterloo, including at Zapfe's Machine Shop, Waterloo Manufacturing and the Ontario Die Co. In 1945 he and an old school friend began to plan a photographic studio that opened for business on March 21, 1946, and of which Nicol was the sole owner by the fall of 1946. For the next fifty years Robert Nicol documented the Waterloo Region through personal and commercial photography. He pioneered the concept of wedding albums in the local area. He had started flying in 1961 and from that time on took aerial photographs as well as studio and candid photography. In the course of his career he maintained memberships in professional photographers' organizations as well as completing continuing photographic educational courses offered by those organizations. He retired as a professional photographer in 1996.
Robert Nicol married Marjorie Gray on Aug. 8, 1941 and had two children, a son and a daughter. Marjorie died in 1987. Robert Nicol married again in 1996 to Renie Andersen, a long-time companion.

Naomi Gwladys Royde-Smith (1875–1964), literary editor and writer, was born on 30 April 1875 at Craven Edge, Halifax, Yorkshire, the eldest of six daughters and two sons of Michael Holroyd Smith (1847–1932), an electrical engineer responsible for the electrification of the City and South London Railway, as well as an inventor of a helicopter and a boomerang, among other things, and Anne (Daisy), née Williams (1848–1934), the daughter of the Reverend Ebenezer Williams of Penybont, Wales, and ‘a zealous student of the Bible’ (private information, M. Royde Smith). Matthew Smith, the painter, was a cousin. In the Wood, a novel written in 1928, was in part a description of her Yorkshire childhood. When the Holroyd Smith family moved to London (the children all taking the surname Royde-Smith), Naomi and her sisters attended Clapham high school; her education was finished in Switzerland at Geneva, and she then began to earn her living, becoming a well-respected reviewer. She also wrote poetry but did not publish any.
From 1904 onwards Naomi lived in London with her sister Leslie (b. 1884) in rooms in Oakley Street, Chelsea (later she also had a cottage at Holmbury St Mary, near Dorking, Surrey) and worked at the Saturday Westminster Gazette, both reviewing and writing the ‘Problems and prizes page’. By 1912 she had become literary editor, the first time a woman had held this position, publishing early work by, among others, Rupert Brooke, D. H. Lawrence, and Graham Greene. Her large circle of friends included J. C. Squire, William Beveridge, Hugh Walpole, and Middleton Murry.
"Miss Royde-Smith had risen entirely through her own ability and drive. She had a forceful personality, sharp-tongued and sharp-witted; she was extremely well read and, while quite able to tackle men on their own terms, she was also fair-haired, feminine and a successful hostess" (Whistler, 173) wrote the biographer of Walter de la Mare, the poet, who met Naomi in the spring of 1911 and was to be in love with her for the next five years (writing her nearly 400 letters). On Naomi's part she ‘felt a great need to be artist's Muse. She wanted the men she loved to be men of genius … Her chief usefulness was the confidence she gave him’ (ibid., 178, 187); she was, however, ambivalent towards men sexually. A close friend at this period was the novelist Rose Macaulay; in the years after the First World War ‘she and Rose, acting jointly as hostesses, received such diverse authors as Arnold Bennett, W. B. Yeats, Edith Sitwell and Aldous Huxley’ (Smith, 100) at Naomi's flat, 44 Prince's Gardens, Kensington, where, Mary Agnes Hamilton remarked, ‘everybody in the literary world, the not yet arrived as well as the established, was to be met’ (Emery, 191) and where Naomi ‘dressed à la 1860; swinging earrings, skirt in balloons … sat in complete command. Here she had her world round her. It was a queer mixture of the intelligent & the respectable’ (Diary of Virginia Woolf, 5 June 1921). Rose Macaulay was to satirize Naomi at this period of her life in Crewe Train (1926), where she appears as Aunt Evelyn, ‘a fashionable, meddling, arch-gossip’ (Emery).
It was only after Naomi had given up her job in 1922 that she began to write fiction: The Tortoiseshell Cat, which was in some ways her best novel, appeared in 1925, and over the next thirty-five years she went on to publish nearly forty more novels, several biographies (for example of Mrs Siddons and of Maurice de Guérin), and four plays. The novels are admired by some but others are of the opinion that "in spite of a good style, intelligence and frequent touches of truth to character, her novels have no great imagination. Too often the romantic parts suffer from wish-fulfillment studies in masculine Genius that remind one uneasily of many inferior passages in her letters to de la Mare." (Whistler, 342)
Lovat Dickson wrote that ‘none of her novels … is likely to survive’ (The Times, 30 July 1964) but Betty Askwith responded by saying that The Delicate Situation (1931) should be remembered and deserved comparison with Alain-Fournier's Le grand Meaulnes. She observed that ‘any writer might be proud to have written just one book on that level’ (The Times, 4 Aug 1964). Other novels that are admired are For Us in the Dark (1937) and The Altar-Piece: an Edwardian Mystery (1939).
On 15 December 1926, at Lynton parish church, Devon, Naomi married the Italian-American actor Ernest Gianello Milton; she was fifty-one, fifteen years older than her husband (but pretended to twelve). She gave up her hectic social life, although continuing to review and being for a period art critic of Queen magazine, and settled into a surprisingly successful marriage—‘a triumph over unlikeliness by the strong-minded, romantic woman she was, and the histrionic, highly-strung, generous-minded actor. He placed her, for life, on a pedestal of admiration, though not by temperament drawn to her sex’ (Whistler, 342).
The Miltons lived variously in Hatfield in Hertfordshire, Chelsea in London, Wells in Somerset (during the 1930s), and then (during the 1940s and 1950s) in a house in Winchester once lived in by Nell Gwyn, 34 Colebrook Street in the shadow of the cathedral, and later on nearby at Flat 4, 43 Hyde Street. In 1942 both became Roman Catholics. At this period of her life Naomi Milton was, according to her niece, Jane Tilley, ‘hugely amusing, chain-smoked, was large and uncorseted, and wore large patterns’. ‘The sheer luxuriance of Naomi's discourse is what stays with me’ was the impression of her nephew, Michael Royde Smith. She continued to write in spite of increasing blindness. At the end of her life she and Ernest went to live in London at Abbey Court Hotel, 15 Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead. She died from renal failure at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, Marylebone, on 28 July 1964 and was buried in Hampstead cemetery. Her husband survived her.
(Nicola Beauman, ‘Smith, Naomi Gwladys Royde- (1875–1964)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2014 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56910, accessed 13 March 2015]).

William Henry Eugene (W.H.E.) Schmalz was born July 29, 1890 in Waterloo Township to William Henry Schmalz (1862-1933) and Eleanor Oelschlager (1867-??). W.H.E.’s father, William Henry, was an insurance salesman and later the mayor of Berlin (now Kitchener). In 1915 W.H.E. married Rachel Beatrice Richardson (1890-??) and had one child, Herbert Schmalz (1916-2000).
W.H.E. attended Royal Military College where he was educated in map and architectural drawings, and in 1916 served with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. W.H.E. later attended the University of Toronto and ultimately became an architect. W.H.E. is perhaps best known for designing the original City Hall of the City of Kitchener which was completed in 1924 and torn down in 1973. He contributed significantly to Ontario architecture both on his own and working for firms such as Pearson and Darling.
W.H.E. was involved in many aspects of life in Kitchener including as a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Kitchener Parks Board, the Kiwanis Club and the Kitchener Musical Society. He also held a personal interest in philately and wrote a text on the postal history of Waterloo County. W.H.E. died January 25, 1981.

Isobel MacKay was Assistant Dean of Women at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario during the time period covered by the documents in this fonds, and as such was involved in the organization and operation of a group called "Community Resources for Women." This group was formed early in 1978 to answer a perceived need for communication among groups and agencies in the region who were then providing services to women and described itself as a "non-profit, inter-agency group whose objectives are to co-ordinate programs of activity which allow for information sharing, discovery of ways to co-operate and skill acquisition for group members." The group operated successfully at least until 1983, with representation from approximately forty community groups and agencies. Activities included luncheon meetings with speakers and skills development workshops. The group also put out a newsletter for members and compiled a service directory of participating organizations. Isobel MacKay was involved in Community Resources for Women from its beginnings and in 1980-1981 served as the Chair of the Steering Committee.

William E. Short was born in Tottenham, England on Dec. 18, 1878. He enlisted with the 34th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Jan., 1915 in Galt, Ont., trained in Canada and England, and arrived in France on Aug. 3, 1915, where he was attached to the 1st Battalion. He was promoted to Corporal on Oct. 11, 1916 and to acting Company Quartermaster Sergeant on Feb. 1, 1917. William Short married Lilly Meechum August 7, 1918, while on leave in London, England, a fact not noted in his diary. W.E.Short returned to Canada in May, 1919. (Source: attestation papers, diary contents.)

Arthur Gordon Shoosmith (1888-1974), an English architect who worked in India, was born in St. Petersburg in 1888. He grew up in Russia and Finland and was educated in England at Haileybury. He served his articles in Reading, and then attended the Royal Academy Schools in 1911. After serving in the war as an interpreter for the Intelligence Corps, he worked for the architectural practices of H.S. Gooodhart-Rendel, and J.J. Burnet. In 1920 he won the Soane Medallion and was appointed as Edwin Lutyens's representative in New Delhi, where he worked from 1920-1931. He was nominated by Lutyens for the commission of the design of St. Martin's Garrison Church in New Delhi (1928-1930), and his other major work is the Lady Hardinge Serai in New Delhi (1931). Shoosmith returned to England in 1931, where he made a career of teaching and as an inspector with the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. He retired in 1957, and died in 1974. Source: Davies, Philip: "Shoosmith, Arthur (Gordon)" The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, (Oxford University Press, Accessed [13 April 2004]) http://www.groveart.com.

K. Mary E. Shaw was a teacher and/or student at the Battersea Polytechnic Institute in 1904. Battersea College of Education had its origins in the department of ‘Women’s Studies’ at Battersea Polytechnic Institute. A special grant had been given to the Polytechnic by London County Council to open a teacher training school in domestic economy, and the first eleven full-time students started their course in 1894. The department was reorganized by the Board of Education as a teachers’ training school in 1895. The Battersea Polytechnic Institute eventually became the University of Surrey. (Source: Pickering & Chatto antiquarian booksellers – catalogue)

Eric Honeywood Partridge (1894 –1979) was a lexicographer of the English language. Born in Waimata Valley, New Zealand, Partridge and his family later moved to Australia where he studied at the University of Queensland. After his time serving in the First World War he returned to university obtaining his BA and later becoming the Queensland Traveling Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, working on an MA and a B.Litt. He later taught at the University of Manchester and the University of London and spent fifty years researching at the British Library for his over forty books on the history of slang and the English language. Partridge died in 1979.

John Galt (1779-1839) was a novelist, political and social commentator, and founder of the city of Guelph, Ontario.

The Ontario Association of Architects was founded in 1889 and is the regulatory body for the profession in Ontario. It is responsible for registering and licensing all architects legally entitled to practice in the province.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) was a soldier and politician, and one of the leading figures in politics in England in the 19th Century. His positions included Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Leader of the House of Lords and Prime Minister of Britain.

Johann Friedrich (John) Woelfle was born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, 1870. He was the son of John Jacob Woelfle (1828-1888), a German emigrant who farmed and made and sold ploughs in Berlin, Ontario. John Jacob Woelfle married his second wife, Emilia Krug, in 1864 and of their nine children, John Woelfle was the second son, and Eduard E. Woelfle (born in 1873) was the fourth son.
At the time these letter were written John Woelfle was a commercial traveller for the firm of Callaghan and Company of Chicago, Illinois, a publisher of legal reports, digests and material of interest to lawyers and the legal profession. Eduard E. Woelfle, to whom the letters are addressed, was born in Berlin, Ontario on July 4, 1873. He served as a machinist's apprentice at Goldie and McCulloch in Galt, Ont., worked as a journeyman in the United States, and returned to Berlin in 1906 to open a business with his brother Gustave. This was incorporated in 1920 under the name of Woelfle Brothers, Limited. John Woelfle died in 1896.
Sources: Lamb, Kathryn Hansuld. "Bridgeport's Lancaster Hotel and its owners 1853-1989." Waterloo Historical Society. 1989. 77: 120-141, Middleton, Jesse Edgar and Landon, Fred. "Edward E. Woelfle and Gustave A. Woelfle." The Province of Ontario: a history, 1615-1927. Toronto: Dominion Publishing Company, 1927. vol. 4, p. 436, and Moogk, Peter N. "Nach Amerika: the Krugs of Eulersdorf come to Canada West." Waterloo Historical Society. 1992. 80: 142-155.

Alice Riggs Hunt, journalist and activist, was born in New York City June 14, 1884. She was educated at private schools in New York City, one being Graham's School for Girls from 1895-1898. In 1907-1908 she attended Columbia University as a student in the School of Journalism. Later she attended the Drake Business School. She was organizer, speaker and writer on both New York Campaigns for Women's Suffrage and in several other states. She contributed to the New York Evening Post, New York Tribune, New York Evening Mail, New York Call, London Daily Herald, La Vie Ouvriere (Paris), The Workers' Dreadnought, London, Bulletin of the Peoples, Council of America, and Bulletin of the American Woman Suffrage Association. She attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, attached to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace as special correspondent for the New York Evening Post. She attended the International Congress of Women in Zurich, 1919, as part of the American delegation. She was a member of Colonial Dames of America, Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America and Huguenot Society of New York. She died August 21, 1974 in Calgary, Alberta. (Description from original in-house finding aid)

Violet Marie Byers was born November 15, 1908 in Missouri to John Lester and Sarah (nee Murray) Boyers. She married Harry J. Byers on October 21, 1929 and together they had four children: Robert John (May 12, 1932), Jean Mildred (October 20, 1933), James Allen (January 20, 1942), and Shirley Marie (April 3, 1943).

Byers died April 15 1943 in Listowel, Ontario as a result of complications from childbirth.