The Dominion Life Assurance Company was established in 1889. In 1912 Dominion Life moved to their new head office at 14 Erb Street west, a building formerly owned by the Ontario Mutual Life Assurance Company. In 1956 the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company of Fort Wayne acquired controlling shares, but continued to operate the company under its incorporated name. The company was bought by Manulife in 1985.

Dominion Rubber Systems was formed as an offshoot of the Dominion Rubber Company in order to separate sales and distribution from manufacturing. In 1926, all of the divisions of the Canadian Consolidated Rubber Company (of which the Dominion Rubber Company was the local division) were renamed Dominion Rubber Company.

Dominion Woollens and Worsteds Ltd. came into Hespeler in 1928 when the company purchased the R. Forbes Company Ltd. mill at what is now Queen St. West in Cambridge. The company would operate in Hespeler until 1959 when it went into receivership and was purchased by Silknit. As the largest woollens and worsteds mill in the British colonies at the time, the factory played a large role in the history of Hespeler, at one time employing almost one third of all citizens of the village.

During and immediately after WWII the mill employed a large number of women employees from both the Hespeler area as well as those who were brought in to work from Newfoundland and Northern Ontario. These women lived in boarding houses or dormitories provided by the mill and many of them stayed in Hespeler after the war, forever changing the village.

Production ceased permanently at the mill in 1984 and one third of it was destroyed shortly afterward in a fire. Today the portion of the mill that still stands is rented by retail stores. In 1986 Kenneth McLaughlin and three graduate students began to conduct oral history interviews with workers from the mill who were still living in the region, including those women who came from Newfoundland and Northern Ontario.

Reverend Robert Richard Arthur Doolan was a graduate of Cambridge University and served as deacon of the Church of England.

As an agent of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, he arrived on the Nass in British Columbia in 1864 to evangelize the Nisga’a.

The Doon School of Fine Arts was opened in 1948 at the former home of Homer and Pheobe Watson by Ross and Bess Hamilton, who purchased the property in 1947. An agreement was struck between with the University of Waterloo in 1963 resulting in fine arts instruction at both schools. The Doon School of Fine Arts operated until 1966 when it was closed due to lack of funding.

Robert (Bob) Starbird Dorney was an ecologist with a focus on environmental management. A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in Veterinary Science and Wildlife Management with an interest in diseases of wild animals. He worked first as a conservation biologist in Wisconsin with the State Conservation Department and at the University of Wisconsin, during which time he wrote on ruffed grouse, raccoons, squirrels and rabbits. He then moved to Latin America and for three years was a science advisor on renewable natural resources to the countries involved in the Pan American Union.

In 1967 he was hired by the University of Waterloo School of Urban and Regional Planning as a professor in the area of applied ecology, environmental and resource management, where he remained until his death in 1987. He educated students, politicians, developers and the general public on the value of the science of ecology in improving the design and livability of urban environments, a private as well as a public commitment. As a founding member of the Waterloo Region's Ecological and Environmental Advisory Committee, he contributed to the identification of environmentally sensitive areas for inclusion in the Region's master plan, while at his home he developed a mini-ecosystem of natural vegetation which was studied by students and gardeners alike. Dorney was also a founding partner of Ecoplans Ltd., an environmental planning consulting company, and author of The Professional Practice of Environmental Management published posthumously in 1989. The Robert S. Dorney Ecology Garden, a naturalized garden next to Environment 1 on the grounds of Waterloo's main campus, was established in his honour in 1998.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Doten (April 1, 1827 – January 15, 1913) was a prominent American lecturer, poet and trance medium. Lizzie was well known for her supposed ability to channel poetry from Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Burns and William Shakespeare. Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts both of her parents were Mayflower descendants. Two of her brothers would go on to lead the first two Union companies to deploy from Plymouth during the Civil War. Active on the lecture circuit from 1864-1880 she would speak in trances as well as lecture on topics including religious freedom, women's rights (including suffrage and equal pay), and abolition. Doten retired from lecturing in 1880 and in 1902 married her long time companion Zabdiel Adams Willard (1826–1918). They lived in Brookline, Massachusetts until her death in 1913.

Lydia Dotto was born in 1949. In 1971, she graduated with an Honors degree in journalism from Carleton University.

Dotto worked as a general assignment journalist for the Edmonton Journal in 1969 and for the Toronto Star between 1970 and 1971. From 1972 to 1978, Dotto was a staff science writer for The Globe and Mail. In 1978, she became a freelance science and environmental journalist and writer, publishing in varied media and publishing several reports and books. During that time, Dotto was also a partner at Dotto and Schiff Science News Service, co-director of Canadian Science News (a weekly syndication service), and president of the Canadian Science Writers Association.

In 2004, Lydia Dotto focused her work on wildlife photography, travelling across Canada, Tanzania, Costa Rica, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America. And publishing in Canadian Wildlife magazine, WILD magazine, On Nature magazine, and Muskoka magazine, among others.

Lydia Dotto also worked as a teacher, including classes on environmental communications for ten years at Trent University.

During her professional years, Lydia Dotto published numerous reports and books, including, among others:

• The ozone war (1978),
• Planet Earth in jeopardy: environmental consequences of nuclear war (1986),
• Canada in space (1987),
• Asleep in the fast lane: the impact of sleep on work (1990),
• Losing sleep: how your sleeping habits affect your life (1990),
• Blue planet: a portrait of Earth (1991),
• The astronauts: Canada's voyageurs in space (1993),
• Storm warning: gambling with the climate of our planet (1999),
• Le ciel nous tombe sur la tete: sommes-nous entrain de risquer le climat de notre planete? (2001), and
• Thinking the unthinkable: civilization and rapid climate change (2006).

Lydia Dotto passed away on September 17, 2022.

James Downey was born in Winterton, Newfoundland in 1939. He graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and attended the University of London as a Rothermere Fellow where he earned a Ph.D. in English Literature. Downey began his career at Carleton University. There, he held a series of academic and administrative posts including Vice-President Academic and President pro tempore.

From 1980 to 1990, Downey was President of the University of New Brunswick. During that period, he also served terms as President of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, Chair of the Association of Atlantic Universities, and Chair of the Corporate-Higher Education Forum.
From 1990 to 1993, Downey was Special Advisor to the Premier of New Brunswick; Special Advisor to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada; and co-chair of the New Brunswick Commission on Excellence in Education, which published two reports that guided educational reform in that province.
James Downey was President of the University of Waterloo from 1993 to 1999. During his presidency of the University of Waterloo, he also served terms as Chair of the Council of Ontario Universities and Chair of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.
After stepping down as president of the University of Waterloo, he founded and directed Canada’s first centre for the study of co-operative education, located at Waterloo; led an annual seminar for new university presidents sponsored by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada; and from 2007 to 2010 was the founding president of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

Among Downey's awards are nine honorary degrees; the Symons Medal for outstanding service to higher education in the Commonwealth, received from the Association of Commonwealth Universities in 2000; and the David C. Smith Award for contributions to universities and public policy in Canada, received from the Council of Ontario Universities in 2003. In 1996, Downey was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. And, in 2005, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Royal Military College of Canada.

Downey's publications include The Eighteenth Century pulpit (Oxford University Press, 1969), Fearful joy (McGill-Queen1s University Press, 1973), Schools for a new Century and to live and learn (reports of the New Brunswick Commission on Excellence in Education, 1992, 1993), and Innovation : essays by leading Canadian researchers, edited with Lois Claxton (Key Porter Books, 2002).

James Downey died in March 2022.

Lucy Doyle was a well-known newspaper reporter and amateur historian. Her career at the Toronto Telegram began in the 1890's with work as a 'copy girl'. She eventually became a reporter, drama and music critic, gossip columnist, and editor of the women's page at the Telegram. Among the highlights of her newspaper career was the opportunity to cover the Prince of Wales' tours of Canada and the United States. She spent her later years doing research for several planned but never published books, including a biography of the Prince of Wales and a work about the history of Scarborough. For 18 years, she occupied a log cabin on the grounds of the Guild of All Arts in Scarborough, Ontario, as the guest of Spencer and Rosa Clark.

Margery Ruth Spelman was born to Walter Bishop and Ruth Schantz Spelman on September 26, 1915. She studied at Northwestern University and obtained an M.A. from the University of Chicago, going on to teach biology at the University of Cincinnati. She married Eugene C. Dresser (1914-1977) June 17, 1941 at the summer home of her parents in Champlain, New York. Margery died December 2, 1991 and was buried in Champlain at the Glenwood Cemetery.

He attended Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario and completed a summer internship program at the K-W Record in 1992. He now resides in Malibu with his wife Bianca.

Bertha Mabel Dunham was born outside of Harriston, Ontario in 1881 to Martin Dunham and Magdalena Eby. The family relocated to Kitchener when Dunham was six years old, where she was a student at Central School. She was an active member of the community serving as president of the K-W Business and Professional Women's Club, the Kitchener-Waterloo University Women's Club and the Waterloo County Historical Society. Dunham also served as the president of the Ontario Library Association. She retired as Chief Librarian of the Kitchener Public Library in 1944, where she worked for 36 years. Over the course of her career Dunham authored several books, including The Trail of the Conestoga and Grand River.

This fonds contains records relating to Edwin B. Dunke of Kitchener, Ont., the Benton St. Baptist Church, the German Baptist Church of Berlin and the Dunke & Co. grocery store. Other than what is evident from the documents, there is no biographical information available.
E.B. Dunke served as treasurer, ca. 1920, of the German Baptist Church of Berlin, also called the Benton St. Baptist Church, located there since 1852. "In 1890 English-speaking Baptists were invited to conduct their services on alternate Sunday evenings and in March, 1918 the German services were discontinued. Two years later the church separated from the Eastern Conference of German Baptist churches to unite with the Ontario and Quebec conference and in the early 1930's declared itself an independent Baptist church. In 1953 it became part of the Fellowship of Evangelical churches in Canada." (Waterloo Historical Society 52 (1964): 82-83)

William E. Dyer was born around 1878 in Ontario. According to a 1921 Census of Canada, Dyer lived in the Toronto North District. He was married to Vestina G. Dyer ([1877?]-[19-?]) and they had a son, Victoria N. Dyer ([1910?-[19-?]). The federal voters list for 1938 indicates that Dyer was a builder and resided on Howland Avenue in the electoral district of Spadina in Toronto.

Ron Eade (February 1st, 1954 - August 13th, 2015) worked at The Record until 1988. He became a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper and wrote mainly about his culinary adventures.

Gerald Ernest Eastman was born in Ottawa on May 4, 1906. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Scots Fusiliers in 1947, following the retirement of G.M. Bray.

Glenn Earl Eby was born February 22, 1898 in Berlin, now Kitchener, Ontario to Menno (1869-1899) and Sarah Ann (1872-1902) Eby. He was a student at the Kitchener Collegiate and Technical Institute between 1913 and 1917, before enlisting with the Canadian Over-seas Expeditionary Forces on April 19, 1918 in London, Ontario. He married Elise Margueritt Bechtel on November 15, 1922 in Wentworth, Ontario and together they had three children. Eby died February 28, 1962 and was buried in the Blair Cemetery.

Frederick Arthur Edmonds was born in Madras India, where his father was a Bandsman in the British Army. Edmonds was also a musician, and he moved to Guelph, Ont. before the WWI to become a member of Guelph's symphony orchestra. He had been in the 1st Essex Regiment, British Army, and in the Canadian Militia before the war, and enlisted on 23 September 1914 at Valcartier Quebec in the 11th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. In March 1915, Edmonds sailed to England, and on the 26th of April joined the 4th Battalion (Central Ontario) of the 1st Division, in Boulogne. He was in the front line trenches from April 1915 to April 1917, and was invalided home just before the battle of Vimy Ridge. Sources: taken from information received with fonds, and Hayes, Geoffrey. Waterloo County: an illustrated history. Kitchener, Ont.: Waterloo Historical Society, 1997.

Electrohome Limited was an international manufacturer of home electronics, appliances, furniture, and high-tech commercial projection and display systems, and an investor in television broadcasting, based in Kitchener, Ontario.
In April 1933, Arthur B. Pollock formed Dominion Electrohome Industries Limited with the purchase of the combined assets of two of his companies, Pollock-Welker Limited and the Grimes Radio Corporation Limited. His son Carl became general manager. The company, commonly called Electrohome, originally had three manufacturing divisions: radio and communications, appliances and metal products, and furniture and woodworking. It became a publicly traded company in 1946.
Over the next several decades, Electrohome produced a growing diversity of consumer and commercial products, including furniture (using the brand name Deilcraft); fans, humidifiers, and other appliances; electric motors; stereo hi-fi consoles; television receivers; and organs. Carl A. Pollock, who had replaced his father as president in 1951, implemented organizational change to manage the increasingly complex company. The operating divisions became Deilcraft, Electrohome Products, Motors and Metal Products, and Defence and Industrial Contracts; staff divisions were Design, Finance and Accounting, Industrial and Public Relations, and Purchasing and Customs. In the mid-1960s, the management structure was further decentralized, and operating divisions now included Private Trade Label, Product Styling, Motor and Metal Products, Consumer Products Merchandising, Consumer Products Engineering and Manufacturing, Deilcraft, and Distributor Products.
In 1967, the company’s name was officially changed to Electrohome Limited. In 1969, Carl’s son John A. Pollock was made vice-president, electronic products and was elected to the board of directors, and in 1972 became president. When Carl retired in 1974, Donald S. Sykes took over as chairman. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw more management changes: James Holmes joined the company as chairman and CEO from 1976 to 1979, and Stewart Maclellan as president and CEO in from 1979 to 1982, at which time John A. Pollock assumed the role of chairman and CEO. During that time, Electrohome abandoned television manufacturing and the electronics division focused on commercial and industrial products, including specialized video and data display monitors and large-screen projection television. Electrohome also entered new fields, including reverse osmosis/ultrafiltration systems and video-game monitors. It was also briefly involved with ventures in satellite television and videotex hardware. By the end of the 1980s, the company withdrew completely from the manufacturing of consumer products to focus on the two remaining business segments: broadcasting and commercial data and video projection and display systems.
Electrohome’s interest in broadcasting began in 1970 with the formation of Electrohome Communications Inc. to acquire Central Ontario Television Limited (later CAP Communications), the Kitchener broadcasting company formed by Carl A. Pollock, Kitchener-Waterloo Broadcasting Limited, and Famous Players Canadian Corporation Limited in 1953. The company, which operated CKCO-TV, CKKW-AM and CFCA-FM, was expanded in 1988 with the purchase of Sunwapta Broadcasting in Edmonton. In 1997, Electrohome sold these broadcasting operations as well as its interest in CTV to Baton Broadcasting Inc. for cash and shares in Baton.
In 1987 when Electrohome introduced the ECP 1000 single lens colour data and graphics video projector, the first of its kind in the world, the company soon became a leader in the field. The Display Systems business focused on monochrome and colour monitors and high-performance LCD monitors; it became a leading supplier for medical imaging and financial trading rooms. The Projection Systems business produced large screen colour video projection systems for data and graphics with developments in LCD and DLP (digital light processing) technologies. The 1999 acquisition of two smaller high-tech companies allowed Electrohome to also enter the fields of advanced visualization/virtual reality and digitized audio systems.
In 1998, Electrohome was divided into two entities, Electrohome Limited and Electrohome Broadcasting Inc. (EBI). The display and projection businesses were sold in 1997 and 1999 respectively and in 2004 the last manufacturing plant and head office building on Wellington Street in Kitchener was sold. For a time, Electrohome remained a holding company, and then in 2007, it sold its trademarks and in 2008 the corporation’s shares were cancelled and delisted. Electrohome maintains an office in the Wellington Street building and is in the process of dissolving.
Electrohome once employed 4400 people in almost 1.6 million square feet of factories and service areas in Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, as well as sales offices throughout Canada and the US and in Europe. It also established manufacturing facilities in Tennessee and Malaysia. Over the years, Electrohome formed, acquired, and partnered with many other companies, including: Raytheon Corporation (Waltham, MA), Campbell Electric (Brantford, ON), Hawkesville Lumber Limited (Hawkesville, ON), Fry and Blackhall Limited (furniture manufacturer in Wingham, ON), Flexsteel Industries (Canada) Limited (upholstered furniture manufacturer in Stratford, ON), Lightning Circuits and Planar Circuits (Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON), Brinkley Motor Products Company (Brinkley, AR), Gensat Communications Corporation (Toronto, ON), Display Technologies (Carthage, MO), Robotel Electronique (Laval, QC) and Fakespace Systems (Kitchener), which eventually merged with Mechdyne Corporation (Marshalltown, IA).

Elizabeth II was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as the longest reigning British monarch. Born April 21, 1926, she was the eldest daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth II became ascended the British throne on February 6, 1952. She was known for modernizing the role of the monarchy in contemporary times such as accepting divorces of royal family members and using television to share royal domestic life with the public. She died September 8, 2022.