Barbara Davidson is an award-winning Canadian photographer. Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, she graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and Film Studies. From 1992 to 1996 she worked as a photographer for the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. Since leaving the paper she has covered the war in Bosnia, and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has worked for news outlets including The Washington Times and the Los Angeles Times. In 2011 she won a Pullitzer Prize and a National Emmy for her work documenting victims of gang violence in Los Angeles.

Bernard Weil graduated from Sheridan College in 1981 in the program of Photography. He worked as a volunteer for The Mississauga News covering the local elections. He later took on full-time work as a darkroom technician with the publication after his graduation. He moved to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record (The Record), where he was working for a daily newspaper. In 1986, he won the photographer of the year award from the Ontario News Photographer's Association and went on to join The Toronto Star as a staff photographer.

Kathleen (Kay) Amelia Rex was a Canadian reporter and writer. She was born in 1918, the daughter of Lionel and Grace Rex of Woodstock, Ontario. In 1941, after graduating from university, Rex began work with the Woodstock Sentinel, a local daily newspaper, moving to the Canadian Press (CP) in 1942, where she worked in various CP bureaus across the country including Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto. In 1953, Rex left the Canadian Press, thereafter gaining employment with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 1957 she began work as a freelance journalist, traveling first to Mexico City. In 1959 Rex joined the Globe and Mail where she worked until 1983. Her stories brought to the paper an early form of feminism, highlighting women's issues including poverty, daycare, immigration, health, employment and peace.

Upon retirement from the Globe and Mail, Rex became president of the Toronto Branch of the Canadian Authors Association. Her retirement from journalism also allowed Rex to begin research on a history of the Canadian Women's Press Club of which she was a member. Published in 1995, No Daughter of Mine: The Women and History of the Canadian Women's Press Club, 1904-1971 tells the stories of the female journalists who were its members. Rex died on July 10, 2006 in Toronto and was interred at Woodstock Presbyterian Cemetery.

Rienzi Crusz was a poet and retired librarian living in Waterloo, ON. Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, Crusz was educated at the University of Ceylon (B.A. Hons.) and was employed as Chief Research Librarian for the Central Bank of Ceylon. After emigrating to Canada in 1965, he attended the University of Toronto (B.L.S.) and the University of Waterloo (M.A.). He worked at the University of Toronto Library and in 1969 was appointed as a reference and collections development librarian at the University of Waterloo, a position he held until his retirement in 1993.

His creative work first began to appear in periodicals and newspapers in 1968, and in 1974, his first collection of poems was published under the title Flesh and thorn. Since then, numerous other collections have been published. Crusz is an active voice among Canadian immigrant poets, and his work depicts the contrasts between South Asian and Canadian life. In 1994, he won the literature award in the Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Awards.

John Patterson was a member of the Muskoka Lakes Association between 1980 and 1994 and acted as president between 1990 and 1992. John acted also as a Muskoka Lakes Association Director between 1985 and 1986 as 2nd Vice-President and Taxation. He was a member of the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain between 1982 and 1983.

Jane Stuart Larrington was a teacher, writer and editor, and was an early member of the Toronto Branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club. She was born in 1890 in Middlesex County, Ont. and her first work was published in the Globe when she was 13, after which she continued to write and publish sketches and articles. After two and a half years of teaching she moved to Toronto and became, first, assistant editor of Methodist Sunday School Publications and later, editorial assistant with Presbyterian Publications. She joined the Toronto Women's Press Club in 1914 and was a member until her death at the age of 97 in 1987. (Sources: GA 94 File 47: Canadian Women's Press Club, Biographical Scrapbook, 1921.)

Ishbel Maria Marjoribanks Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair and known as Lady Aberdeen, was born in 1857, the daughter of the first Baron Tweedmouth. She married the first Marquis of Aberdeen in 1877, who became Lord Aberdeen, Governor-General of Canada, in 1893 and remained in that office for the next five years.

Lady Aberdeen was active in philanthropic and educational work along many paths for nearly sixty years. She was president of the International Council of Women for nearly forty years, from 1893-1899, and then again from 1904-1936. She was also president of the Irish Industries Association, the Women's National Health Association of Ireland, and the Onward and Upward Association, and for a number of years she was the chairperson of the Scottish Council for Women's Trades. In Canada, Lady Aberdeen founded the Victorian Order of Nurses and took a leading role in the formation of the National Council of Women of which she was the first president. She died in Scotland in 1939.

Thomas Lacey, a trance and direct voice medium, was born in Glossop, Derbyshire England on November 4, 1895.

Thomas married Edith Emma Lomas on March 18, 1918 in Whitfield. Edith was born in Whitfield, Derbyshire England on September 28, 1895.

Thomas and Edith immigrated to Canada in March 1923 and April 1924 respectively. Thomas worked as a mechanical engineer at companies including Dominion Rubber and Sutherland and Schultz.

Records of Thomas conducting séances in the Kitchener-Waterloo region begin in 1924. Edith, although not a medium, was an active participant in the séances. Thomas and Edith moved to Hamilton in the 1950s before returning to Kitchener-Waterloo in the 1960's. The séances recorded in the 1960s were held in the home of Otto and Nelda Smith in Kitchener. Otto Smith, a local businessman, played the organ at St. Matthews Lutheran Church in Kitchener and his organ playing can be heard throughout the séances.

Thomas and the séance sitters believed his main control during the 1960s was a spirit named Amirah and they maintained that his younger brother Walter, who died at a young age, acted as his gate keeper. Thomas Lacey purportedly channeled the spirits of Thomas Edison, Emmanuel Swedenborg, and John Wesley, amongst others. Sitters at the séances were said to have experienced apports, materializations, and automatic writing. One séance recording also contains what is believed to be an example of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP).

The séances fall into three general categorizations: Masters Night when philosophical discussions took place; Visiting Night when spirits of friends and family were welcomed; and Rescue Night when the sitters would help spirits who had not crossed over the veil to do so.

Thomas Lacey died on June 17, 1966 at age 70. Edith Lacey died in 1993 at age 97. Thomas and Edith Lacey were buried in Parkview Cemetery, Waterloo, Ontario.

Joseph Gerald “Gerry” Hagey (September 28, 1904-October 26, 1988) was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario by Menno Hagey and Esther Cornell. Hagey’s great-grandfather was Mennonite Bishop Joseph B. Hagey, an early settler to the Waterloo area from Pennsylvania. Hagey attended Waterloo College (later Wilfred Laurier University) completing his high school and University education there. After graduating he took a position as a sales clerk with B.F. Goodrich in Kitchener. After working for B.F. Goodrich for many years, he eventually rose to the position of National Advertising Director by the 1950’s. Throughout this time he was still actively involved with the affairs of Waterloo College, then a small church college affiliated with the University of Western Ontario. After sitting on the board, he was asked to be the president of Waterloo College in 1953.

During his time at B.F. Goodrich, he had become interested in the idea of students working in their respective industries while studying believing that it would provide experience and revenue for the students, revenue for the college, and assistance for the company. Although a controversial idea, in four years Hagey and his supporters had established a co-operative school of engineering. In the summer of 1957 the Waterloo College Associated Faculties opened, with Hagey as the president. In 1959 Hagey decided to resign his position with Waterloo College and devote his time to the Associate Faculties, which separated from Waterloo College and incorporated as the University of Waterloo. Hagey spent the next ten years developing Waterloo from a two portable school with 75 students to a multimillion dollar university with over 9,000 enrollments.

In 1969 Hagey retired from the University of Waterloo due to a battle with cancer that resulted in the removal of his larynx. In his later years he re-taught himself to speak after his surgery, and was awarded numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Order of Canada in 1986. Hagey died of pneumonia on October 26, 1988.

Jane Urquhart was born in 1949 in Little Long Lac, Ontario, and received her education in Toronto and Guelph. A novelist and poet, her work has been published since 1982, and includes False Shuffles (1982), The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan (1984), The Whirlpool (1986), Storm Glass (1987), Changing Heaven (1990), Away (1993) and The Underpainter (1997).

Jane Urquhart has been writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa, at Memorial University, and most recently in 1997 at the University of Toronto. In 1997 she was awarded the Governor General's Award for Fiction for her novel The Underpainter. Prior to 1997 she had already been the recipient of several literary awards: Le Prix de Meilleure Livre Etrangere (Best Foreign Book Award), France, for The Whirlpool, 1992, The Trillium Book Award in 1993, and the Marian Engel Prize in 1994.
In 1997 Jane Urquhart received an honorary degree from the University of Waterloo.

William Dickson was born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1769. Dickson was a legislative councillor of Upper Canada, politician, colonizer and founder of Galt, Ontario. He immigrated to Canada in 1792 and later became a lawyer in Niagara. In 1815, after having served as an officer in the Canadian militia in the War of 1812, he was named a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. It was also in 1815 that he purchased the township of Dumfries and began the process of bringing in settlers. From 1827 to 1836, he lived in Galt, Upper Canada. He returned to Niagara in 1836 and died there February 19, 1846.

Marion Conroy was the Alberta Chairman of the Women's Regional Advisory Committee to the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, Consumer Branch, during the Second World War and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her wartime work. Set up by the Canadian Government in 1939, the Board's purpose was to prevent the same sort of inflation and social unrest experienced in Canada during WWI. In 1941 PM Mackenzie King announced a price and wage freeze, and appointed Donald Gordon, a prominent banker, to manage the program. A combination of astute administration, public relations and public education resulted in overall effectiveness in the Board's objectives.

Lucy Stone ,suffragette, was born August 13, 1818 on Cory's Hill Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen she began teaching at the district school and then enrolled at Quaboag Seminary and Wesleyan Academy. In 1839 she entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and in 1843 she enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio. When she graduated in 1847 she was the first woman from Massachusetts to obtain a college degree. Stone was appointed a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1848 which allowed her to meet reformers within the Garrison wing of the abolition movement. In 1849 she conducted the first petition campaign in Massachusetts for the rights of women. The first National Women's Rights Convention was held in 1850 and Stone was one of the organizers, later being appointed to the central committee of the convention. In 1851 Stone became an independent women's rights lecturer speaking at various venues throughout the United States for the next seven years.
During the course of her lecturing Stone met and married Henry Brown Blackwell, although she continued to be known by her maiden name. Stone and Blackwell's daughter Alice was born September 14, 1857 and Stone spent less time on her political activities and more time raising her daughter. Alice would later become a leader of the suffrage movement.

By 1866 Stone was involved again in politics and helped to organize, and served on the executive committee of, the American Equal Rights Association which was to press for both African American and women's rights. In 1870 Stone and Blackwell moved to Dorchester Massachusetts to organize the New England Woman Suffrage Association, and Stone founded "The Woman's Journal", a voice of the suffrage movement.

Stone gave her last public speeches in May, 1893 at the World's Congress of Representative Women. She died October 18, 1893.

Marcel Pequegnat was a civil engineer in Kitchener, Ontario, who spent his professional career with the Kitchener Water Commission as superintendent and consultant. He was also involved in the Grand River Conservation Commission and the Arthur Pequegnat Clock Company.

Pequegnat was born in Berlin (now Kitchener) April 27, 1886 to clockmaker Arthur Pequegnat and his wife Hortense (nee Marchand), Marcel studied engineering at the University of Toronto. After graduating he taught at the University and worked for several summers for the Berlin City Enginneers. In 1910-1911, he surveyed land in Manitoba, and in 1913, he was appointed assistant city engineer in Berlin. In 1919, he became superintendent of the Kitchener Water Commission, holding this position until 1957 when he became a consultant until retiring in 1970. Pequegnat also served for 27 years on the Kitchener Planning Board and for 30 years on the Kitchener Suburban Roads Commission. He was president of the Arthur Pequegnat Clock Company from 1940 to 1964, though for most of that time the company was dormant, having ceased clock production by 1942.

Pequegnat was a founding member of the Grand River Conservation Commission (GRCC) when it formed in 1932 and served as vice-chairman from 1938 to 1952, chairman from 1953-1959, and chief engineer from 1962 to 1965. His period of service with the GRCC coincided with the building of the Shand, Luther, and Conestogo dams. He was also Life Member of the Engineering Institute of Canada, a charter member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario, and received their Citizenship Award in 1973. He also was awarded Life Membership in the American Waterworks Association.

Pequegnat married Nellie Elizabeth Klippert (1888-1972) December 28, 1910 and together they had three children. He died in 1988 and was buried alongside Elizabeth in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Elizabeth Smith was born January 18, 1859 at 'Mountain Hall', Vinemount. She was educated by a governess in the home, at Winona School and at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute. She attended Queen's University, Kingston and received her degree in medicine at the Royal Medical College in 1884 (one of the first 3 women M.D.'s in Canada). She also received a diploma from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.

For two years Dr. Elizabeth Smith practised in Hamilton. She was married December 3, 1886 to Adam Shortt. They moved to Kingston where Elizabeth lectured at Queen's on Medical Jurisprudence and Sanitary Science. She worked for the first Y.W.C.A. in Canada and served as its president, and was a sponsor of the Kingston Musical Club and presided over it for seven years.

In September 1908 she and her husband, Dr. Adam Shortt, moved to Ottawa where she became very active in the local, provincial, and National Council of Women affairs. In connection with these organizations she wrote pamphlets on social aspects of tuberculosis, housing, inspection of markets, clean-up weeks, fly control, pasteurization of milk, care of mentally deficient, child welfare, and mother's pensions'. In 1911 she was the first Convener of the Public Health and Mental Hygiene Committee of the National Council of Women. She was also Convener of the Committee on Immigration in the Council and was instrumental in organizing a hostel for women immigrants in Ottawa. She was largely responsible in convening a committee to petition the Provincial Government to establish Mother's Allowances in Ontario, and when this was accomplished in 1920, she was appointed vice-chairman of the Provincial Board of Mother's Allowances and acted in that capacity for seven years. She died in Ottawa Jan. 14, 1949.

Muriel Shortt and Roger Clark married in 1917 and settled into fruit farming in Vineland. Her portion of the fonds contains details of the struggle to become established in this field.
Lorraine Shortt, a graduate of Queen's, chose a field in the public service - social work, and the collection traces her successful career in this area.

Gladys Lilian King was born in Exeter, Devon to Joseph and Mary King. In 1911 King emigrated to Canada to work as a secretary but returned to England in 1915 to do war work. She became a member of the Women Police Service during the war and worked in factories and hostels before becoming employed at the "Beaver Hut", a refuge for Commonwealth soldiers. King worked at the Beaver Hut from September 30, 1918 to August 21, 1919. When the Beaver Hut closed at the end of the war King took up police work in Reading. In 1940 she gave up police work to become the full time female probation officer, a position she held until her retirement in 1949. King died in Reading on June 4, 1970.

Gordon Ray Good (1905-2000), Kaufman Rubber employee, was born August 13, 1905 to Reverend Cyrus Good and Livy C. Hallman in Aylmer, Ontario. Gordon’s father was a New Mennonite Church minister and he and Livy had three children besides Gordon: Grace (b. 1901), Ira (b. 1903) and Myrtle (b. 1909).
As Gordon’s father was a minister, the family moved frequently during his childhood and they first came to Kitchener in 1910. In 1913 they moved to Blair (now Cambridge) and in 1917 back to Kitchener where Gordon would settle for his adult life. Gordon originally began working for Merchant’s Rubber, a subsidiary of Dominion Rubber, in 1923 as a pay clerk in the factory office. After two years with Dominion Rubber, he decided to move on and applied at Kaufman Rubber. He began working in the factory office in the Costs & Payroll department on September 2, 1925. Upon the death of his supervisor Ed Snyder, Gordon took over as head of Costs and Payroll. He remained with Kaufman until his retirement in September of 1972. Gordon Good died May 5, 2000. (From Ancestry and GA 148).

The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson was an English author and poet, winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and aristocrat. Vita as she was commonly known was born March 9, 1892 to Lionel Edward Sackville-West, the 3rd Baron Sackville, and his wife Victoria Sackville-West. In 1913 Vita married the writer and politician Harold George Nicolson (1886-1968), son of Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. Vita and Harold lived abroad for many years in Constantinople and traveled frequently. In the 1930's the couple acquired Sissinghurst Castle which had been once owned by Vita's ancestors. They settled here with their sons Nigel (1917-2004) and Benedict (1914-1978).

Although Vita and Harold remained married until her death they were in an open relationship and both had numerous extra marital affairs. The couple's relationship with the Bloomsbury Group of authors lead to Vita's most well known affair with Virginia Woolf.

Vita wrote a number of novels, namely The Edwardians and All Passion Spent, poetry, and a gardening column for The Observer. In her later years she was heavily involved in gardening creating the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle (that are now run by the National Trust) and becoming a founding member of the National Trust's garden committee.
Vita died at Sissinghurst on June 2, 1962.

Dr. Olive Ruth Russell was born in Delta, Ontario on July 9, 1897. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1931 and from the University of Edinburgh in 1935 going on to teach at various schools and colleges from 1920 to 1942. During World War II, she served as a personnel selection officer with the Canadian Women's Army Corps, 1942-1945, attaining the rank of Captain. From 1945 to 1947 she was an executive assistant to the director general of the Rehabilitation Branch, Dept. of Veterans' Affairs.

Dr. Russell was a Canadian delegate to the Inter-continental Conference of the National Council of Women, 1946; a fraternal delegate from the World Federation of United Nations Associations to the Conference of the International Federation of University Women, 1947, and a member of the board, National Commission for Beneficient Euthanasia, U.S.A. She was Assistant Professor of Psychology, Winthrop College, S.C., 1947-1949, and Professor and Chairman of the Dept. of Psychology, Western Maryland College, 1949-1962. She authored Freedom to Die: Moral and Legal Aspects of Euthanasia (1975) and campaigned vigorously in favour of euthanasia. She was also the author of numerous articles on euthanasia, education and psychology.

Russell died on May 25, 1979 at her home in Chevy Chase at the age of 81.

Waldo Thompson was born in 1813 and was a member of the New England Genealogical Society. Thompson was the author of Swampscott: historical sketches of the town. The book, published in 1885, provides a historical overview of Swampscott, a town located in northeastern Massachusetts.

Dr. Henry H. Crapo was a faculty member at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Pure Mathematics. Crapo donated a sizable volume of rare books and materials for the history of dance for Special Collections & Archives at the University of Waterloo. Crapo also helped to organize the Vestris Prize choreography competition with Boston Ballet in 1967.

David H. Snyder was a a farmer in the New Dundee area of Ontario.

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)

John Panabaker is the former President of the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada. Panabaker attended McMaster University where he received his B.A. Hons in Political Economy (1950) and his M.A. in Political Economy (1954). After leaving McMaster he began working for the Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada where he would eventually be named President (1973) and later CEO (1982-1985). He retired from Mutual Life in 1989.
Panabaker has also been involved with a number of organizations in Kitchener-Waterloo and nationally including serving as Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Life and Health Assurance Association, as a trustee of the Toronto School of Theology, as president of the Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation, and as a director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra Association. Panabaker was also the Chancellor of McMaster University from 1986-1992 and holds honorary degrees from McMaster, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo. In 1990, Panabaker was made a member of the Order of Canada.

John Goldie was born in Ayreshire, Scotland. He married Margaret Smith on June 18, 1815 and they had eight children : William, John, Elizabeth, James, Jane, Margaret, David and Mary. A botanist and plant collector, he travelled to Canada, New York State, the Maritimes and Russia and discovered species unknown at the time. In 1844 Goldie moved his family to Ontario, to a property which became known as Greenfield, near Ayr, where the family founded first a sawmill, and then a flour and oatmeal mill in 1848.

These letters are addressed to John Goldie's son James (1824-1912), who was working in New York at the time that they were written. James Goldie was the third son of John Goldie. He had moved to the United States in 1842, where he was employed as a gardener and was involved in the flour and lumber business. In 1860 he moved to Guelph, where he built the Speedvale Mill. He operated the mill until 1898, at which time it became the James Goldie Company, Ltd.
Sources: "Waterloo County Hall of Fame - Inductees G-I." Region of Waterloo Website. www.region.waterloo.on.ca (14 April 2004), "Historic Place Names of Waterloo County - Greenfield, North Dumfries Township." Region of Waterloo Website. www.region.waterloo.on.ca (14 April 2004), Bricker, I.C. "History of the Gowdy-Goldie-Goudie family." Waterloo Historical Society. 1938. 26: 20-37, and Stuffling, Roger. "John Goldie, early Canadian botanist 1793-1886." Waterloo Historical Society. 1987. 75: 98-116.

Dr. Ken Ledbetter ([1932?]-1993) was a professor of English at the University of Waterloo and a writer. He joined the English department in 1966 and served as deputy dean of arts from 1968-1969, associate dean (special programs) from 1975-1981, and acting director of the correspondence program from 1980-1981. He received a Distinguised Teacher Award in 1983. He also founded several programs in the Faculty of Arts, including the English language proficiency program. Ledbetter was also a writer of short stories and novels, and his biggest success was Too Many Blackbirds (1984).

William Bruce Dendy, Canadian architectural historian, was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1948 and died May 29, 1993 in Toronto, Ontario. Dendy graduated from the University of Toronto in 1971, received a B.A. in Architectural History from Cambridge University in 1973, and in 1979 received two Masters degrees in architectural history, one from the University of Cambridge, and one from Columbia University in New York. He worked as an architectural historian for the Toronto Historical Board from 1973 until 1976, taught Canadian architectural history at the University of Toronto, at the University of Waterloo, at Carleton University in Ottawa, at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, and at the Toronto Urban Studies Centre. Dendy also worked on a consultancy basis as architectural historian to many Toronto-based architectural firms, developers, and government agencies, and also led architectural walking tours of Toronto.
Dendy's two published works, Lost Toronto (1978) and Toronto Observed: Its Architecture, Patrons, and History (1986), were both published by the Oxford University Press and both won Toronto Book Awards. In 1993 Dendy was awarded an honorary membership in the Ontario Association of Architects, and in the same year he was given an Allied Arts Award for his lectures and books on historical architecture.
(Sources: Freedman, Adele. "A Life's Work: The William Dendy Collection", University of Waterloo Alumni Magazine (spring 1995): 11-15; "Historian Won 2 Toronto Awards", The Globe and Mail, Monday, 31 May 1993; Hume, Christopher. "Architectural Historian's Death a Significant Loss", Toronto Star, Tuesday, 1 June 1993, sec. B., p. 6; "Will Bequest Establishes the William Dendy Collection", Insights (spring 1995): 1-2.)

Dorothea Palmer was born 1908 in England. She had some training in a hospital in England. She was employed as a nurse by the Parents' Information Bureau of Kitchener, Ont. to visit homes of those known to be poor or relatively poor, and to offer to needy mothers the opportunity of applying for certain contraceptive materials. Miss Palmer was arrested at Eastview, an Ottawa suburb, as she was leaving the home of a French Roman Catholic family which was on relief and had a large number of children. The mother had telephoned Miss Palmer and asked her to call. Miss Palmer was arrested on the charge of distributing birth control information and contraceptive devices. The trial occupied nineteen days of testimony and four of argument, and during which forty witnesses were examined. The case was a remarkable one in that the decision overruled religious and medical objections to the dissemination of birth control information. She was acquitted March 17, 1937 after a trial that extended over a period of six months. The Crown appealed the case which was heard on the 1st and 2nd of June 1937, by the Court of Appeal for Ontario, presided over by the Chief Justice of Ontario and two Associate Judges. The Appeal was dismissed without Defence Counsel F.W. Wegenast being called. Dorothea died in 1992.

Nazla L. Dane was born in Indian Head Sask., in 1906 and spent her early years in Saskatchewan. She taught public and secondary school in Saskatchewan from 1925-1933, worked for various businesses in Regina and Vancouver, and then worked in the Departments of Munitions and Supply and Transport in Ottawa from 1941-1945. She worked as director of both the Women's and Educational Divisions of the Canadian Life Insurance Association from 1945 to 1971. In the course of her work she wrote news columns and travelled across the country speaking to women's groups not only about finances and money management, but about women's issues such as rights, laws and employment. Nazla Dane was elected President of the Toronto Business and Professional Women's Club 1949-1951, President of the Ontario BPW 1958-61, President of the Canadian BPW 1964-1966 and from 1971-1974 served as President of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. She has been active all her life in many women's organizations, including the YWCA, VON, Women's Canadian Club, Toronto and Area Council of Women, among others. In 1977 she received the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal and in 1985 received the Persons Award from Governor-General Jeanne Sauve.

John Gartshore Martin, Col. DSO, MID, Q.C., was an officer in World War II and later became a lawyer in Kitchener, Ontario. The youngest son of John Alexander and Jessie (Wilson) Martin, John studied at the University of Toronto and was employed at the Waterloo Manufacturing Co. Ltd. until he enlisted in the Canadian army in 1941. At that time, he was posted to the Highland Light Infantry regiment as a reinforcement officer with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. Before enlisting, he was a member of the Scots Fusiliers of Canada and trained with them at Niagara, Brockville, and Camp Borden. He also worked on staff at a military school in Vernon, British Columbia before being posted overseas in September, 1943. In 1944 he was transferred to the Lincoln and Welland Regiment (infantry), which participated in the landing at Normandy and the Allied advance through Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany. Martin was promoted to the rank of Major and was awarded several medals, including a Distinguished Service Order and mention in despatches. After returning to Kitchener in 1946, he married his fiance Mary Ann Kabel (daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Art Kabel of Kitchener) and enrolled in law school at Osgoode Hall. Upon graduating in 1949, he practiced law in Kitchener and retired as a senior partner of the law firm Clement, Eastman, Dreger, Martin & Meunier. Martin was involved in community service at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church and several organizations in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. He and Mary Ann had three children: Cathryn Jean, John Jamieson, and David Alexander.

Donald McKay was a fur trader who spent much of his life in the Timiskaming district of what is today northern Ontario and Quebec. Born to Scottish immigrants near or around Montreal he had several siblings, including Angus and Neil who also worked in the fur trade. When the Hudson's Bay Company post Frederick House was established in 1785, McKay who was then a clerk, was master of Canadian house, Langue de Terre, on Lake Mistinikon. By 1794 he had a post on Matawagamingue, today Mattagami, that served as the base for the area and he established the Flying Post on Groundhog Lake, which was in operation in 1800. From 1804 to 1806 McKay was in charge of the depot at Fort Timiskaming before relocating to Abitibi for a short time. He returned to Fort Timiskaming in 1806 and remained there as master until his death on June 9, 1820. Two of McKay's sons, Donald John and John, worked in the fur trade as well, serving as clerks in the Timiskaming district for the North West and Hudson's Bay companies.

Emmanuel Christian Gottlieb Enslin, known as Christian Enslin, was a German immigrant who arrived in British North America ca. 1830, later settling in Berlin about 1833. Enslin established a book bindery, bookstore and printing operation. He also served as editor of the Deutsche Canadier, the only German language newspaper in British North America from 1841-1848 and held numerous public offices.
Christian Enslin died on March 29, 1856. Source : Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, http://www.biographi.ca.

David Shannon Bowlby was born in Berlin (Kitchener) Ontario January 24, 1874. He attended the University of Toronto graduating with a B.A. in 1895, and an LL.B. in 1896. In 1893 he received his call to the Bar. He was appointed Crown Attorney for Waterloo County in 1917. Bowlby died October 11, 1938.

Armistead Churchill Gordon (1855-1931), lawyer and writer, was born December 20, 1855 in Virginia. Gordon attended the University of Virginia, and later studied law, being called to the bar in 1879. Involved in many aspects of higher education in Virginia he was a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary and the University of Virginia, as well as being the first chairman of the Virginia State Library Board. Outside of his work in the law, he published multiple books on the history and peoples of Virginia, as well as collections of poetry.

Bernard Herbert Suits, philosopher and professor, was born November 25, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan. Suits attended Denby High School in Detroit and went on to receive his BA at the University of Chicago, his MA in Philosophy also at the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Illinois. Suits' area of philosophic inquiry was games and gaming and he would go on to become an authority in the field. In 1957, Suits began teaching at the University of Illinois and moved on to Purdue in 1959. In 1966, Suits became an associate professor at the University of Waterloo where he would remain until his retirement in 1994.

While teaching at the University of Waterloo, Suits would hold such positions as Chair of the Waterloo Philosophy Department, Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs in the Faculty of Arts and President of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport. Suits was awarded a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1982 and was appointed Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 1995.

Outside of teaching Suits published essays in a number of journals and is best known for his book "The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia." Suits was also a visiting professor at the University of Lethbridge and the University of Bristol. In 1982, Suits was a special guest star on the TVO special "The Academy on Moral Philosophy."
Bernard Suits died in 2007.

Bertram Rolland Davis was born in Bristol in 1897. Financial and familial situations prevented him from attending University, and after high school he began to work for the cable company established by his father, where he would stay for forty years. When not working he spent his free time as an amateur scholar with an interest in the Romantics and their links to Bristol. In particular, his interests tended towards former Poet Laureate Robert Southey and boy poet Thomas Chatterton. He corresponded with many of the leading Romantic scholars and critics of the twentieth century including Raymond D. Havens, E.H.W. Meyerstein, Maurice H. Fitzgerald, and Earl Leslie Griggs, and others. Davis also played an active role in preserving the history of Bristol and its famous residents.
To support his research, Davis purchased as many documents relating to the Romantics as he could afford. He amassed a collection of forty-five manuscript groups comprised of original documents by Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their contemporaries as well as an extensive library relating to his academic interests. His library is known as the Bertram R. Davis “Robert Southey” collection.
After Davis’ death, his personal library, manuscript groups, correspondence, and research files were acquired by the University of Waterloo.
(Bertram R. Davis / Kenneth Curry.)
(Catalogue of the Bertram R. Davis "Robert Southey" Collection / compiled by Jane Britton. -- Waterloo: University of Waterloo Library, 1990.)

Dana Harris Porter was born to Dr. George Dana Porter and Lena Harris of the Massey-Harris family in Toronto, Ontario on January 14, 1901. He attended the University of Toronto for his B.A. which he completed in 1921. In September of that year he traveled to England to study at Balliol College, Oxford from which graduated with his M.A. in 1923. He then returned to Canada, and records show that he intended to study for the Ontario Bar. He was called to the bar in 1923 and began practicing litigation law at Fennel, Porter and Davis. During his time at law school he met Dorothy Chaplin Ramsey Parker (born 1905) the daughter of Admiral A.R. Parker. Dorothy had been born in Hong Kong and raised mostly in England having taken many trips to Canada as a child and youth where she stayed with her Uncle the Honourable J.D. Chaplin, an M.P. in St. Catharines. By December of 1928 the couple’s relationship was becoming serious and they were engaged in June 1929. Dorothy was visiting England at the time, and she returned to Canada for their October 5, 1929 wedding. In 1931 their first son, Dana Jr. was born and a second, Julian, followed in 1936.

During this time Porter continued to work at his firm and in 1943 he made the decision to enter into provincial politics. In the 1943 election he ran as a Progressive Conservative in the Toronto riding of St. George, which won him a place in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. He would hold this seat until 1958. During his political career he served under three premiers and in a variety of positions. From 1944-1948 he was the Minister of Planning and Development during which time he was instrumental in the airlifting of British immigrants to Canada. From 1948-1951 he was the Minister of Education and was Provincial Secretary and Registrar from 1948-1949. In 1949 Porter ran for head of the Progressive Conservative Party at the 1949 Provincial Tory Leadership Convention, but lost to friend Leslie Frost. Instead, Porter became Attorney General of Ontario, a position he held until 1955. His last role in the Provincial Government was that of Treasurer and Minister of Economics from 1955-1958. Throughout these years he was also a member of numerous standing committees on a broad range of topics.

In 1958 the Progressive Conservatives came into power at the national level with Diefenbaker becoming Prime Minister and Porter stepped down from politics to accept his appointment as Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal. During his tenure he also headed the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance from 1961-1964 and presided over a number of important trials, such as the lifting of the ban on notorious novel Fanny Hill.

Porter also had a number of personal interests and activities that kept him busy. He spoke at a variety of events in Ontario and Canada at large, including convocations, meetings, luncheons etc. He was also an amateur Shakespeare historian and was particularly interested in the Sonnets. He wrote a number of essays on the possible order of the Sonnets, and on the identities of the Dark Lady, the Fair Youth and the Rival Poet. Although an attempt was made to have one of his works published, the furthest that came of it was printed and bound editions that he had made and sent to friends and critics. His literary endeavors did not end with Shakespeare as he also wrote a play and three essays on politics in Canada.
Porter’s dedication to academia lead to many accolades including being installed as the First Chancellor of the University of Waterloo in 1960. He was also on the Board of the University of Toronto and was awarded Honourary degrees from such institutions as McMaster University. The Dana Porter Library at the University of Waterloo was dedicated to and named after him on October 27, 1967, and his portrait hangs in it.

In 1967 Porter stepped down from his position largely due to his failing health. On May 13 of the same year he died of cancer in Toronto.

Elaine Maud Clark was a writer born November 14, 1889 in Bath, England, daughter of Frederick Charles and Annie Matilda (Whittington) Clark. Educated in private schools in Guildford, Surrey, Elaine married Sydney Charles William Catley in December 29, 1915. After he served in the Imperial Forces for four years they settled in Calgary, Alberta, in 1920, where they raised four children.

Elaine began writing verse when just thirteen, and won three prizes from John O'London's Weekly. In Canada her poetry and journalism regularly appeared in the Calgary Herald and other papers. Active in the Canadian Authors Association and the Canadian Women's Press Club, she included Nellie McClung, Laura Goodman Salverson, W.T. Allison and John W. Garvin among her friends. Her six volumes of verse span a career of 58 years. Elaine died in Calgary July 29, 1984.

John Ivan Rempel (1905-) MRAIC, architect and architectural historian, was born September 29, 1905 near Ekaterinoslav, Russia (now Ukraine) to Dutch parents. In 1924 he emigrated to Canada and settled in Kitchener, Ontario where he completed high school at Kitchener Collegiate Institute, graduating in 1928. John attended the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto and graduated in 1933, receiving an honours degree, a Bachelor of Architecture, and the Architectural Gold Medal. He began practising as an architect in 1939 after having completed early work with such well known firms as Templin and Wells, Craig and Madill, and Horwood and White.

Throughout his career, John's major interests were research into historic building technology and architectural restoration, to which he has made significant contributions through writing and practice. John was a member of a variety of architectural heritage committees and spoke on television and the radio in connection with campaigns for local preservation. John also published a number of significant works related to architectural heritage conservation and in 1967 he published Building With Wood, considered by many to be an outstanding documentation of the empirical approach to the study of vernacular buildings in Canada and other parts of North America. John Rempel was also a well known speaker in Canada and the United States having spoken at the American Society of Architectural Historians, the Canadian Museums Association, and others. John also worked professionally as a heritage consultant for restoration projects across southern Ontario and was Chief Research Architect in Historic Building Technology for the reconstruction of Fort William and an architectural consultant during the establishment of Upper Canada Village.

In addition, John was the head of the Architectural Drafting department at the Danforth Technical School in Toronto and a lecturer at the Ontario College of Education. For his work John won numerous awards including a Senior Canada Council Fellowship and the Gabrielle Léger Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Heritage Conservation.

Kathleen Irene Hancock was born February 10, 1900 to Claude Hancock (1872-1955) and Henrietta Maria Wingfield-Digby (1867-1967) of the Wingfield-Digby's of Sherborne Castle. Irene was educated at Headington School for Girls, Oxford (where she was Head Girl) and Portsmouth School for Girls before attending Mrs. Hoster's Typewriting, Shorthand and Translation Office where she took a six month course in secretarial training. She became a member of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC) and served as the General Secretary until 1928. The same year she also helped to organize and taught at the NUSEC summer school, held at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. The summer school offered classes to women in topics on politics and enacting on your enfranchisement. After this point she traveled to Vienna, Austria where she studied abroad and watched over the education of Ray Strachey's daughter Barbara. Correspondence from this time indicates that she intended to return to England sit the bar, however census records show that in 1932 she was working as a personal assistant to the Hon. S. Baldwin. Irene died in 1989 in Liss, Hampshire.

Dame Clara Ellen Butt was a British contralto singer. She performed in operatic productions, as well as in popular concerts with her husband Kennerley Rumford. During the First World War many of her concerts were fundraisers for service charities. She died in 1936 in Oxfordshire.

Eva Marian Hubback was a British suffragist and campaigner for birth control and eugenics. She was Parliamentary Secretary of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship and later President after Eleanor Rathbone. She was director of economic studies at Newnham and Girton, Principal of Morley College for Working Men and Women and a member of the executive committee of the Eugenics Society. She founded the Association for Education in Citizenship in 1933. From 1946-1948 she was member of parliament for Kensington North. Eva died in 1949.

Eleanor Rathbone was a leader figure in the British women's rights movement as well as being a member of parliament and a campaigner for the cause of family allowance. Born to social reformer William Rathbone V she worked for him after her graduation from Oxford investigating social and industrial conditions in Liverpool. In 1897 she joined the Liverpool Women's Suffrage Society and was Honorary Secretary and in 1913 co-founded the Liverpool Women's Citizen's Association. At the beginning of the Second World War she founded the charity now known as SSAFA which supports spouses and dependents of soldiers. When Millicent Fawcett retired in 1919 Eleanor took over as president of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. After the society disbanded upon women receiving equal franchise, she became a member of parliament and was an outspoken critic of the government's policy of appeasement in the Second World War. In 1945 the Family Allowances Act, a lifetime social cause for her, came into effect and Eleanor died the next year in London.

Henry William "Harry" Anthes was a businessman and the founder of Anthes Foundry, Ltd. He was born in 1851 in Wilmot Township, Ontario to German parents from what was then the region of Alsace-Lorraine. Anthes married Elizabeth (Libbie) Lawrence and the couple had three children: Lawrence Lee "Laurie", Irene, and Elizabeth F. (Libbie). His career in the hardware business started in Toronto, where he worked with Rice Lewis and Son, and later manager of John Foster and Sons. Anthes moved to Berlin (now Kitchener) in 1880, where in 1883 he was a councillor for Waterloo township and in 1886 was 2nd Deputy Reeve for Waterloo township, and a Councillor for Waterloo County. Anthes returned to Toronto in 1889 where, along with E. W. B. Snider of St. Jacob's, he established Toronto Foundry Co., Ltd. The company was later renamed Anthes Foundry, Ltd., with plants in Toronto and Winnipeg. Anthes died August 15, 1914 in Sans Souci, Georgian Bay, Ontario and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

E. L. Hardy was a photographer at York Studio in Toronto.

Admiral Thomas C. Hart was Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet, the Philippines, during World War II.

Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll was Deputy Chief of Naval Operations during World War II.

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Hawaii, during World War II.