Title and statement of responsibility area
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Edition area
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Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
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Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
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Physical description area
Physical description
40.5 cm of textual records
Publisher's series area
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Ivan Wilbur Keffer was born March 21, 1890 in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario. He married Mary Louise Elligsen of Sebringville in 1917. Keffer began working for the F.W. Woolworth Co. in Hamilton, Ontario in 1912, after graduating from high school. He was named manager of a store in Stratford, Ontario in 1915, later working as a district superintendent and then buyer based in Toronto, Ontario. In 1927, the company opened the subsidiary F.W. Woolworth GmbH in Germany. The same year Keffer accepted a position to organize and develop the, moving with his wife and daughter Mary Jane to Berlin, Germany. He became managing director of the German company in 1933. The Keffers lived in Berlin until 1939 when they returned to Canada and settled in Toronto because of the political and economic tensions in Germany. Keffer continued to serve Woolworth’s as Canadian General Manager. In 1945, he was appointed executive vice president and treasurer of the company and the family moved to New York. Upon his retirement in 1953, the Keffers moved back to Toronto and lived in an apartment there as well as the house they built in Port Elgin. Keffer died January 7, 1965 and was buried in the family plot at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery in Vaughn, Ontario.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Series consists of souvenir material probably accumulated by Ivan W. Keffer, most of which was likely collected during the time they lived in Germany. Includes mainly souvenir postcards in booklet form and loose postcards. Most postcards depict European cities and attractions; some are souvenirs from places in Canada and the United States. Series also includes souvenir material from the Keffer's voyage on the S.S. Leviathan when they moved to Germany.