Ottawa’s Brittania Yacht Club recently named the entry to its harbour Sherwood Port and erected a plaque there in honour of Livius Sherwood, the provincial court judge and internationally-known champion of sailing, who died June 7 in his native Ottawa at the age of 78. In the courtroom Mr. Sherwood was known for his patience,…
Tag: canada
Obit: public servant Gerry Shannon (1935-2003)
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Gerry Shannon could have been a professional hockey player like his father, but sought instead to play in a much bigger arena. Shannon went on to become a top career public servant who helped formulate Ottawa’s policies on international trade. At one time he held the No. 2 posting in the Canadian Embassy in Washington…
Obit: Mordecai Richler (1931-2001); and IFOA Tribute (2000)
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Mordecai Richler, the acclaimed Canadian novelist who died July 3, 2001 at the age of 70, will be remembered for his various novels that brought the Jewish life of Montreal to vibrant and often hilarious life on the page. An irreverent satirist who honed his wit on diverse targets from the Jews to Quebec’s protective…
Obit: William George Poy (1907-2002)
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William George Poy, the father of Canada’s Governor General, died in Toronto on Sunday Feb. 3, 2002, at the age of 94. A onetime employee in the Canadian Trade Commission in Hong Kong, Mr. Poy and his young family came to Canada as war refugees after Hong Kong fell to the Japanese in 1942. Continuing…
Port Hope filled with architecture, history
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Port Hope, an attractive lakefront town an hour’s drive east of Toronto, has much to offer travellers who stray (either by accident or design) from nearby Highway 401. With a picturesque main street known for its antique shops, the town of roughly 12,000 is a Mecca for antique shoppers. But there’s also an abundance of…
A sensational Toronto murder from 1894
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Eighteen-year-old Frank Westwood had gone out with friends about 7.30 that Saturday evening, October 6, 1894. By the time he returned to his family’s Jameson Avenue mansion about 10:30, his father, sister and brother had already retired upstairs; his mother, seeing he was safely in, shortly went up, too, leaving him on the stairs. The…
Profile: Honest Ed Mirvish (2001)
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If this year is anything like previous years, the sun will be shining when “Honest” Ed Mirvish, Toronto’s legendary salesman and theatre impresario, hosts a mammoth street party on Sunday July 22 in celebration of his 87th birthday, offering free refreshments and entertainment to as many as 60,000 people over a seven-hour period. The party…
Obit: Frank Marsh (2001)
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Frank Marsh was born in Lamaline, a remote coastal village in Newfoundland, and came to touch the lives of many people in Ontario, and even in distant India, by dint of his professional vision and dedication. A rural school-teacher who founded Newfoundland’s Eastern College and then became the province’s assistant deputy minister of education, Marsh…
A sketch of artist Gerald Gladstone
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Humanity’s future: will it be “earthbound” or “spacebound”? My uncle, the artist Gerald Gladstone, posed this question to me recently outside Yorkdale shopping centre in North York. We were standing in the parking lot near The Bay, beside one of his major works, a bronze colossus called Universal Man, which was installed there in late…
Crossing the Yellow Line into Murder-Mystery Territory
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Toronto lawyer and writer Robert Rotenberg has produced a credible “police procedural” murder mystery called Old City Hall that is set in Toronto and features the famous building of the title — now home to an array of criminal courtrooms — as an iconic centrepiece of the story. Rotenberg’s debut novel focuses on Kevin Brace,…
