Nelson Ball, poet, publisher and book seller, was born in Clinton, Ontario in 1942. He established Weed/Flower Press in 1965 in order to publish Canadian and American poets. He is also the author of several collections of poetry, including Waterpipes and Moonlight (Weed/flower Press, 1969), Force Movements (Ganglia Press, 1969) and The Pre-Linguistic Heights (Coach House Press, 1970). Ball died in Brantford on 16 August 2019.
Donna Marie “Daisy” DeBolt, an accomplished singer-songwriter, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on July 19, 1945 to a musical family. DeBolt’s maternal grandfather, Percy Highfield (1882-1946), studied music in England and played violin for a symphony orchestra. After immigrating to Canada in 1910, he taught music in Foxwarren, Manitoba, and in residential schools in Kenora, Ontario. DeBolt’s mother, (Helen) Marjorie (Highfield) DeBolt (1916-1998), was a musician and music teacher, and played violin with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Her father, Donald DeBolt (d.1979), played banjo, chromatic harmonica, and the blues harp.
As a teenager, DeBolt studied jazz guitar with Lenny Breau (1941-1984). In 1965, she moved to Toronto, Ontario to pursue a music career as a folk musician. She met Allen Fraser in 1968 and the two formed the musical duo Fraser & DeBolt. They released two albums: Fraser & DeBolt With Ian Guenther, in 1971, and Fraser & DeBolt With Pleasure, in 1973. DeBolt and Fraser parted ways in the mid-1970s. DeBolt continued to write and perform as a solo artist and to collaborate with other musicians and poets. Her solo works include Soulstalking (1992), Live Each Day with Soul (2002), and Lovers and Fantasies (2004), an album featuring two songs by author Michael Ondaatje.
In addition to being a folk singer, DeBolt was well versed in blues, jazz and reggae, and played mandolin, accordion and guitar. Over the course of her career, DeBolt toured and played at festivals across Canada, performed in several theatre productions, composed for Ballet Ys, and wrote film scores for the National Film Board. She had a son, Jake DeBolt, with poet Robert Dickson (1944-2007). DeBolt died on October 4, 2011 in Toronto.
Austin Ardinel Chesterfield ("Tom") Clarke, author, was born in Barbados on 26 July 1934. His parents were Kenneth Trotman and Gladys Irene Clarke. His mother later married F.H. Luke. Clarke immigrated to Canada in 1956 and attended Trinity College at the University of Toronto for a short time. His interest in writing began early in life, and in the 1960s his short stories began to be published in Canadian and other periodicals. Clarke's stories and novels primarily centre around the plight of the immigrant West Indian in Canada, although his first two novels, The Survivors of the Crossing and Amongst Thistles and Thorns, take place in Barbados.
He was a member of The Immigration and Refugee Board from 1983 to 1993; he also held a position with The Ontario Film Review Board from 1984 to 1987. Clarke was the inaugural recipient of The Rogers Communications Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for his semi-autobiographical novel The Origin of Waves, published in 1997. His 2002 novel, The Polished Hoe, won the Trillium, Giller and Commonwealth prizes. His novel More was published in 2008. The author currently resides in Toronto, Ont. For further biographical material, please consult McMaster University's Library Research News (6, no. 1, Spring 1982) and Stella Algoo-Baksh, Austin C. Clarke: A Biography (Toronto: ECW Press, 1994). Clarke died in Toronto on 26 June 2016.
William Alexander Stephens was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 9 April 1809. While still a child, he emigrated with his family to New York and then, in 1816, to Upper Canada (now Ontario), first to Toronto and Markham, then to Esquesing Township (now part of Halton Region) where his parents, Thomas and Eleanor (Newburn) Stephens, established a farm. Stephens was one of twelve children.
In 1839 Stephens was summoned to Hamilton for jury duty. While there, he commented on the view from the top of the mountain (escarpment) and was encouraged to compose a poem about it. Stephens took up the challenge and composed “Hamilton,” a lengthy poem in a style reminiscent of the 18th century, including long passages based on Biblical stories and references to Greek myths; it also contains descriptions of early Hamilton, particularly in the first half of Book IV.
The poem, along with others by Stephens, was published in 1840 in Toronto by Rogers and Thompson as Hamilton and other poems. The book was one of the first volumes of poetry by an Ontarian ever published and helped earn Stephens the title “the pioneer poet of Ontario,” as assigned by T. J. Rexaledan in an 1891 article in Saturday Night. An expanded edition of Hamilton and other poems was published in 1871. (Both editions are available in the Archives’ book collection).
Stephens married Marian (Mary) Crispin in Toronto Township (present day Mississauga) on 13 October 1845. They lived initially in Norval and then later in Ballinafad (both in Esquesing). They moved to Owen Sound in 1850 where Stephens had been appointed customs officer, and would live there for the rest of their lives. In the 1871 census, Stephens is 62 years of age, his wife Mary is 45, and their children are listed as James C. (24), Newburn (22), Eliza A. (20), Henry R. (18), William S. (16), Haldane H. (14), Mary E. (12), and Edward W. (7).
Several of Stephens’ siblings also lived in Owen Sound, including brothers Thomas C. Stephens, Robert E. Stephens, A. M. Stephens, and Henry N. Stephens, and sisters Mary Doyle, Eliza Miller, Ellen Layton, and Rachel Layton.
Over the years, Stephens held a variety of other positions in Owen Sound in addition to customs officer, including notary public, lumber merchant, newspaper editor, insurance agent, and mayor (1869). He was a member of the Disciples church and frequently spoke at church worship services.
Stephens was a prolific writer of essays and poems, with pieces appearing in a broad range of journals and newspapers, including the Gleaner (Niagara), the Canadian Casket and Canadian Gleaner (both of Hamilton), the Advocate, Palladium, Examiner, and Leader (all of Toronto), the Albion (New York), the Saturday Courier (Philadelphia), the Review (Streetsville), the Baptist Magazine (Montreal), and more.
He also authored separately published booklets and essays—A poetical geography and rhyming rules for spelling (Toronto, 1848), Papal infallibility … as seen in the light of revelation (Owen Sound, 1871), and The centennial: an international poem (Toronto, 1878).
Stephens died in Owen Sound in 1891.
Lawrence Krader was an American anthropologist and ethnologist. Born in New York City to parents who had emigrated from Russia and Austria, Krader attended CCNY studying a range of subjects, before graduating in 1941. He joined the merchant navy during the Second World War, and then returned to school at Columbia University (1945-47) and a PhD from Harvard in 1954.
Krader taught at a number of institutions including, the University of Syracuse, the American University in Washington DC, the University of Waterloo, and the Free University of Berlin. In addition to his teaching appointments and other commitments, Krader was named the Secretary-General of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences from 1964-78.
The last decade of his life, he spent writing manuscripts on a range of topics. He died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism in November 1998, leaving much of his work unpublished.
Luca Codignola-Bo, born in Genoa, Italy, in 1947, took his Master's degree in History at the University of Toronto in 1974. New France historian William J. Eccles was his thesis director. He then taught early Canadian and American history at the universities of Bologna (1975-7), Pisa (1976-90), and Genova (1990-2016). At Genova he was also member of the University's Senate (2012-5). In 2008-12 he was Head of the Institute of History of Mediterranean Europe (ISEM) of Italy's National Research Council (CNR). Dr Codignola-Bo has been active in a number of international associations and institutions, such as the International Council for Canadian Studies (President 1985-7), the Italian Association for Canadian Studies (President 1988-90), the Italian Committee for North American History (President 1989-91), the Association internationale des études acadiennes (President 2004-6), the Association internationale des études québécoises (member of the Conseil d'Administration 2005-10), the European Science Foundation, Standing Committee for the Humanities (Italy's representative 2005-8). He was awarded the Northern Telecom Five Continents Award in Canadian Studies (1988), the Special Government of Canada Award (2001), and a Doctorate honoris causa (D.Litt.) by Saint Mary's University (2003). He was also elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2016). Over the years Dr Codignola-Bo has taught in several Canadian and American universities such as York (1990-4), Laval (1997, 2000), McGill (1998), Brown (2001), Toronto (2002), and Saint Mary's (2007, 2013-4). He has also been research associate at the Université de Montréal (1977, 1988, 1990, 1992), the University of Ottawa (1977, 1985), the University of London (1980, 1982-3, 2002, 2004), the John Carter Brown Library (1989, 2001), and the Library Company of Philadelphia (2003). At the time of the donation of his personal papers to McMaster University, Dr Codignola-Bo was Adjunct Professor (History) at Saint Mary's University (2005-17), Senior Fellow of the Cushwa Center for the History of US Catholicism of the University of Notre Dame (2016-8), and Professeur associé (Histoire) at the Université de Montréal (2016-9). He is best known for his work on the the Roman Catholic church in the North Atlantic area in the early modern era, and has also written on the history of early European expansion in the Atlantic region. Since 2016 Dr Codignola-Bo lives in Milan with his wife, Gabriella Ferruggia, a former professor of American literature. They have one daughter, Federica.
Murray Thomson was born in Honan, China in 1922. His father was a United Church missionary. Thomson came to Canada at an early age. He was a student at the University of Toronto when the Second World War began. He enlisted in the air force and became a pilot although he never flew in a combat mission. Murray received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Toronto.
As an undergraduate, he co-founded the Humanist Group, a citizen’s group for social change. His first job after graduating was a position in the adult education division of Saskatchewan’s socialist CCF government. Thomson received an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. In 1955 Thomson went to Thailand on a UNICEF research fellowship. He then spent four and a half years in India working in adult education for the American Friends Service Committee. Upon his return to Canada in 1962 he became peace education secretary for the Canadian Friends Service Committee in Toronto. In 1970 he became director of the CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) programme in Thailand. In 1972 he became the Regional Field Director of the South East Asia CUSO Programme. He also worked with the Canadian Friends Service Committee in South-East Asia sponsored by the Canadian Friends Service Committee, the peace and development wing of Canadian Quakers.
Thomson was the co-founder of the inter-church peace group, Project Ploughshares, a founder of Peace Brigades International in 1981 and of Peace Fund Canada. He helped establish the United Nations World Disarmament Campaign. In 1990, Thomson was awarded the Pearson Peace Medal. In 2001 Thomson received the Order of Canada. Thomson has been an active pacifist and lives in Ottawa. He died on 2 May 2019, in Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 96.
Stephen Douglas Reid was born in Massey, Ontario on 12 March 1950, the second of nine children born to Douglas Reid and Sylvia Shiels. At the age of sixteen, Reid turned to criminal activities, and he was jailed in 1971 for his part in the theft of gold bars in Ottawa. Escaping from prison, Reid, along with Patrick Mitchell and Lionel Wright, formed The Stopwatch Gang, robbing over 100 banks in Canada and the United States from their home in Arizona in the late 1970s. The FBI apprehended Reid in 1980, and he served time in Marion Penitentiary in Illinois until his extradition to Canada.
In 1984, while incarcerated at Millhaven Institution in Ontario, he began to write. The manuscript of his first novel, Jackrabbit Parole, attracted the attention of Susan Musgrave, who agreed to edit the manuscript. The book was published in 1986, the same year that Reid and Musgrave were married. He was released on parole in 1987. They then lived with their daughters Charlotte Musgrave and Sophie Musgrave Reid on Vancouver Island, and Reid joined in the activities of the literary community in British Columbia. His works include short stories, poetry, plays, articles, many of which have been published by Canada's leading newspapers and magazines. Much of Reid's writing and other work has involved issues relating to prison.
In 1999, as a result of a relapse into addiction, Reid participated in one more bank robbery, for which he is now serving an 18-year sentence at William Head Institution in British Columbia. In January 2008 he was granted day parole. Late in 2010 he was back in prison for violating parole. Reid had been living at his home in Massett, BC when in June 2018, he was admitted to hospital and died five days later of pulmonary edema and a heart blockage.
Norman Allatt was born on 7 December 1894 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England. He was the third child of Fred and Anne (née Hirst) Allatt. In 1906, the family immigrated to Toronto. In the 1911 census, Norman Allatt is listed as a shoe (machine) operator in a factory.
In January 1915 Allatt voluntarily joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was posted to the Canadian Exhibition grounds in Toronto to begin his training. His diary of 1915 documents his sailing overseas in August 1915, aboard the R.M.S. Hesperian en route to Plymouth from Montreal. In October 1915, Allatt departed for France and was assigned to the 14th battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment. During the war he was a sniper. When the war ended, the Royal Military Regiment was stationed in north-west France in the vicinity of Valenciennes, near the Belgian border. The regiment sailed from Liverpool in April 1919 for Halifax.
Allatt returned home to live with his parents and took up his pre-war job as a shoe machine operator. He married Gertrude Benford in 1920. In 1922 he was employed by the Robert Simpson Company in Toronto. In 1923 the family moved to Detroit where Allatt worked at several jobs, until the Second World War, when he sold his retail business and became a stock keeper of an insurance company. He died in 1976.
For further biographical history see the document prepared by his nephews, Doug, Bob and David Allatt, Sepember 2009 and copy of Allatt’s attestation papers.
Peter Calamai spent almost five decades as a newspaper reporter and editor working for major Canadian newspapers. He obtained a B.Sc. in physics from McMaster University in 1965, and while a student, he was editor-in-chief of the undergraduate student newspaper The Silhouette during which it was named the best student newspaper in Canada. Calamai remains involved in McMaster’s alumni community.
Best known for his award-winning 1987 adult literacy series, Calamai has worked on a number of high-profile stories in Washington, Europe, Africa, and Ottawa; he has worked as national and foreign correspondents for Southam News (1969-1990), editorial pages editor at The Ottawa Citizen (1990-1996), and national science reporter at the Toronto Star (1998-2008). Calamai has also worked as a freelance reporter, photographer, consultant, speech writer, and instructor.
An advocate for science, literacy, and journalistic professionalism, Calamai has been nationally recognized for his involvement in public issues and exceptional news reporting and writing through his Order of Canada (2014) and Diamond Jubilee Medal, among numerous other awards. Remaining dedicated to the promotion of accurate science reporting, he is a founding member of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association and the Science Media Centre of Canada.
Calamai passed away at the age of 75, in January 2019.
Cyril Greenland was a, social worker, co-founder of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health), professor at McMaster University, government advisor, researcher and author of a number of books. His thoughts on child welfare, the rights of the blind, and humane treatment of the mentally ill created a lasting change in Canadian social policy. Born 20 December 1919, to Henry and Annie (née Levy) Grundland, Cyril was the second of five children in an impoverished Jewish family living in Bethnal Green in London’s East End. Henry Grundland abandoned the family and Cyril’s mother struggled to feed her brood. Yet she never turned away anyone in even greater need. Annie, who had a great influence on him, suffered from chronic depression and died in 1949 in a mental hospital, of liver cancer.
Greenland left home at 16 to become an apprentice watchmaker, but later managed to take a degree in social work at the London School of Economics, and much later a PhD at the University of Birmingham. It was while he was at LSE that he changed his name to Greenland. He worked at various hospitals in England, ending up at Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries, Scotland, where he met Jane Donald, a psychiatric nurse. They married and started a family that was to include five children. They moved to Canada in 1958 when Greenland became director of social work at the provincial psychiatric hospital in Whitby, ON. He joined McMaster University in 1970 at the School of Social Work studying child abuse, criminal violence, and mental disorders. He retired in 1989. He was diagnosed with leukemia and lymphoma in 2002 and died in 2012.
John G. ("Jack") McClelland, publisher, was born in Toronto, Ont. in 1922 and educated at the University of Toronto. He joined McClelland and Stewart in 1946. He sold the company in 1987 and established a literary agency, Jack McClelland and Associates. It was incorporated in January 1989 and operated until 1993. His selected letters, Imagining Canadian Literature, were published in 1998. He died on 14 June, 2004.
Christopher Levenson - poet, translator, editor, and professor of English and creative writing - was born in London, England in 1934. He lived in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States before moving to Canada in 1968. His first book of poetry, In Transit was included in New Poets (1959). In 1960 he was the first recipient of the Eric Gregory Award. He was co-founder and editor of Arc magazine, and from 1981 to 1991 founded and organized the Arc reading series in Ottawa. Since living in Canada, he has published many articles and books of poetry. He has published two volumes of translations from seventeenth-century Dutch poetry and individual verse translations in European journals. He taught English and creative writing at Carleton University and was Series Editor of Harbinger Poets, an imprint of Carleton University Press, devoted exclusively to first books of Canadian poetry. He was for a year Poetry Editor of the Literary Review of Canada. He lives in Vancouver.
Mark Krakowski was born in Kazakstan on 16 September 1943, the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland. His family fled Poland at the end of 1939 and survived the war in the Soviet Union, including an internment of 18 months in a Soviet gulag. His parents reached Kazakstan after they were released from the gulag in December 1941. His father then joined the Soviet army as a member of the Wanda Waszilewska brigade, a unit of Polish nationals in the Soviet red army. After the war, Mark and his mother were re-patriated to Poland, and, at the end of 1946, they re-united with his father. A period in refugee camps in Austria followed until the family, which included another son, were accepted as refugees in Sweden where they lived for 6 <U+00BD> years. They immigrated to Canada in May 1954. Mark graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a BA in history (1962-65). He attended Western's Faculty of Law for one year (1965-66). He also has a Master of Arts from the New School University (1968-70).
He has varied work experience as a senior research assistant for the Addiction Research Foundation, a parole officer, a human rights officer with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, a labour staff representative for various organizations, and a regional representative of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Now retired, he currently resides in Toronto, and serves or has served as a board member on the Skyworks Charitable Foundation, Foodshare, and the Labour Community Services. He also completed nine years as a workers' representative on the Board of Referees, a quasi-judicial agency of the federal government's Employment Insurance Commission, which hears appeals of claimants who have been denied employment insurance by Service Canada.
Robert (Bob) Edmund Dorsey was born in Hamilton, Ontario on December 4, 1919 to Annie and Josiah (Joe) Joshua Dorsey. Dorsey attended McMaster University and graduated with a BA in 1941. He excelled in tennis and badminton, winning the singles tennis championship in a district meet in 1939, and competing in badminton tournaments at the Thistle Club to become Hamilton’s singles champion for two consecutive years.
During his time at McMaster, Dorsey trained as a cadet in the McMaster Contingent of the Canadian Officers' Training Corps (COTC). He completed his military training in 2 years and was named a 2nd lieutenant in 1942, enlisting in active service in May of the same year. While stationed at Camp Gordon, Dorsey completed the requirements to become a lieutenant. He then acted as a training centre instructor in Simcoe and Brantford. In 1943, he married Florence Kathleen Riley. Florence and Dorsey had one son, John Josiah, born February 1, 1944, whom Dorsey never had the opportunity to meet.
After being transferred to the Canadian Army (Active Force) Overseas, Dorsey boarded a ship for England, where he joined to the 5th Canadian Reinforcement Unit. He was assigned to the 7th Brigade Group, 3rd Canadian Division a month later. In the spring of 1944, Dorsey became a reinforcement officer for the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, a machine gun and mortar regiment designated for active service. Dorsey was involved in their pre-invasion training prior to the D-Day operation. He co-founded a frontline regimental newspaper called “The Rocket.” Dorsey was killed at Normandy on June 7, 1944. He was given full military honours in a burial ceremony at Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, Reviers in Calvados, France.
Ruth has long been fascinated with the lives of women of the mythology of Ancient Greece and goddesses of the Greek Pantheon as they are presented in Greek mythology and she has written extensively about them in poetry. There are three epics and one stand-alone volume. All her books are published by Colombo & Company.
Antony Fenwick (Tony) Pickard, O.B.E., C.D., R.C.N., was a career officer in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Born in Victoria, BC, he began serving as a cadet in 1928, taking various appointments before the start of the war. During the Second World War, he was commander of a corvette squadron that escorted merchant ships across the Atlantic.
His post-war service included acting as captain of HMCS Haida. He spent three years of his naval career in Hamilton, from 1956 to 1959, where he was chief of staff of Commanding Officer Naval Divisions (COND), based at HMCS Star on the Hamilton bayfront, the headquarters of Canada’s naval reserves. He was present for the independence celebrations in Sierra Leone in 1961 and after retiring in 1965, he was manager of one of Canada’s theme pavilions at EXPO67 in Montreal. He became administrator for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in 1968. He died in 1972.
David McFadden, poet and travel writer, was born on 11 October 1940 in Hamilton, Ont. He worked as a proofreader at The Hamilton Spectator from 1962-1970 and then as a reporter from 1970 to 1976. He published his first book of poetry, The Poem Poem in 1967.
In 1978 he left Ontario for British Columbia, serving first as writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University and then, from 1979-1982, as instructor, Fred Wah School of Writing, David Thompson University Centre, Nelson, B.C. He returned to Ontario as writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, 1983-1984. His Gypsy Guitar (1987) was nominated for a Governor General's Award. In 2013, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for his 2012 anthology What's the Score?
McFadden passed away on June 6th, 2018 at the age of 77.
Robert Fulford, journalist, editor, and author, was born in Ottawa on 13 February 1932 and educated at Malvern Collegiate. His first job was as a sports reporter with the Globe and Mail. He soon turned to literature and the arts which have remained his forte. Fulford edited various magazines for Maclean-Hunter in 1953-1955, returned to the Globe in 1956-1957, and was editor of Maclean's Magazine from 1962 to 1964. From 1958 to 1962 and again from 1964 to 1968 he was a literary columnist for the Toronto Daily Star. He became editor of Saturday Night magazine in 1968 and stayed there until his resignation in 1987. While there he reviewed movies under the pseudonym of “Marshall Delaney”. He then became columnist and contributing editor to the Financial Times until 1992 when he joined the Globe and Mail as weekly arts columnist.
He has been a contributing editor of both Toronto Life and Canadian Art. Fulford began writing a column for the National Post in 2000. He has published several books. In addition to his writing, he has been active as a radio personality and has hosted an interview program, "Realities" on TV Ontario. He served as chair of the Maclean-Hunter program in communications ethics, Ryerson University, 1989-1993. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He has won numerous awards and been awarded several honorary degrees. Fulford published his memoir Best Seat in the House in 1988.
Klaus Pringsheim, conductor, teacher, music critic and composer, was born in Munich on 24 July 1883. His father was Alfred Pringsheim (b. 1850). Klaus Pringsheim studied music under Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) in Vienna. In 1931 he left Germany for Japan where he became a professor at the Ueno Academy of Music. From 1941-1946 he directed the Tokyo Chamber Symphony Orchestra. After a brief period in the United States, he returned to Japan in 1951. He was appointed director of the Musashino Academy of Music. He composed an opera as well as music for the piano and chamber music. Pringsheim was the brother-in-law of Thomas Mann (1875-1955) and his fonds contains some letters written by Mann. He died in Tokyo on 7 December 1972. One of Klaus Pringsheim's sons, Klaus H. Pringsheim, has published a memoir, Man of the World: Memoirs of Europe, Asia & North America (1930s to 1980s) (1995).
