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Herb Gibson, farmer, First World War soldier (787167), was born 11 November 1889 to William Russell Gibson (1848-1917) and Euphemia Nairn. After serving in the 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Militia, Herb worked on the family farm in Balderston, Ontario until March 1916, when, despite his father’s wishes he enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Trained at Valcartier, Quebec, he was initially appointed to the 110th Reserve Battalion for training and then transferred to the 4th Canadian Division to begin fighting in France. He was drafted into the 75th Battalion to replace their losses on the Somme and he arrived in France in December 1916. In March 1917, he was part of the offensive at Vimy Ridge, where he was shot in the right arm. After recovering in England, he returned to France in November 1917. In January of 1918 he learned that both his parents had died just before Christmas. Then in July, while lying at a listening post at Arras, Gibson was shot in the chest. He would see out the rest of the war while recovering in England and be sent back to Canada to be discharged in March 1919.

Due to the wounds Herb sustained, he was unable to work on the farm as he had prior to the war. He sold his farm and moved to Winnipeg to build houses with his brother. Herbert Gibson and May Bell Keays (1896/7-1999) were married in St. Vital, Manitoba on 10 February 1931, after she had finished caring for her younger siblings. They had two children and returned to Ontario in 1939, where Herb first worked at Batawa, Ontario, and then at the #6 Repair Depot RCAF Station, Trenton until 1955. He passed away on 17 October 1967.

Arthur Medland served as a Leading Aircraftman (1714975) with the RAF stationed at Maintenance Unit 351 serving the British North African Force. Medland had family in Verdun, Quebec, including his Uncle William White, whose son Douglas, he also corresponded with. Douglas White served on the HMCS Owen Sound.

Basil H.Johnston, writer, was born in 1929 on Wasauksing First Nation (formerly Parry Island First Nation) located near Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada. He was a member of the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation Band (formerly known as the “Cape Croker Band of Ojibwa”). He attended elementary school at the Cape Croker First Nations Reserve until the age of 10, after which he attended the Spanish Indian Residential School in Spanish, Ontario. He graduated in 1950 and attended Loyola College in Montreal, where he graduated with a B.A in 1954. From 1955 to 1961 Johnston was employed by the Toronto Board of Trade. He received his Secondary School Teaching Certificate from the Ontario College of Education in 1962. From 1962 to 1969 he taught history at Earl Haig Secondary School in North York. In 1969 he took a position as Ethnologist at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto where he lectured to public groups and colleges. He remained at the ROM until 1994 where he worked with a mandate to record and celebrate Ojibway (Anishinaube) heritage, especially language and mythology. Johnston had also lectured at many universities, including the University of Saskatchewan and Trent University.

Johnston was the author of 16 books published in Canada, the United States and Germany. His books included Indian School Days (1988) and Moose Meat and Wild Rice (1978). In 1978, Johnston wrote The Ojibway Language Course Outline and the Ojibway Language Lexicon for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Johnston was a fluent speaker and teacher of the Anishinaube language who writes in both English and Anishinaabemowin. His writings appeared in many newspapers, anthologies and journals. In 1978 he was narrator and writer for the script of a film The Man, the Snake and the Fox for the National Film Board of Canada. In 1982 he established Winter Spirit Creations, an operation that has supplied Ojibway language print and audio programs to individuals, schools, colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. Johnston received the Order of Ontario in 1989 as well as Honorary Doctorates from the University of Toronto (1994) and Laurentian University (1998). In 2007 Johnston received the Aboriginal Achievement Award for Heritage and Spirituality. Johnston passed away on September 8, 2015.

Grey Owl was born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney in 1888 in Hastings, England. He moved to Canada in 1906 and became a guide and trapper in Northern Ontario. It was under the influence of his lover, Anahareo, that Grey Owl became a nature conservationist, adopting the persona of an Ojibwa man. He also became an author of books about the north and Ojibwa culture. Near the end of his life he undertook lecture tours of Britain and the United States. Grey Owl died in Prince Albert, Sask., in 1938.

Gisela Commanda was born Gisela Almgren in England on 9 December 1908. Her father was a Swedish artist, Per Johan Hugo Almgren and her mother was Antonia, née Cyriax (1881-1927). Her parents married when both were art students in Sweden; they separated in 1912. Known as “T” (for Tony/Antonia), Gisela’s mother was a friend of David Garnett and D.H. Lawrence; she adopted the pseudonym “Mrs. Anthony” or “Antonius” after separating from Almgren, in the belief that he was pursuing her. Under the name Tony Cyriax she published Among Italian Peasants in 1919, illustrated with her own watercolours. She and her daughter Gisela stayed close to the Lawrences in Italy in 1913 (see The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, ed. James T. Boulton. Cambridge University Press, 1979, vol. 1, 520; vol. 2, 139).

Gisela’s life was no less dramatic, although entirely different from that of her mother. Trained as an artist, she was inspired by hearing Grey Owl speak about the aboriginal peoples of Canada during a tour of England, likely during his first British tour in 1935-6. She travelled first to a USA reservation for indigenous people in 1939 and then came to Canada the following year. Wanting to learn Ojibwa, she had been in touch with Grey Owl’s canoe man in the making of his 1937 Mississagi River film, Antoine Commanda (see Donald B. Smith, From the Land of the Shadows: the Making of Grey Owl, 1990, 308). She visited Commanda at Bisco and married him in 1942. The couple seem to have separated after a short time (although they were not divorced until 1975) and Gisela Commanda, now afforded First Nations status as a result of her marriage, lived on a series of reserves, including Brantford, Ontario and Cardston, Alberta, documenting her travels and the stories of those she met in her lengthy series of notebooks. She worked as an advocate for and promoter of native culture, teaching native crafts and often dressing as an aboriginal person, just as Grey Owl had done.

None of her written work seems ever to have been published and much of it seems to have been lost during her frequent moves. Always prone to “nervous indisposition” (a depressed state which descended whenever she lacked stimulation), she was restless, rarely living in one place for long. After some years at a nursing home in Cornwall, Ontario during the 1970s, she moved to Woodlands Villa, Long Sault, Ontario, where she died on 22 March 1993.

Frank S. Wood, born in March 1871, emigrated from Yorkshire, England to Hamilton, Ontario in 1888. It was during that year he collected a small lithic celt from a site in Yorkshire, which marked the beginning of his collecting career. The Wood artifact collection consists of approximately 10,007 specimens. The collection was amassed by Frank S. Wood and continued by his son Alfred E. Wood. Importantly, Wood collected a Palaeo-indigineous fluted point in Binbrook Township. This projectile point is one of the oldest found in Ontario (8000-6000 BCE). The Wood artifact collection was donated to McMaster University in 1973 (housed in the Ethnography Collection in the Department of Anthropology).

In 1894, Wood participated in the “Around the Bay Road Race”, winning second place behind W.R. Marshall. Frank S. Wood’s final race occurred as part of the 1 July 1 1927 Confederation Jubilee celebrations in Hamilton. He entered as the most senior participant at 56 years old.

William Charles Noble was born on 1 May 1941 to William T. Noble(1913-1989) and Lucy R. Noble (1913-2005). A graduate of the University of Toronto, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in 1968 (thesis entitled “Iroquois archaeology and the development of Iroquois social organization, 1000-1650 A.D.: A study in culture change based on archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnology”). Noble was the first Canadian-born student to graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary, which was the first university in Canada to establish an archaeology program. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University on 1 July 1971. Nicknamed “Barren Lands Bill”, Noble excavated many sites, including Cleveland (AhHb-7), Hamilton (AiHa-5), Thorold (AgGt-1), and Walker (AgHa-9). He was the author of numerous studies on Iroquois (Six Nations / Haudenosaunee / Rotinonshionni) culture, the Neutral (Chonnonton / Onguiaahra) people who lived along the western shores of Lake Ontario, and early Ontario archaeology. In the early 1990s he was Professor Emeritus after taking early retirement. Married twice, first to Jean MacLeod Slater and later to Jacqueline E.M. Crerar (Noble), he had two children, Gordon William Noble (1969-1988) and Elizabeth M. Noble. He died on 26 April 2009.

The United Church of Canada was founded in 1925 as a merger of the Methodist Church of Canada, the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec, part of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Association of Local Union Churches.

John G. Wigmore was the son of Thomas B. Wigmore of Thorold, Ontario and served as a Leading Aircraftman with the RCAF during the Second World War. His older brother William (Bill) C. Wigmore was a Squadron Leader and flew in England, Gibraltar and Malta and was mentioned in dispatches.

Roy J. Adams (b. 1940) is an academic with interests in the area of labour issues. He has lectured and held positions around the world. In 2003 he convened the Hamilton Civic Coalition, an organization of top civic leaders dedicated to improving the quality of life in Hamilton

George Baldwin Read served with the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and with the Canadian Artillery as a Captain in the Second World War. Born in 1886 in Ireland, he was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Cork Artillery Militia in 1903. Family legend says that he left home and travelled the world, working in Hawaii, Australia, and ending up in Canada in 1909. While there, he met and married Gwendolen Pym and they had two children, Montague (1914) and Michael Richard (1915).

Read returned to England and became a Captain with NO. 10 Coy. RGA, where he served at Queenstown Harbour. He was later promoted to Admiral and served in France and Belgium.

During the Second World War he served as a Major, possibly as a spotter on Partridge Island. He retired in April 1951.

Stuart Ivison was an active member of the Canadian Baptist community and served as a chaplain during the Second World War in England, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Ernest Hauber Stuart Ivison was born 26 March 1906 in Wheatley, Ontario. Joining the Talbot Street Baptist Church during the end of high school and through his work with the church made the decision to enter the ministry. Starting at McMaster University in 1925, Ivison joined the debating team, worked on the McMaster Monthly and was the first editor of The Silhouette.

After graduating in 1930, Ivison was ordained and began his first ministry at a church in Brockville. Two years later he moved to Ottawa to fill a vacancy at First Baptist Church. On 5 August 1931, he married his wife Marjorie, and they had three children: Donald, Duncan and David. As a consequence of his role at Ottawa First Baptist he was often a liaison between the government and the Baptist Convention after the start of the Second World War. He was asked to join the National Defence Headquarters by Bishop Wells of the Anglican Church of Canada. He enlisted in July 1941 and served at Headquarters for two years. In 1943 he requested to go through basic training and serve overseas. Ivison served most of his time with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, until just before the end of the war when he became Staff Chaplain at Army Headquarters. Following his service he returned First Baptist in Ottawa and was an active member of the Baptist community in Canada.

For a detailed account of his life, including a wealth of contextual details for this archive, researchers should consult the oral history recorded in 1986 that is housed in Box 2, File 25.

R.H. De Pencier served in the Canadian Contingent of the South African Constabulary in the South African War. From Montreal, De Pencier was part of the Volunteer Rifles and received the Queen’s Medal. His regimental number was 1662.

Morley Calvert was a conductor, bandmaster and composer. He was born in Brantford, Ontario. His music education included an LSRM certification in 1946, and A Mus. degree from McGill in 1950 and a B. Mus. degree from McGill in 1956. He founded and was the director of the McGill University Concert Band from 1960-1970 and the director of the Lakeshore Concert Band from 1967-1972. In 1958 at Ayers, QC, he founded the Monteregian Music Camp, which offered summer training for high school students which ended in 1970

Calvert’s professional activities included the position of accompaniment for Maureen Forrester. He was invited to join the American Bandmasters Association (ABA), and was the conductor of the Barrie Central Collegiate Band from 1972-1985. He was President of the Ontario Chapter of the Canadian Bandmasters Association from 1981-1983 and national executive vice-president from 1981-3. He was the artistic director of the Civic Concert Choir of Hamilton in 1987 and of the Weston Silver Band in 1988. At the time of his death, he was teaching music at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. Calvert’s compositions, recordings and performances include Suite from the Monteregian Hills published in 1961; Romantic Variations (1976, 1979) was commissioned and privately recorded by the Youth Band of Ontario and the Arizona State University Band; Introduction, Elegy and Caprice (1978) was commissioned as the test piece for the first European Brass Band Championships at Royal Albert Hall in London in 1978 and recorded by the Black Dyke Mills Band.

André Obey was a French dramatist, born 8 May 1892 in Douai. Between 1931 and 1933 he wrote four plays for the Théâtre de Vieux-Colombier, winning the Brieux prize for La bataille de la Marne in 1931. He died on 14 April 1975.

Hugo Sonnenschein was born in Kyjov in what is now the Czech Republic in 1889. He wrote under the name of Sonka and his first book of poems was published in 1907 while he was a student in Vienna. During the First World War he served on the Balkan front, but was taken into custody for pacifist activities on several occasions. Following the war he turned to politics and founded the Red Guard as well as being active in the communist community, though he was later kicked out of the Communist Party. Die Legende vom weltverkommenen Sonka, was published in 1920, and is considered his major work. In 1943, he and his wife, Rosa, were sent to Auschwitz. He survived, but after the war he was accused of collaborating with the State Police and in 1947 sentenced to a twenty-year sentence. He died in 1953 in Mirov prison.

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded in March 1963 to promote the establishment of an independent Québec. Pierre Vaillières jointed the FLQ in 1965 and provided its philosophical underpinnings. The group used radical tactics, being involved in over 200 bombings between 1963 and 1970. In 1970 the FLQ kidnapped cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and British trade commissioner James Cross. Laporte was later murdered. The FLQ, many of its members in prison, ceased activity in 1971.

Edward Lacey was born in Lindsay, Ontario of French-Canadian and Irish descent. After attending separate and public schools in Lindsay, he went to the University of Toronto, winning the Edward Blake scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature and majoring in French and German. He graduated with a B.A. in the fall of 1959 and then moved to Texas to pursue his M.A. in Linguistics and Languages. There he met Randy Wicker (formerly Charlie Hayden), student politician and gay activist, and Byron Black, who remained lifelong friends. He received his M.A. degree in 1961.

Between 1961 and 1983 he worked as a translator or taught English as a second language and literature in Mexico, Trinidad, Brazil, Greece and Thailand. He also worked as a proofreader and editor in Thailand from 1984 to1987. In 1991 he taught English or worked as an editor in Indonesia and Thailand, until an accident in Bangkok permanently disabled him. He died of a heart attack in 1995.

Lacey’s publications include: The Forms of Life (1965), the first gay-identified book of poetry published in Canada; Path of Snow: Poems 1951-73 (1974); and Third World: Travel Poems (1994). His collection of letters entitled A Magic Prison: Letters from Edward Lacey (1995) was edited by David Helwig. Lacey has also translated books from French, Spanish and Portuguese. His own work has appeared in anthologies such as Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine, An Anthology of Gay History: Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).

Barry Brown was an Irish book collector.

Marjorie Stibbards Harris Batten, freelance writer, editor, and noted Canadian gardening authority, was born in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, in 1937, the eldest of Bernard and Kay Stibbards ’s three children. Her father was a Baptist minister and the family moved frequently across Canada. She was tragically orphaned in her teens, losing her mother to cancer and her father soon after in an airplane crash. Harris graduated from McMaster University in 1959 with an Honours BA in English, and began graduate studies at University of Toronto, studying with Northrop Frye.

She married musician and TV producer Barry Harris with whom she had two children, Christopher and Jennifer. After separating from Harris, she met fellow writer Jack Batten, to whom she has been married since 1968. The couple still reside in the Toronto Annex home in which they raised her children and Batten’s son and daughter, Brad and Sarah.

In the early 1960s Harris worked for Toronto art dealer Dorothy Cameron which led to a position as modern-living editor and writer at Maclean’s magazine. Well into the1980s, Harris continued as a freelancer, writing on a wide range of topics for nearly every major Canadian magazine. In the early 1970s Harris was also a writer, producer, and commentator for CBC Radio on such shows as “Gerussi,” “This Country in the Morning,” and “Ideas”. In addition, she wrote and co-authored numerous general interest books in the 1970s and 1980s.

What Harris describes as her “epiphany” occurred in 1988 when she combined her writing talents and passion for gardening to create The Canadian Gardener. Published in 1990, it launched Harris into a new career, and was the first of nearly 20 gardening monographs she has written. Recognition for her expertise led to gardening columns in Chatelaine and The Globe & Mail, and to editorship roles with Toronto Life Gardens and Gardening Life. She continues to be much sought-after for speaking engagements, public appearances, and garden tours, and is a regular garden commentator on television and radio programs and online forums.