Maple Leaf Hour of Music

Here’s an ad from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star for an upcoming radio event:

I looked up the people mentioned in this ad:

• Reginald Stewart (1900-1984) went on to found the Toronto Bach Choir in 1933 and the Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra in 1934. In 1941, he moved to Baltimore to become the head of the Peabody Conservatory. He was conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 1942 to 1952. In 1962, he relocated to Santa Barbara, California, where he spent the rest of his life.
• Alexander Chuhaldin (1892-1951) started his music career in his native Russia before fleeing in 1924 with only his violin and the clothes that he was wearing. After a world tour lasting from 1925 to 1927, he settled in Canada, becoming a faculty member of the Toronto Conservatory of Music and conducting radio orchestras.
• Anna Lee Scott was a pseudonym created by the Maple Leaf Milling Company to use on its English-language cookbooks. The company used the name Marthe Miral on its French-language editions and published cookbooks under the Anna Lee Scott name into the 1970s. I’m not sure who was representing Anna Lee Scott on the air in the broadcast advertised above, but it might have been Katherine Caldwell Bayley.

Crashes into hydro pole

Here’s an article and photographs from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star of an engineer who had narrowly escaped serious injury after an automobile accident.

Frank Barber (1878-1945) designed a number of bridges in the greater Toronto area. As mentioned here, he designed the Leaside-East York viaduct, which was called the Confederation Bridge on its opening in 1927 to honour Canada’s 60th anniversary, but is now called simply the Leaside Bridge. He was also the designer for the Old Mill bridge over the Humber River, the Sewell’s Road bridge, and several bridges in Vaughan, among others. He introduced concrete into the construction of bridges, which ensured that they lasted longer.

Donald Carrick (1906-1997) won a number of Canadian golf titles in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He went on to become a lieutenant-colonel during the Second World War and the Liberal MP for Trinity from 1954 to 1957.

As best as I can tell, this is the Google Street View photo of the location shown in the photograph above.

Hold your gold mines

Here’s a short and direct piece of investment advice that appeared in the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star.

A search for Amity Copper Gold Mines turned up an assessment work report from 2015 for a mining company based in Pacaud Township in Ontario, which is in the district of Timiskaming. The Historical Work section of the report references Amity Copper Gold Mines as having mined in the area between 1927 and 1930 and then again briefly in 1933. In 1942, this firm and two others were amalgamated to form Marge Copper Gold Mines.

I could find no record of F. M. Miles in either the 1927 or the 1928 Toronto city directory. The Streets section of these directories lists F. J. Crawford and Company at 10 Jordan Street; Mr. Miles might have worked for them. The 1929 directory lists L. J. Moore and Company, a stockbroker firm, at that location.

The designer of this gown

Here’s a photo from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star of a model wearing an elaborate gown.

Paul Poiret (1879-1944) was a leading French fashion designer before the First World War. During the 1920s, fashions trended towards simpler designs, which caused Poiret to fall from prominence, as his costumes were elaborate and often poorly constructed. In 1929, his fashion house was closed; after this, he declined into poverty. His friend, designer Elsa Schiaparelli, paid for his funeral.

Ice-locked close to pole

Here’s a brief article from the October 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star about an Arctic expedition that was going to be staying put for a while:

Donald Baxter MacMillan (1874-1970) started his adult life as a high school teacher. In 1908, he saved the lives of nine shipwrecked people over two days; this led to Robert E. Peary inviting MacMillan to join him on his expedition to the North Pole. MacMillan then travelled extensively in Labrador, studying the Inuit who lived there, and then organized an ill-fated attempt in 1913 to reach Crocker Land, an island supposedly discovered by Peary that turned out not to exist. This expedition was stuck in the Arctic until 1917.

MacMillan undertook over 30 expeditions to the Arctic during his lifetime. In 1935, he married Miriam Look, the daughter of close friends of his; at the time of their marriage, he was 61 and she was 29. She accompanied him on his Arctic expeditions starting in 1937. He last went to the Arctic in 1957, at the age of 82.

Attractive modern rooms

Here’s an ad from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star for a multi-residential complex.

Like the Lafayette Apartments in yesterday’s blog entry, the Cawthra Mansions were new in 1927. The Toronto city directory for that year lists the Cawthra Mansions but does not list any residents. By 1928, the Mansions were occupied; the city directory lists 86 tenants plus one superintendent, including the Alpha Gamma Delta Women’s Club on the first floor and the Gamma Phi Beta Women’s Club on the third.

The Cawthra Mansions still stand – the building has been a housing co-op since 1986.

Gas saves more than it costs

Here’s an advertisement from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star for Consumers Gas, showing a building that had been outfitted with gas ranges.

The Lafayette Apartments were brand new in 1927 – in fact, they were so new that they were not listed in the 1927 and 1928 Toronto city directories. The 1927 directory lists 223 and 225 Woodbine Avenue as vacant houses. The same listing is repeated in 1928, which suggests that the people who compiled the city directories didn’t get around to going to Woodbine Avenue in 1928.

The 1929 directory does list the Lafayette Apartments. The building contained 48 suites, not 47 as mentioned in the ad; the directory shows only three of them as vacant, so 45 tenants were enjoying the benefits of a gas range in the kitchen and a gas-powered clothes dryer.

Google Street View indicates that the building still stands. The ornamentation on the roof is gone – you can see where it used to be – and the window ornamentation has been painted over. The building is now called the Beach Park Apartments; it’s located on Woodbine just north of Queen, not that far from the beach, so you can’t blame them for changing the building name to include the magic word “Beach”.

The web site Rent It Or Not rates the building – one reviewer claims that, because the building is so old, you can hear everything that your neighbours do.

Elected first vice-president

Here’s a photograph from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star of an ornithologist based in Toronto.

James Henry Fleming (1872-1940) had been a fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union since 1916. He went on to become its president from 1932 to 1935. He also became a British Empire Member of the British Ornithological Union, Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London, and Membre d’Honneur Étranger of the Société Ornithologique et Mammalogique de France. Upon his death, his specimen collection and research library was donated to the Royal Ontario Museum.

The Lord Mayor’s show

Here’s a photograph from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star of the Lord Mayor of London’s annual official visit to the King.

Sir Charles Batho (1872-1938) didn’t get to do this all that often, as he was Lord Mayor of London only from 1927 to 1928. At other times, he worked for an export merchant company. He doesn’t seem to have done much else that was remarkable.

His Wikipedia page displays his coat of arms; its crest is a “dragon sejant Or gorged with a mural crown Gules and holding in the dexter claw a sword as in the arms”, and its escutcheon is “Gules on a fess Argent two castles of the first over all a sword in pale point upwards Proper”. So now you know.

England’s legless M.P.

Here’s a photo from the November 21 1927 edition of the Toronto Daily Star of a British member of parliament who had been caught driving too fast.

Brunel Cohen (1886-1965), whose full name was Benn Jack Brunel Cohen, was an MP from 1918 to 1931. Both of his legs were amputated above the knee after the Third Battle of Ypres, part of the First World War, in 1917. He was knighted in 1943. In 1956, he wrote his autobiography, Count Your Blessings.