Showing 44 results

People and organizations
Adams, Maureen (1924 - 2011)
CA : RPA · Person · 1924 - 2011

Maureen Adams was a children's librarian and puppeteer who lived in Brampton. She is best known for the 1950s family troupe "The Adams Marionettes", which performed across southern Ontario.

Studying at the University of Toronto, she earned a Bachelor of the Arts and a Bachelor of Library Science, working at libraries in Niagara Falls, Welland, Saskatoon, and Leeds, England. Once in Brampton, she was a teacher-librarian at Ridgeview Public School, McHugh Public School, and Agnes Taylor Public School.

She introduced puppetry into schools as an extracurricular activity, and taught workshops in Brampton and Toronto. She was a Charter member of the Ontario Puppetry Association, member of the Puppeteers of America, and co-founded the Puppetry Guild of Halton/Peel, of which she was President. (The guild made many appearances at the Peel Heritage Complex during kid's events in the 1990s.) A member of the Brampton Arts Council, she received Arts Person of the Year from the organization in 2006.

She met her husband John Adams while in library school, and married in 1952. They had three children.

CA: RPA · Person · 1886 - 1963

Bert Hillson was born James Albert Hillson in Glen Williams in 1886 and attended school in Huttonville before moving to Brampton. His varied jobs included volunteer firefighter, teamster and waggoner, painter and decorator, and governor of the Peel County Jail (1935 to 1943). He was also involved in sports, especially lacrosse. He married Emily Ada Kathleen Chambers in 1910 and had eight children, including two sons (Jim and John) and six daughters (Mildred, Anne, Edith, Eva, Georgina, and June). He died in 1963. He was a member of Grace Church, Brampton, at the time of his death but earlier was a Baptist.

CA: RPA · Person · 1911 - 1988

Mildred Hillson O'Hearn was born in 1911 to James Albert Hill and Kathleen Hill. She was active in Grace Church and played softball. She worked for Gummed Papers as their head bookkeeper for a time. She married William (Bill) O'Hearn in 1942 and had three sons, Bill, Bob, and Bert. She died in 1988.

Betts, Al
CA : RPA · Person · 1924-2017

Al was born in the City of Toronto on February 3rd, 1924 to Fred and Violet Betts. He was named Alfred like his dad; however, to avoid confusion he was called Al. He spent his formative years growing up in the north part of the city.

Al enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943. He trained in Medicine Hat, AB, Chatham, NB, and Charlottetown, PEI as a Navigation-Bombardier on the Lancaster bombers. During the Second World War he was stationed in Bournemouth in the south of England.

Al’s passion was photography. Family legend has it he became interested in photography when he scooped up an old Kodak “Brownie” camera that had been tossed away. Always the curious individual he took it apart, repaired it, and started experimenting with photography.

After the Second World War he began working at Toronto Western Hospital where he met the love of his life, Helen Colville. They wed in 1950 and lived in Toronto before leaving the city in 1956 for Streetsville, then in Toronto Township (now Mississauga). By the time they moved to Streetsville, their first two children, Doug and Marylyn, had been born.

In 1958 a second son, Brian, was born and Al was working at A.V. Roe in Malton. Here he had the privilege of working on the Avro Arrow project in the Photography Department. He took several of the iconic pictures of the Avro Arrow in production and in flight. This job was short-lived, however, with the cancellation of the Avro project in 1959.

Al started A. Betts Photography in Streetsville around 1965. During this time Al and Helen completed their family with the addition of Stephen and Cynthia. The entire family settled into the three bedroom bungalow on Vista Boulevard in Streetsville. He gave back to the town by initiating the Bread and Honey Festival, helping with the Boy Scouts, and being the official photographer for the local Streetsville newspaper. He was active as a professional photographer to ca. 1983.

As the children grew older, Al had more time to travel the world with Helen (and sometimes with their children in tow). Their travels took them throughout North America, Europe, as well as Central America and the Caribbean.

Al passed away peacefully, with family by his side, on Friday, January 20th, 2017, at the Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga.

CA : RPA · Person · 1850 - 1938

John Wycliffe Lowes (1850-1938) was an artist. Born in Norval, Ontario, he was a Methodist/United layman active in church affairs. As an artist, he was known principally as a portrait painter. He travelled and painted in Europe, did portraits of several Canadian Prime Ministers and Governors-General, leaders of the Methodist Church in Canada and England, the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and many other Canadian leaders.

Hokea, Ben (1898 - 1971)
CA: RPA · Person · 1898 - 1971

Ben Hokea is credited as the steel guitarist "who had the most impact on Hawaiian music's acceptance in Canada." Born in Hawaii, after a gig playing on a cruise line, he toured with Charlie Clark's Royal Hawaiians. The group played in Toronto for several years, beginning in 1915, and Hokea remained in the city afterwards. Hokea was a music educator and performer, and appeared both on radio and television.

Hokea's public performances in Toronto date back to at least 1918, when he performed at Massey Hall in a variety show.

His first known commercial recording was released in December 1919 by His Master's Voice Records as part of their January 1920 lineup. Hokea, Luther Hokea and Richard Hokea recorded three trial records for Victor in Camden, New Jersey, 1917. (University of California's Santa Barbara Library Discography of American Historical Recordings) He is known to have released records with Victor, Columbia, and Starr Co. of Canada.

As of 1925, Hokea operated a photography studio at 195 Yonge St, Toronto. This may be how he met Cecil A. Chinn, creator of the records relating to Hokea at the Region of Peel Archives. Chinn toured with Hokea in the 1940s around southern Ontario, including Owen Sound, as part of "Ben Hokea's Orchestra".

John McDermid
CA : RPA · Person · 17 Mar. 1940 -

John Horton McDermid was a member of Parliament for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1979 until his retirement in 1993. He represented the federal riding of Brampton-Georgetown from 1979 to 1988, and, when the riding was separated in two in 1988, he became the first elected member of Parliament for the federal riding of Brampton.

McDermid was born in Hamilton on March 17th, 1940. His parents were Reverend John Andrew McDermid and Nora Horton McDermid. In 1942, the family moved to Brampton, Ontario, after the Reverend McDermid was offered a ministry at St. Paul’s United Church, which he led until his death in 1970. Nora died eleven years later on March 6th, 1981.

John H. McDermid married his first wife, Elayne, a Peel schoolteacher, in the early 1960s, and they divorced near the end of his political career. Prior to his election in 1979, McDermid worked a variety of jobs: he was a radio and television announcer in Welland and Kitchener for six years; he was an assistant executive director of the Ontario Real Estate Association for seven years; he was an executive assistant to Ontario’s Ministry of Industry and Tourism, under Claude Bennett; he was a founder and shareholder of a private airline company, Pem-Air; and, in 1978, when he made his successful bid for the Progressive Conservative nomination for his riding, he was the Manager of Public Relations and Planning at the Ontario Place Corporation.

McDermid first announced his candidacy for the Progressive Conservative nomination for his federal riding in 1971. He lost the party’s nomination to Ellwood Madill, who went on to win the riding, defeating the Liberal candidate, Ross Milne. Madill lost to Milne in the 1974 federal election.

In 1978, McDermid sought the nomination again as the Progressive Conservative candidate to represent his federal riding, which had by then changed into Brampton-Georgetown. He won the nomination, and defeated Milne in the May 1979 federal election, becoming Brampton-Georgetown’s member of Parliament in Prime Minister Joe Clark’s minority government.

McDermid worked on multiple portfolios during his fourteen years in politics. In 1984 he began the first of two Parliamentary Secretary appointments under Minister Pat Carney, first as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, and then followed her as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade. As Carney’s Parliamentary Secretary, McDermid worked on, and successfully campaigned for, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. This success began a series of Cabinet appointments as a Minister of State in Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government: he jointly held the portfolios for International Trade, and for Housing (1988 – 1989); he held the Privatization and Regulatory Affairs portfolio (1989 – 1991); and he held the Finance and Privatization portfolio (1991 – 1993), during which he also briefly was an acting Minister of State for Housing.

On March 28, 1993, McDermid announced his retirement from politics after Brian Mulroney decided to retire. Looking back over his career, he was quoted in the The Hill Times, “[i]f I had to say what the highlights of my career were I’d say working with Brian Mulroney and carrying the free trade legislation through the House. My first election, my appointment to cabinet and dismantling the National Energy Program was definitely a highlight.”

In 1992, McDermid married former pro-golfer Sandra Post, and after his retirement they settled in Caledon, Ontario. Since retiring, he has been involved with the Lorne Scots (Peel, Dufferin and Halton Regiment), with the Central West Local Health Integration Network, and has followed his passion for golf.

Lagerquist, Bob, - 1999
CA : RPA · Person · - 1999

He married Jeanne in 1942.

He is the namesake of Robert H. Lagerquist Senior Public School, Brampton.

Atkinson Bros.
Frost postcard collection · Corporate body · [190]-[190]
CA · Corporate body · 1856 - 1983

Successor to a rough cast school on Chapel Street, the Alexander Street facility is known to have been open by 1856. Originally housing both elementary and secondary level students, Central Public and Grammar School became Central Public School in 1877, after the construction of Brampton High School. Even with the opening of additional schools, the facility repeatedly needs expansions to deal with overcrowding; the present structure dates to 1916. The school closed in the 1980s, was condemned, and then turned into a parks and recreation facility.

A variety of the mid-20th century public schools that replaced the site (Beatty-Fleming, Helen Wilson, and Agnes Taylor) were named for teachers from the facility. W. J. Fenton was also among the teaching staff.