The South Etobicoke News

Serving Humber * Mimico * Lakeshore Village * Long Branch * Alderwood

Woeful history of Mimico’s largest waterfront mansion

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If some of the rooms in a mansion on Lake Shore Blvd. W. could talk, we would probably be amazed by some of the tales they could tell.

The Consulate of the Republic of Poland for 44-years has occupied what is described as the ‘largest home built on the Mimico waterfront’ that sits behind a tall ornate iron fence that stops at Number 2603.

The limestone ‘English Tudor style’ home was designed by leading architect John Wilson Siddall and originally had 21 rooms including six marble bathrooms, four fireplaces, a panelled library, two solariums and formal gardens extending to the lake.

It has been the scene of many events in Polish history including the Solidarity movement and many elections in Warsaw.

The home was built in 1927 by Lawrence J. McGuinness, the well-known booze baron and distiller, who started a wholesale liquor business in Toronto in 1905.

McGuinness, according to local historian Michael Harrison, made his money as a ’bootlegger and rum runner’ who exported liquor into the U.S. during Prohibition from a home next door, at 2619 Lake Shore Blvd. W.

“McGuinness was well-known in Toronto and was a personal friend of Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn,” wrote Harrison. “In 1938, he built a distillery and bottling plant in Mimico.”

He wrote that at the height of Prohibition, McGuinness and his partner Harry Hatch, controlled all traffic in liquor along the west-end of Lake Ontario.

They became wealthy and McGuinness used some his profits to purchase property and build the huge mansion, now Consulate, at 2603 Lake Shore Blvd. W.

McGuinness passed away in 1951, and the liquor company was taken over by his son Larry Jr., who ran the business until it was sold to Standard Brands in the 1970s, then Corby’s in 1987 before being shut.

Larry Jr., made a name for himself by competing on the Canadian Olympic equestrian team in the 1952 and 1956 Games. In 1973 he sold the distillery operation later sold the mansion to the Polish Government in 1976.

A year later he declared bankruptcy after a series of bad investments and moved to Florida to live with his family.

With files by Michael Harrison

Hollywood North hit movies filmed on the Lakeshore Grounds

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Movie blockbusters like Police Academy and it sequels, Suicide Squad, Urban Legend, Strange Brew and many others were filmed at the historic Lakeshore Grounds over the years.

There was a time when some local residents managed to get work as extras on movie shoots that occurred regularly on the 130-acre grounds of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, which is now used by Humber College.

Other movies like Equus, with the late Richard Burton, Phobia and Higher Education were also filmed at the former hospital, in addition to countless TV shows and commercials over time.

Members of the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre (LGIC) says the grounds has served as a popular filming location for movies, television shows, and commercials since 1977.

They used to conduct free tours of the underground network of tunnel that runs under the grounds or talk to groups about the history of the place or locations of where certain movies were filmed.

“Learn about the history of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital as we explore the patient-built underground tunnels and 19th-century cottages,” according to information from LGIC.

“The tour presents an overview of the Hospital’s history, acknowledges the varied experiences of patients and staff across different decades,” says the information. “The tour concludes with an optional entry into one of the un-renovated attics above the cottages.”

The LGIC is part of Humber College that is dedicated to harmony and knowledge around themes of education, mental health, Aboriginal history, environmental sustainability and civic engagement.

The former Mimico Asylum was built in 1888 and officially opened on January 1889.

The facility was closed as a hospital in 1979 with the last 280 patients being transferred to other sites. At its height in 1950, the hospital housed 1,391 patients. It was deemed a historic property in 1988.

Local author talks about latest Penny Brannigan mystery

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The Mimico home of award-winning novelist Elizabeth J. Duncan backs on to a beautiful view of Lake Ontario and there’s no place that the writer loves more than being here.

“This is a great area to live and walk around,” Duncan says. “My family live here and I have a home here. The people are like family.”

Duncan, who lives near Royal York Rd. and Lake Shore Blvd. W., is the author of 13 mystery novels; which includes 10 brisk-selling Penny Brannigan thrillers and three Shakespeare in the Catskills mysteries.

The so-called “comfy mystery” series follows expat Canadian Penny Brannigan, who lives in North Wales running the village spa by day and solving murders by night.

This month she is releasing in North Wales her tenth Penny Brannigan who-done-it called “Remembering the Dead.”

“I now live in North Wales five months out of the year working on the series,” she admits. “I am always glad when I come back home.”

The former Humber College professor has won a Bloody Words Best Light Mystery Award and was a finalist for the Agatha and Arthur Ellis Awards. She has a U.S. publisher and most of her novels are sold south of the border “where there is quite a Penny Brannigan following.”

“People always tell me that they want to go to North Wales after they read one of my books,” she says. “That is what all writers want to hear.”

The former journalist has worked for the Ottawa Citizen, Hamilton Spectator and the CBC before she began writing books. She lived in London, England, for five years, while covering stories for the CBC.
Duncan also worked in public relations and is a faculty member of the Humber School for Writers.

She is first Canadian writer to win the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. The Cold Light of Mourning, her first novel, is also the winner of the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant and was shortlisted for an Agatha and an Arthur Ellis Award.

In her latest, Brannigan attends a dinner party at a posh country house where a historic chair disappears and a waiter is murdered.

The book is “for those who love comfy mysteries,” says Alan Bradley, a New York Times bestselling author of the Flavia de Luce mysteries.

Duncan is available for talks on books and her titles can be obtained at elizabethjduncan.com

 

Ex-Argos Zeke still active with charity work

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Former Toronto Argos tight end and long-time South Etobicoke resident William “Zeke” O’Connor is 94-years-old and is more fit than many people half his age.

Zeke will always be remembered for catching the winning touchdown pass for the underdog Argos in the 1952 Grey Cup, beating the Edmonton Eskimos 21-11 at Varsity Stadium. It would be the last championship the Argos would win until 1983.

“That catch changed my life,” he recalls from the Delmanor Retirement Home.  “It led to many other opportunities for me.”

The son of a New York City cop, Zeke worked at Sears for 31 years after football and was a Grey Cup radio broadcaster, doing colour commentary on the CBC from 1956 to 1981.

While at Sears he met famous explorer Sir Edmund Hillary, who became the first man to summit Mount Everest in 1953. From Hillary he gained a passion for philanthropy, particularly in Nepal.

He formed and ran the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Canada more than 30 years to help improve the lives of the Sherpas in the remote high-altitude villages of Mount Everest.

Zeke has since made about 45 trips to Nepal to help the Sherpas and is one of a few people who’ve have had a hospital and healing garden named him by thankful Nepalese.

He has helped to raise more than $5 million to build schools, hospitals, medical clinics, provide medical scholarships, train village health workers, build water pipelines, bridges, and to fund the Kunde Hospital and Sagarmatha National Park reforestation programs.

He was honoured on October 21 by the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame with a dinner gala and presented with a Governor-general ribbon of distinction.

“I have been given many awards and medals over the years,” Zeke says. “This one means a lot to me.”

The foundation is now run by his daughter, Karen, aided by Operations Manager Jeanne Cornacchia.

Zeke published a memoir in 2012 called Journey with the Sherpas: The Story of Zeke O’Connor and the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation.

Before moving to Canada, he played pro football in the U.S. with the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and New York Yanks before joining the Argonauts, which he says was a jumping-off point for many experiences, including a 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rotary Club of Toronto West.

Visit thesiredmundhillaryfoundation.ca for more info or to donate.

Alderwood author Babcock launches first novel

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By TOM GODFREY

Author Heather Babcock grew up in Alderwood and got hooked on words at the local library where her mom once left her as a child during ‘story time’ as she ran an errand.

“When my mom came back to pick me up, the librarian told her that I had been ‘absolutely mesmerized’ by the story-telling,” Heather explains. “She can come back anytime,’ she told my mom.”

She spent all her spare time at the Alderwood Library studying novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Betty Smith, Toni Morrison and Hubert Selby Jr.

Now her debut novel Filthy Sugar is being launched by Inanna Publications in two “virtual Speakeasy” sessions in Toronto on June 4 and 18.

“I am very excited and proud of my debut novel Filthy Sugar,” says the author. ”It took a lot of hard work and I totally loved the writing process.”

Set in the mid-1930s, Filthy Sugar tells the story of Wanda Whittle, a 19-year-old dreamer who models fur coats in a department store, but lives in a rooming house with her family in the “slums” behind the city’s marketplace.

“Bored with the daily grind, Wanda finds inspiration in the celluloid fantasies of the Busby Berkeley musicals, Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow movies,” she says, adding the work was inspired by women of the Pre-Code era of Hollywood film.

“After a chance encounter with the mysterious Mr. Manchester, proprietor of the Apple Bottom burlesque theatre, Wanda is thrust into a world of glitter and grit, where the guys talk tough and the dames are tough.”

“On her journey from rags to riches and back again,” the story unfolds. “Wanda experiences an awakening and achieves personal independence as she discovers that a girl doesn’t need a lot of sugar to be sensational!”

The book has been getting good reviews and is described as “a time travelled, tantalizing and tumultuous tale,” by Valentino Assenza, the co-host-producer of HOWL and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Lisa de Nikolits, author of No Fury Like That and Rotten Peaches, says: “Wanda will take you to another time and place, but a place where love, lust, greed sex and power are just as heartbreaking and complex as they are today.”

Heather loves writing and has had her works published in Descant Magazine, Front & Centre Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly and in the collection GULCH: An assemblage of Poetry and Prose.

Copies of Filthy Sugar are available at Inanna Publications at www.inanna.ca and other book sellers.

The virtual speakeasy will take place on June 4 at 7:30 p.m. via Zoom. Those interested can RSVP at https://mailchi.mp/248144d4ab21/speakeasy. The book will officially launch via live-streaming on June 18 as part of Inanna Publication’s partnership with Toronto Lit Up.

 

Socialite Pearl Horner loved her community and church

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Alderwood songstress Pearl Horner in her heyday was a popular opera singer and socialite who was born into a prominent farming family.

Pearl was the daughter of Daniel Fisher Horner, a farmer whom Horner Ave. was named after, and whose grandfather settled a 350-acre farm bounded to the north by Evans Ave., Brown’s Line to the west, south to Horner Ave. and east by Kipling Ave.

Daniel in 1856 invented and patented the first “butter print,” a device to mould butter, featuring a raised Horner emblem on the top.  That patent was passed on to granddaughter Pearl.

The Horners’ had one son, Franklin, and six daughters who included Ethel, who was a graduate of the Toronto Bible College and an ordained Anglican deaconess.

Franklin was active in local politics, community and church affairs, according to The Aldernews, which was published by the Etobicoke Historical Society. The Franklin Horner Community Centre is named after him.

He had two children, Goldwyn, who died at an early age, and daughter Pearl, who lived at the family’s 183 Beta St. homestead called “Ashfield” until it was sold in 1960.

Pearl loved “Ashfield,” which is described as a ‘copy of an old English manor.’

She was a well-known personality in 1921 having gained fame as a “renowned singer and socialite,” who was a mezzo-soprano with the prominent Toronto Mendelsohn Choir.

The choir is one of Canada’s oldest, largest and best-known choral ensembles. It was founded in 1894 by Augustus Vogt and presented its first concert in Massey Hall in 1895.

“She (Pearl) graciously entertained her fellow parishioners of the Church of the Atonement at Ashfield,” wrote historian Katharine Williams. She threw large parties for her friends and neighbours.

Pearl, like her dad, was interested in the church and community activities. She loved the arts and was called ‘a respected art patron.’

Franklin was a member of the original Mimico Lacrosse Team, who worked the farm from 1920 until his death. The property was sold in 1942 and subdivided.

The Horner family has long been affiliated with the Church of the Atonement, on Sheldon Ave., and Pearl took part in a sod-turning ceremony of an addition of the church in 1953.

Mal Spooner rocking the investment stage

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By WAYNE GIBSON

The Cambridge Dictionary defines a ‘maverick’ as “a person who thinks and acts in an independent way.”

While the investment community is notorious for displaying a lot of ‘group-think,’ Malvin Spooner, a long-time resident of South Etobicoke, has taken a very different road indeed.

Mal, as he usually goes by, has done it all in more than 30-years, both as a Portfolio Manager and as the CEO of his own TSE-listed investment firm, Mavrix Fund Management, which had achieved over $1 billion in assets under management. He had much media coverage along the way.

Mal is also the author of two books on investing: “Resources Rock,” which anticipated the last commodities boom years ago, and the recent, more general work outlining his investment philosophy “A Maverick Investor’s Guidebook.”

Being a Harley-Davidson enthusiast with many long rides across North America under his belt, he often compares the skills needed in investing to those required also when biking. Another sideline: he had helped raise thousands of dollars for various charities, with his participation as a guitarist in a rock group known as The Dealers. Along with other bands, they engaged in friendly competition at events such as “Bay Street Rocks:” these were much anticipated and widely-attended events 20 years ago within the Toronto investment community, with all money raised going to various charities.

After the sale of his investment firm 10 years ago, Mal spent some time lecturing on topics such as corporate finance at the Lakeshore Campus Business School of Humber College.

His most recent venture is the development of a new website: www.maverickinvestors.com Here, he is trying to, in his words, “…share my own decades of experience by providing a perspective not available to anyone who hasn’t been through market ups and downs”.

Given the current troubles with our economy now in shutdown mode because of COVID-19, Mal offers some solid advice on how to navigate the bumpy road ahead and offers some hope for a better future: “While we naturally want to run and hide when times are scary, scary times can create big opportunities.”

Mal says that his best investments were made by “rationally buying selected stocks during various world economic crises”. So, for those wanting to tap into Mal’s knowledge and experience gleaned over decades of ‘trial by fire’, a look at both his website and his book is highly recommended.

 

Iconic Gretzky-Horton TV ad filmed in Alderwood

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Many residents are still shedding tears after watching a young Wayne Gretzky meet his hero Tim Horton for an autograph in an emotional commercial that was mainly filmed at Brown’s Line Donuts in Alderwood.
“The Autograph” portrays a young Gretzky, played by Gordie Gilders, visiting a Tim Hortons location in 1968 in Brantford and getting an autograph from Hortons, the late Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman and restaurant co-founder.
The Great One would say he was inspired to become a professional hockey player after that meeting.
“They were filming here for two days last summer,” says Rina, who with her husband own the 744 Brown’s Line 1950s-style eatery. “Thousands of people have seen that commercial. It is very famous and people are still talking about it today.”
Many of the regular customers say they did not recognize their favourite restaurant at first.
“They (producers) did a great job transforming this place,” says Stan. “I come here every day and I still didn’t recognize the place. Someone had to tell me.”
The extras and actors in the commercial were dressed in 1960s clothing with ’60s hair and makeup, officials said.
The ad was shot “in an old diner off of Brown’s Line that they had converted into an original Tim Hortons with stools inside and tables. I couldn’t believe it,” one of those involved recalled.
Gretzky, or his dad, Walter, were not at the diner because their scene was filmed elsewhere.
At the end of the commercial, Gretzky is shown with tears welling in his eyes.
The story is an emotional tribute to Horton, who was one of the greatest defensemen of all-time. Horton spent 24 seasons in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Buffalo Sabres
His career tragically ended in 1974 when he crashed his sports car in St. Catherines. Horton, a member of the Sabres at the time, had played against his famous former team, the Leafs, the night before and was driving back to Buffalo. He died at age 44.
Horton opened his first doughnut shop in Hamilton in 1964. By 1968, Tim Hortons had become a multi-million dollar franchise. After Horton died, Ron Joyce, Horton’s business partner, bought the Horton’s family’s shares for $1 million becoming sole owner.
Today there are almost 5,000 Tim Hortons stores in Canada.

Alderwood’s Singing O’Connors a vaudeville hit

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A City of Toronto heritage plaque stands outside a Connorvale Ave., home where the famous Alderwood Singing O’Connor Sisters vaudeville stars grew up.
The sisters, who were at one time billed as the Six Singing O’Connor Sisters, included Vera, Kathleen, Madeleine, Geraldine, Kathleen and Vera. They were the daughters of farmers, who never lost their roots, even as they became a hit at vaudeville dance halls and theatres in Canada and the U.S. from 1910 to 1937.
The six girls were part of nine children of John Jr. and Ellen, who both loved music. Ellen was a professional singer and John Jr. played the violin, so there was always music at the O’Connor home and it is said that harmony singing came naturally to the girls, who would often perform at area banquets and concerts.
It wasn’t until 1910 when they received a big break. A family friend arranged for them to sing for Michael Shea, the owner of the Shea Theatre Chain, who was so impressed with their singing that he signed them on the spot.
By 1912 the singers, who were dubbed ‘the only authentic six sister group ever in show business,’ were performing on stages across North America with stars of the day, who included Jimmie Durante, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker and Eddie Cantor.
The group grew popular packing shows and receiving rave reviews. But by 1925, three of the girls had married and the group became a quartet.
The sisters retired in 1937, but continued to sing close to home for private parties and wartime benefits. They last appeared on stage in 1973 for a CBC show. In 1989, the last surviving sister, Geraldine, moved out of the house, and it was sold and demolished.
The plaque was installed in 2009 in front of a new house that now sits at 12 Connorvale Ave.
The Singing O’Connors became known as the “Greatest Singing Voices in Vaudeville,” and some of their earliest numbers were arranged by a young George Gershwin, who was just beginning his career as a composer.
Their 12-minute act featured comedy and fans loved the expensive costumes that they wore.
It is said the girls returned home every summer from touring to help with the family’s 80-hectare farm on the west side of Brown’s Line, between Horner Ave. and Lake Shore Blvd. W.