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The Brighter Lights of Almonte

An Anecdotal and Sometimes Jaundiced Look at the Shining Personalities of the Town of Almonte and Surrounding Area

"He wrote a poem in folio, which he printed not till he was old, and then, as Sir William said, with too much judgement and refining, spoiled it, which was at first a delicate thing."

John Aubrey, "Brief Lives", 1680

John and Halcyon Bell

It was a very short time in 1976 following my arrival in Almonte to work for Galligan and Sheffield, Barristers, Solicitors and Notaries Public that I was introduced to their then clients, John and Halcyon Bell. My instincts told me they were somehow posh - though the explanation wasn’t immediate. It turns out John was the son of James Mackintosh Bell who was a renowned geologist and owner of “Old Burnside” located on what is now called Strathburn Street in Almonte.

Dale Dunning

Years ago I invited a friend from New York City to visit me in Canada. I told him there was nothing in Almonte and suggested instead we rally in Montreal. Our first stop upon his arrival was the Musée des Beaux Arts on Sherbrooke Street West. There we immediately encountered a sculpture by R. Tait MacKenzie who of course I told my friend was from Almonte. We later crossed the street and frequented Dominion Galleries where upon our arrival I spotted a sculpture by Dale Dunning who is also from Almonte. At the time (about 35 years ago) Dale’s notoriety didn’t approach that of R. Tait MacKenzie but today it does. Oddly enough Dale has somewhat the same air of sophistication which MacKenzie had. I once owned a unique piece made by Dale but I sold it along with tons of other stuff we let go when I retired and we down-sized to an apartment. What I like about Dale’s work is that it is substantial. There is nothing wispy about his work. Even the smallest pieces are heavy.

Paul Virgin

It is no accident that an account of Paul Virgin should buffet my renditions of Des Houston, Brian Gallagher and Scott Newton. Paul is currently President of the Mississippi River Power Corporation. He and I overlapped service on that Board for a number of years.

Paul and I began our alliance together when he was President of the Mississippi Golf Club. He retained me to act for the Club in the purchase of its second nine holes from the Lowry farm. It was a complicated transaction and he always preserved confidence.

Scott J. Newton

While I wouldn’t normally be inclined to include someone of the comparatively tender age of Scott Newton in my collection of esteemed members of Almonte society, it is easy to make an exception in this instance. Not only do I consider Scott an illustrious member of our community at this time, I have every conviction that even if I were being overly generous he will prove me right eventually.

Brian J. Gallagher

The Almonte hydro plant is aptly named after Brian. It is called the Brian J. Gallagher Generating Station. Brian’s full and correct name is not Brian J. Gallagher; it is John Brian Gerard Gallagher. I did a lot of legal work for him (both in his personal capacity and as General Manager of the former Public Utilities Commission). He never once cared about the employment of his full and correct name.

Desmond Houston

Des is known to be curmudgeonly and cheap, both I suppose being a tolerable corollary to old age (though frankly I suspect he was that way all his life). Like so many others who have an abrupt or hardened exterior, Des is a marshmallow inside.

He certainly was good to me when I practiced law. Since Des was the Clerk of the Town of Almonte (following the retirement of Bob France if my memory serves me), he was someone with whom I dealt on a regular basis. Additionally Des supported me when I needed him in matters relating to the stewardship of my heritage office building, specifically careering the sometimes tortuous waters of municipal and provincial government funding.

Sanjeev Sivarulrasa

Sanjeev is a relative new-comer to Almonte but he is steadily making a name for himself:

Born in Sri Lanka, Sanjeev Sivarulrasa holds an Honours B. Arts Sc. degree (Arts & Science Program, McMaster University); an LL.B. degree (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University); and an LL.M. degree (Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa). For 14 years, he worked for the Canadian government, with specialization in international tax law. As his fascination with the night sky grew, he left that path to pursue art as a professional artist, curator, art dealer, and founder of a contemporary art gallery. In 2014, he launched Sivarulrasa Gallery in Almonte, Ontario, representing professional Canadian artists, both emerging and established. An active advocate of the arts, he has served on the Board of Directors of Canadian Artists’ Representation / Le Front des artistes Canadiens (CARFAC National), the music school Ottawa Suzuki Strings, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum. Since launching Sivarulrasa Gallery, he has curated several exhibitions showcasing the works of contemporary Canadian artists from Eastern Ontario and beyond.

Terry Kell

I suspect that Terry considers himself a renaissance man of sorts, particularly since he has, among many other accomplishments, climbed Mount Everest (an event which unfortunately was marred by the death of one of his colleagues, Sean Egan, also from Almonte).

D. Fraser Symington

One could not help but view Donald Fraser Symington as a distinguished man. Even in his senior years, he maintained a very healthy head of hair, on the longish side, which gave him an aristocratic look; and, because he was tall and relatively slight, he always appeared a bit of a rake, aided in no small measure by the perpetual twinkle in his eyes.

John Carson ("JC") Smithson

It would be quite impossible to record everything of note that there is to say about JC Smithson. "Jack" (as he is commonly known) has been a central figure to the Almonte scene for many, many years. During the last thirty-three years alone during which I have known Jack, he has distinguished himself for his involvement in the community as Land Registrar, Very Worshipful Brother of the local Masonic Lodge, an active member and leader in the Legion, St. Paul's Anglican Church, Curling Club and Mississippi Golf Club, not to mention innumerable other volunteer interests and undertakings too numerous to mention. His photograph was constantly in the local newspaper, showing him always handsomely dressed, smiling and participating in some adventure or another. He had all the charisma of a long-time politician without any of the sour baggage of tenure.

Louis Peterson

Almost everything I know about Louis Peterson is anecdotal, since by the time I arrived in Almonte in 1976, he had already been retired for a number of years. Of course his fame was that he had started Peterson Ice Cream Company, located in an old woollen mill factory on Mill Street across from John Kerry’s furniture store. The building has since been torn down, after the business (being then run by his son, Jack) essentially failed, and the property was sold in succession, first to Wilson Bassile and then Stephen Brathwaite (who wanted the property to complete his Monopoly-like collection of buildings along the riparian side of Mill Street, Almonte).

Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie

Anybody who has watched television or listened to the news has heard of Major-General Lewis W. MacKenzie. He is for example a regular contributor to the Remembrance Day ceremonies and just about anything else military which surfaces from time to time on the international scene. He has endeared himself to the media and the public by being not only the consummate soldier but also a well-respected race car driver. He has even been featured on the Rick Mercer show (which means of course he isn’t afraid to engage in humorous antics, sometimes at his own expense).

Leonard Lee

Leonard is famous primarily as the founder of the outrageously successful Lee Valley Tools, but he has done much more to contribute to the world of commerce and society in general, particularly his company Canica Design on Mills Street in Almonte which develops innovative medical devices especially designed for soft tissue wound closures.

George & Terry Charos

These Greek brothers came to Canada and never stopped working. They were perpetually at the Superior Restaurant, which they originally purchased from my neighbour Dave Scott’s father, “Dinty” Scott. Together George and Terry built up considerable capital, bought and developed all sorts of real estate (no doubt both here and abroad), put their children through University, and then finally quit the restaurant business after selling it to an immigrant Chinese couple in 2005. They and their contemporary family members maintained a very low social profile in Almonte. They never seemed comfortable in social situations, always preferring business.

Mr. Justice C. James Newton, QC

Jim Newton and his wife, Betty, were among the very first people I met when I came to Almonte in June of 1976. There was hardly a breath between my arrival and the invitation I received to dine with them at their home on Elgin Street in Almonte across from the United Church.

Dave Drummond

Sometime shortly after 1978 when I moved my law office from 74 Mill Street (R. A. Jamieson, QC's original office on the second floor) I wanted to take the Goldie & McCulloch safe which had been there for what I suspect was most of Mr. Jamieson's 54 year practice (from about 1921 - 1976). Reportedly the safe had been meticulously and torturously manoeuvred at less than a careering pace up the ancient interior wooden stairs (complete with 90° turn near the top) from the street to the office by Freddie Larose.

"The Goldie & McCulloch Company Ltd. was a Canadian steam engine manufacturer based in Galt,  Ontario. The company also manufactured woodworking machinery, industrial safes, French Burr millstones, Boilers, Turbine Water Wheels, Bark Mills and a variety of Tannery machines."

Gordie Timmons

It was years before I discovered Almonte's Secret Society.  It wasn't the Independent Order of Oddfellows whose former iconic symbols were painted on the crumbling ceiling of the attic of an old building on Mill Street. Nor was it the more modern but equally arcane Masonic Lodge whose members continue to foregather to this day.  It was instead the congregation of men who met every autumn for the annual hunt. Not being partial myself to forests, guns or hunting, the allure had entirely escaped my interest and knowledge - at least that is until I further learned that some of the parishioners met in what was equivalent to a luxurious rural resort outfitted with the finest culinary equipment.  Indeed it was disclosed that many of the regular communicants were not hunters at all but rather preferred to discuss and create fanciful and extravagant meals nursed by the finest vintages and fermentations. All the while they hardened their nascent masculinity by abandoning shaving and bathing for a week.

Denis J. Arial

If Denis Joseph Arial were asked to iterate his winning characteristics my guess is he would advance - hesitatingly, if at all - a passing acquaintance with the culinary arts. As with so many people who possess commendable traits - much like those who have real money - if they've got it, they don't talk about it. Denis is a man of instinctive modesty.

Warren Woodstock and John Dawson

I first met John and Warren when they retained me regarding the purchase of land in the Township of Pakenham.  Subsequently they sold that property and the house they constructed on it and bought a unit in what is called Jamieson Mills in Almonte. Jamieson Mills was at the time a complicated legal fiction of ownership called a life lease which because of its unfamiliar nature tended to dissuade others from buying. A life lease is similar to cooperative ownership popular in New York City where expensive units are for sale only to people who do not require a mortgage (based on the legal technicality that you cannot mortgage what you do not own - namely, a corporation owns the whole property and the "owners" merely have the exclusive use of a portion thereof). Eventually the developer of the property converted it to the traditional condominium style to make it more marketable.

John and Warren were I believe the first owners of a unit in Jamieson Mills.  They have become the leading caretakers of the place, serving on the Board of Directors and endlessly contributing their time and energy to the management and improvement of the entire property. If anyone in the building has a problem, John and Warren are among the first to be consulted.

R. Louis Irwin

Louis, like so many people about whom I write, was among the first people whom I met when I came to Almonte in 1976. Initially, our stars aligned over a commercial matter, as one might expect, though I have to say that, considering the general complexity of Louis' business affairs, it wouldn't have been considered as "understood" that he would deal with the likes of me, a mere rural conveyancer. Indeed I expect that he was effectively throwing me his legal scraps since I later discovered he dealt with a high-powered Sparks Street law firm in Ottawa headed up by George Perley-Robertson and his cronies from the Village of Rockcliffe Park.

James R. McGregor

One of the first truly “business” type of encounters I remember is meeting James R. McGregor, known to his friends as “Jimmy”.  Jimmy, who was a native of Almonte, had most recently climbed his way out of the mines in Sudbury, and decided he was never going back down. Instead, he and his wife, Nancy, with children from his first and second marriage, headed for Almonte where he was born to enter the real estate business (and I understand from having talked to local real estate entrepreneurs that Jimmy’s presence was not viewed without concern, from a competitive point of view).

Donald C. Johnston, CA

Don is a character of the first order, always looking for trouble, with a twinkle in his eye. He married Lorna Jamieson (daughter of the late R. A. Jamieson, QC). Don worked as accountant to many of the successful local business people, though he maintained his office in Bells Corners on Richmond Road, not in Smiths Falls, where he lived.

Raymond A. Jamieson, QC

Mr. Jamieson hated his middle name, Algernon. He was most often referred to as R. A. Jamieson (the gold lettered inscription which appears on the Goldie & McCulloch Co. Limited safe I inherited from his practice).

He apparently liked to drink, even to the point of draining the dregs of liquor from his visitors’ highballs the morning after the night before at his remote Clayton cottage. He smoked cigarettes, too, and probably cigars at one time (though I never saw him). He was athletic as a youth at Hart House, University of Toronto, where I understand he excelled in the long-distance races (something which doesn't surprise me, considering he was called to the Bar in 1921, retired at 82 in 1976, outlived his clean-living wife, Evelyn, and died at 96 years of age after a brief 6-month illness in the Rosamond wing of the Almonte General Hospital).

When I visited him at the Hospital in his final days, he asked me about John Kerry's renovations of the funeral home on Elgin Street. When I told him the renovations were coming along fine and the place looked wonderful, he replied, "I'm looking forward to going there!" And he did!

James Knatchbull Hugessen and Mary Rosamond Hugessen

As much as I would like to write something singular about the Hugessens, I really cannot do any better than incorporate the following piece from my collection of journal entries entitled "The Toy Box":

The Hugessen 50th Wedding Anniversary - Family, Friends & History

There will be much that is said about Jim and Mary Hugessen this weekend. Yesterday afternoon the large Hugessen family (Jim, Mary, their 5 children, spouses and 14 grandchildren) congregated at St. Paul's Anglican Church on Brougham Street in Almonte together with about seventy or more of their friends to celebrate Jim and Mary's 50th wedding anniversary, which Jim later told me took place exactly 50 years ago on Friday, September 12 , 1958 at 4:00 p.m., precisely the day and time we all foregathered yesterday.

Dr. Franz B. Ferraris

Franz came from South Africa, sometime in the early 1980s I imagine. His first stop however wasn't Almonte, but rather Saskatchewan (likely some fairly remote or at least rural place, like Almonte). I suspect it was Mr. Raymond J. Timmons (CEO of the Almonte General Hospital) who persuaded (lured) Franz to come here (in the late1980s). Since his arrival here, Franz has been an almost instant success, both as a physician and socially. He is known to be obstinate in his medical care of his patients (for example, he does not tolerate smoking or general unwillingness to cultivate healthy habits); and, as for his social skills, he is well-read and has a robust sense of humour, often enlivened by a glass of Champagne (his favourite) or a martini (of which he kindly says I am the ablest author).

Shirley Evelyn Deugo

Mrs. Shirley Deugo (married to the late George Deugo, plumber) is the daughter of the late Leonard Fulton, who I suspect was the man behind the now famous "Fulton's Pancake House" in Pakenham Township. Today Shirley enjoys the reputation for the being the Queen of Maple Syrup in all of Lanark County and further abroad. Whenever she consults me I quip half in jest and half seriously that she and her family now own more land than they know or can accurately keep track of. Any one movement by Shirley in a family real estate transaction precipitates endless repercussions which are invariably legal nightmares for me usually involving serious Planning Act and Land Transfer Tax issues quite apart from the capital gains tax issues levelled upon her accountant.

Peter Brown

Peter Brown was one of the first people in the Almonte community whom I met who was not part of the legal profession. He was a client and friend of Michael J. Galligan, QC.

Peter began his career with Atomic Energy of Canada, I believe, but he has since founded his own company (Mevex Corporation) which incorporates radiation as a component for the sterilization of things, including food. Each one of his machines sells for something well over a million dollars (perhaps even as much as three million dollars) but Peter is the first to say that cash flow is a problem and that sales are not always brisk.

Stephen E. C. Brathwaite

While Stephen and I only met in Almonte, indirectly we go back a long way. Stephen used to date Margot Millar, who was the daughter of the late Gordie Millar, an air force colleague of my parents. I have heard from my mother that Margot and I used to play in a sandbox together when we lived near one another in Manor Park, Ottawa sometime around 1950 I would imagine. When I met Stephen at an art show being held in the old Town Hall about thirty years ago, he was then dating Margot though they have since gone their separate ways but without a great deal of animosity from what I can gather, at least latterly. Stephen has an attraction for clever, attractive ladies.

Wilson Bassile

The general consensus is that Wilson Bassile is a character. As often as he himself has taken this punishing commentary (both to his face and behind his back), he persists in staying in Almonte as though he were miraculously grounded here. He purports to have business interests elsewhere (such as Sarnia, Ontario) but I have no proof.

John H. Kerry

John Kerry was one of the first clients I had when I came to Almonte. He made it quite clear that if I worked on my own he would support me and he did. I launched my own practice on March 1, 1978, effectively assuming the remnants of the practice of the late R. A. Jamieson, QC (who pointedly had extended the same commercial promise to John when he first arrived in Almonte on October 28, 1954). At that time, John and his father-in-law, Clarence D. (“C.D.”) Colley bought the funeral home and furniture store of Ed Scott, whose original funeral home had burned in 1902 and was rebuilt in 1904 at 99 Elgin Street, where Mr. Scott had built his combined family residence/funeral home across the street from the United Church. The furniture store continues to this day at 26 Mill Street. Mr. Scott died in June of 1954 (thus having been in business for a full 50 years). Six years after buying the Ed Scott home, John and Mr. Colley bought the grand private residence of the late W. H. Stafford, Barrister &c. at 154 Elgin Street, where the funeral home continues to remain today, operated by Tubman Funeral Homes, successor to Kerry Funeral Homes and Chapels effective October 1, 2006 (making John one of the longest surviving businessmen in the area).