On Jan. 3, Louise Lapointe was born in Quebec. She was one of the first women to work as a professional journalist. She worked as a journalist throughout the 1940s and 1950s for various French-Canadian publications. In 1959, she joined the staff of La Presse.
In 1971, Lapointe was appointed to the Senate. She served in the Senate until 1987 and was the first French-Canadian woman to serve as the Speaker of the Senate. She served in that capacity from 1974 to 1979. In 1989, she was awarded the Order of Canada. Lapointe died in 2002.
On Feb. 1, 1912, Edmonton and the community across the river, Strathcona, amalgamated into one community. This allowed Edmonton to cover both banks of the North Saskatchewan River for the first time.
On March 1, Edward Blake died. Born in 1833, he was called to the bar and began to practice law. Recruited by George Brown into politics, he became leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1868 and was elected premier in 1871. He remained in provincial politics for one more year. Also serving in the House of Commons at the time, he helped bring down the government of Sir John A. Macdonald over the Pacific Scandal. From 1876 to 1900, he was also the chancellor of the University of Toronto. In 1880, he became the leader of the Liberal Party, serving until 1887 when he was replaced by Wilfrid Laurier. He remained the only Liberal Leader not to serve as Prime Minister until over a century later when Stephane Dion served as leader but not as Prime Minister. From 1892 to 1907, Blake was a member of the United Kingdom Parliament. In 1907, he suffered a stroke that partially paralyzed him and he returned to Canada.
On the night of April 14 and 15, the Titanic struck and iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland. The most famous shipwreck in history, the disaster killed 1,500 people. Among those were many Canadians. I covered the Canadians on the Titanic in an episode of Canadian History Ehx, so be sure to check that episode out. Here are some of the people who were on the ship.
The Fortunes: The family was returning from a tour of Europe. The women of the family were put in lifeboats, none of the men survived the sinking.
Harry Molson: A part of the Molson brewing family, he was one of the richest men on the Titanic. He had planned to take a different ship home but his friend Arthur Peuchen convinced him to take the Titanic. Molson was last seen taking his shoes off on the deck.
The Dick Family: Vera Dick and her husband Bert were on their way home from their honeymoon. As Bert hugged his wife goodbye, he was shoved into a lifeboat as it was lowering. He was called a coward for the rest of his life as a result.
George Wright: A millionaire from Halifax, he spent most of the voyage in his cabin. He had also bought his ticket at the last moment. Wright was never seen on the deck, and it is believed he died in his cabin.
The Allisons: Another wealth Montreal family, Hudson and Beth & their children were heading home from a vacation in Scotland. Only the baby Loraine survived the sinking. Only the body of Hudson was ever recovered.
Charles Melville Hays: The president of the Grand Trunk Railway & governor of McGill University, he was personally invited to take a voyage on the ship. He brought with his family, secretary & maid. Charles, his secretary & his son-in-law all died on the ship.
Major Arthur Peuchen: A major in the Queen’s Own Rifles, he was helping people into lifeboats when a steward asked him to get in the boat to help him. Peuchen agreed. He was later accused of wearing a dress to get in the boat, called a coward & was ostracized.
The Winnipeg Businessmen: Hugo Ross had contracted dysentery & spent the trip in his cabin. That was where he died. Thomson Beattie got in a lifeboat, which was found a month later, all were dead inside. Thomas McCaffry’s body was found adrift after the sinking.
On April 15, Jerome of Sandy Cove died. In 1863, he appeared on a beach with no legs and was mute. He spent the next 49 years in Nova Scotia, being cared for by others, but never revealing who he was.
His stumps, which had been amputated by a skilled surgeon, were partially healed but still bandaged.
When asked his name, he mumbled something that sounded like Jerome and that was the name that was given to him.
People who wanted to know who he was began to visit him in his sick bed but quickly found he could not speak French, Latin, Italian or Spanish.
He was also reported to growl like a dog when people approached him as guests in the home. Adding to the mystery was the fact that his hands were soft, unlikely to be that of a manual labourer and he was described as being Mediterranean in appearance.
For the rest of his life, locals would house him in their homes and the Nova Scotia government voted a stipend of two dollars per week to support him. He would eventually stay in the home of Jean Nicola, never talking about himself or the mystery surrounding him. Extra money was brought in for locals by advertising the chance to see Jerome for a fee. Jerome also travelled with Jean Nicola to various communities to not only figure out who he was, but also make some money off of him. As for who he really was and what happened to him, no one really knows. Some say that he was a sailor who attempted a mutiny and was punished with amputation.
Other theories state he was heir to a fortune and was gotten rid of to make way for someone else who wanted the money.
As for his difficulties talking, that may be linked to a brain injury and it was reported he was incapable of speaking in any sort of understandable language.
On April 26, the Chateau Laurier opened. Construction began in 1909 backed by the Grand Trunk Railway who wanted a grand railway hotel in the capital city.
Charles Melville Hays, president of the GTR, commissioned the construction of the hotel but he never lived to see it. On April 15, 1912, he died on the Titanic.
Over the years, the hotel went through several expansions and became known as one of the finest hotels in Canada. It has also been visited by many famous individuals. Alex Trebek lived and worked in the hotel in the early-1960s. In 1968, Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell began a romantic relationship after Mitchell played 18 of her current songs for him in her hotel room.
In 1981, the hotel became a National Historic Site of Canada.
On June 20, the steamer La Canadienne lost control and smashed into Lock No. 22, opening the lock by six inches. This caused a surge of water to flow downstream, which went over Lock No. 21, where five boys were fishing. Three of the boys would drown in the surge. As well, the Merritton Tunnel was completely filled with water.
The Edmonton Daily Bulletin reported quote:
“The gates gave way and the rush of water from above carried the steamer and the lower gates into the reach below, where the steamer struck the rocky bank and sank with a large hole in her hull. Willie Wallace, Willie Jacks and Leonard Bretherick, all aged five years, were swept over the canal bank into the water and drowned. The mass of water continued down the canal as far as lock number 18, badly damaging the banks and overflowing the adjoining farm lands.”
On June 30, the Regina Cyclone, the deadliest tornado in Canadian history, hit Saskatchewan’s capital city. The tornado tore through the city at 5 p.m. on that day, from Wascana Lake, through the downtown along Victoria Avenue and into the Warehouse District. The tornado had formed 18 kilometres south of the city. At its largest, the tornado was 150 metres wide with winds that were at an estimated 400 km/hr. The tornado leveled buildings and houses through the city, while also tearing up railroad tracks and throwing box cars. The tornado left 2,500 homeless, and caused $1.2 million in damages. Today, that amounts to $32.2 million. The tornado killed 28 people, more than any other tornado in Canadian history. One story from this tornado is that Boris Karloff, the future Frankenstein’s Monster in film, was in Regina as a young actor performing and took part in rescue efforts and a benefit concert in Saskatoon a few days later.
On Aug. 17, Saskatchewan went through a federal election. Thomas Walter Scott and the Liberals won another majority government with 45 seats, an increase of 18 over the previous election. Wellington Willoughby and the Conservatives lost six seats, finishing with eight. Five independents were elected in the election.
On Aug. 27, Ontario issued Regulation 17, which heavily limited instruction in French-language Catholic separate schools & forbid teaching French beyond grade two in all separate schools. Separate school boards resisted and defied the new regulation, so Regulation 18 was issued in August 1913 to force employees to comply.
The powerful Protestant Orangemen didn’t like having bilingual schools because they considered it “un-British”. At the time, 10 per cent of Ontario’s population was French-Canadian.
Le Droit, which is the only Francophone daily newspaper in Ontario, was established in 1913 to oppose the ban. That same year, the regulation was changed to allow for only one hour of French teaching each day.
French-Canadians were outraged over the regulation & it led them to distance themselves from the First World War effort as many young men refused to enlist. This was made even worse when conscription came in, which was highly unpopular in Quebec.
Sir Robert Borden, the prime minister, did not get involved because he did not want to upset Ontario, which he needed for the war effort. In 1915, the Ontario government replaced Ottawa’s elected separate school board with a government-appointed commission. Due to years of litigation over the decision, it was never fully implemented.
Regulation 17 remained in place until it was repealed in 1927. Ontario Premier Howard Ferguson was not in favour of bilingualism but he needed a political alliance with Quebec against the federal government.
It was not until 1969 that French-language schools in Ontario were officially recognized under the Education Act. Late that year, the first French-language high schools in the province opened.
On Aug. 27, 1912, Thomas Wilby and Jack Haney began their cross-country drive to become the first individuals to drive across the country. While they did drive much of the country, there were portions where they were forced to take a boat or transport the car on a train because there were no roads available. Wilby was an Englishmen who believed completely in the caste-system, while Jack Haney was a mechanic provided by the car company. The two men did not like each other and in his book about the drive, A Motor Tour Through Canada, Wilby only referred to Haney as The Chauffeur. At the time of their drive, there were only 16 kilometres of paved road across the country. It took the two men 52 days to get across the country and reach the Pacific Coast.
On Sept. 2, the first Calgary Stampede was held. The Stampede had actually started earlier in 1886 when the Calgary and District Agricultural Society. That fair saw 500 of the town’s 2000 residents come out for the event. From here, the event continued to grow and by 1908, Calgary hosted the Dominion Exhibition. The city spent $145,000 to build six new pavilion and a racetrack. That event drew 100,000 people to the city of 25,000. In 1912, four men known as the Big Four, Pat Burns, George Lane, Guy Weadick and A.E. Cross came together to form The Calgary Stampede. This was a six day event that attracted hundreds of cowboys from across North America. The event also generated $120,000 in revenue and would soon become the defining event of the city.
On Nov. 10, Louis Cyr died. Born in 1863 in present-day Quebec, at the age of 12, he was working in lumber camps in the winter and his family farm in the summer.
Knowing he had immense strength from a young age, it was said he carried a sack of grain every day for half a km, adding one kilogram a day.
When he was 17, he lifted a loaded wagon out of a mire where it was stuck. The press from this incident started his career as a strongman.
In a strongman competition with Michaud of Quebec, he defeated him by lifting a granite boulder that weighed 220 kilograms.
In 1878, he moved to the United States and went by the name of Louis because it was easier to pronounce.
At 22, he entered a strongman competition and lifted a horse off the ground.
In 1882, he returned to Quebec and continued to work as a strongman, and in lumber camps.
From 1883 to 1885, he was a police officer in Montreal. During one altercation, he broke up a knife fight and carried both assailants to the police station.
During a strongman competition in 1886 in Quebec City, Cyr lifted a 99 kilogram barbell with one hand, and carried 1,075 kilograms on his back.
In 1891, he volunteered for the Ottawa police force but they felt he would be too slow. He challenged their regular officers to a foot race and defeated them all. He was brought on as a police officer briefly after that.
In 1895, Cyr went to Harvard where he was measured by Dr. Dudley A. Sargent. His height was 5’8.5″, while his neck was 51 cm, his biceps 51 cm, his forearms 41 cm, his wrists 21 cm and his chest 140 cm not expanded.
That same year in Boston, Cyr backlifted a platform with 18 men standing on it.
Cyr was also known to eat a lot, upwards of six pounds of meat in one meal. It was said he ate the same as four men.
Other tales of his strength include:
– Pushing a freight car up an incline.
– Lifting a 242 kilogram weight with one finger.
– Bench pressing 124 kilograms.
By 1904, Cyr’s health was failing due to his excessive eating and growing inactivity. He weighed 400 pounds prior to his death.
