• Midland’s population reaches 8,030; coming close to the 1926 high of 8,085. In 1906 the population was 3,500.
• Post Office Department bans all envelopes measuring less than 2-3/4″ by 4″ due to difficulties with the operation of stamp cancelling machines.
• At a recent meeting of the Midland Phalanx Club of the YMCA the following new executive was elected; primus, Jack Laird; pro primus, Tom Marion; tribune, Charles Day; quaestor, Ken Todd and scribe, Bob Bates.
• MPDHS cadets attended the Ontario Rifle Association meet in Long Branch on Oct 1 and Ken McEachern was high scorer with a 90 percent.
• At the Roxy, Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe in “River of No Return” and Julie Harris, James Dean and Raymond Massey in “East of Eden”.
• The Wednesday Free Press Herald and the Friday County Herald sell for .05 cents per copy or .35 cents per month. Save a nickel.
• In Memoriam; In loving memory of my dear son William E. “Billy” Jory, killed in action over Denmark, October 14th, 1944. Lovingly remembered by Mom.
• D. Loney, well known barber for thirty years in Port McNicoll and Midland has purchased the business formerly owned by Omer Rivet, the shop is located in the Georgian Hotel. Mr. Rivet is retiring due to ill health after forty years.
• 25 YEARS AGO – The Midland Steam Laundry and Bon Marche Manufacturing were completely gutted by fire – Prof. Stephen Leacock was the guest speaker at a lecture in St. Mark’s Parish Hall – MHS field day was held in a drizzling rain, junior champ was Russell Kelly; intermediate Clarke Edwards; senior, W. Thompson.
• L. White Jr., mayor and industrial pioneer of Midland, speaking at the first annual meeting of the Midland YMCA fifty two years ago (1903) compared the cost of operating the YMCA to that of the Penetang Reformatory. He suggested that for $7.00 per year the YMCA can build up and improve the character of young men and keep them out of the reformatory, a facility where the cost is $200.00 per year.
• McDonald’s Hardware in Penetang now selling Philco and GE televisions and Penetang Hardware is selling CBS.
• Announcing the re-opening of Vi’s Coffee Shoppe on Highway 12 at Taylor’s Service Station.
• Lorne Watson, photographer, is offering Sylvania flash bulbs, regularily .17 cents on for .16 cents with special allowance on used bulbs of .02 cents each.
• A fifty-four pound muskellunge was landed by Michael Pedersen while fishing in the Honey Harbour area.
• Three Penetang police constables are to receive a $100.00 annual pay boost. Parking meters in Penetang to be removed this week, stored until next spring.
• Do it yourself TV antenna kit selling for $14.95 at Roebuck’s. 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 Midland High School cheer leaders, Mary Popple, Doris Hyde, Vera Sibbald, Marg Ambeau, Jane Bell, Mary O’Leary, Peggy Couling, Marlene Fraser and Pat Martin. Opening game of the senior football season on Sept 29th saw the home team lose 28 to 5 to the Orillia Collegiate squad.   

 Ministers and laymen at the dedication of the new St. Paul’s Protestant chapel in the Penetanguishene Hospital, members of the Midland and District Ministerial Society. 

 Soon to be demolished, the Midland Fire Hall, until recently used as a municipal office until being condemned for only limited occupation, then reconditioned and used again for council meetings and court house. The property has been sold to Loblaws who will build a new grocery store on the site.

• Hunters wound six cows, Henry Cadeau of Port Severn reports that six of his pastured herd of twenty milk cows bear evidence of the duck hunting season which just opened. Only two were seriously wounded and all will recover, Henry worried about the coming deer season
• Three to four hundred duck hunters invade the Coldwater area every fall and opening day, to those unaware, sounds like a military invasion
• Anglican rectory in Penetang is being demolished, believed to be 70 years old, the 12 room, two storey brick structure will be replaced by a modern building. M. H. McGuire recalls that prior to this rectory the minister lived in a log house at the south end of Fox Street
• Ten Years Ago 1945– Camp Marygrove opens on Penetang Bay –  Dominion government spending $109,000.00 dredging Midland Harbour, 200 thousand cubic yards of the bottom to be removed – Midland had its first snowfall of the year  – work begins on a new highway between Orillia and Coldwater
• Weekly Editorial comment “Wise and Otherwise”. Oct 5, 1955 “It is rather shocking when one realizes that there are about 1,000 children in Simcoe County, that is about three out of every 100, who are under the direct or indirect care of the Children’s Aid Society. Many of them are teenagers, for whom it is difficult to find foster homes and who were born during WW ll, the victims of broken homes. Not all battle casualties end with armistice.”
• Ad in the Free Press – “Wanted – Dump Trucks for Hire, All Sizes – for hauling crushed stone to the Toronto area”. Nelson Crushed Stone Ltd. Burlington Ont.
• Giant Jamboree at Midland Arena featuring the Dusty Owens Show, with Lazy Jim Day, Dot and Smokey, The Rodeo Boys and Little Miss Donna Darlene
• Free Press editor and publisher Bill Cranston in an address to the Barrie Kiwanis Club explained the connection between the Free Press Herald and Barrie. In 1917 the Midland paper was incorporated and the proprietor of the Barrie Gazzete at the time, Alfred Wilkes, along with his printing equipment, became the first editor and manager.
• East Simcoe MLA Lloyd Letherby announces that an early start is to be made in 1956 on the new road between Crown Hill and Highway 12 at Fesserton (400 extension) and form a link with the Trans Canada Highway presently pushing north from Port Severn
• Midland Frosted Food Lockers, 239 First Street, is selling Grade “A” turkeys for 55 cents per pound

 

 Have you ever opened your tax bill or tried to deal with Midland town hall and wished it would just go away. 575 Dominion Ave. circa 1955

 

 They’ve held the reins for years. Two veterans of farm and municipal life contemplate the results of their work at the annual West Central Simcoe Plowing Match near Wyevale, Walter Middleton reeve of Flos and  Arthur Downer, Reeve of Tiny.

 

 Trio joins St. Andrew’s Hospital staff, shown beside a new piece of kitchen equipment. Mrs. Elizabeth Outerbridge dietician, Miss Margaret Heasman physical and occupational therapist, Miss Muriel Carr, laboratory technician. Miss Heasman is the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. J. P. Heasman and was born in Elmvale, attended Evergreen School and MHS, graduating in 1952, she attended the University of Toronto for three years. achieving honours standing every year and finishing top of her class.

 

 Former Pratt barn at the corner of Bay and Queen streets is being renovated to serve as the headquarters for Midland Police , fire and public works departments. It will be the permanent home of the public works when police and fire move to the new municipal building being constructed on Dominion Ave.

 

Free Press staff member Anita Fournier of Penetanguishene with four St. Lawrence apples grown by Milton Barr on the 4th Concession of Medonte. It has been an excellent year for all types of tree fruits.

 Weddings;

• Velma Roi and Raymond Robitaille, St. Anns
• Lisa Buttineau and Monty Forget, September 17th, St. Anns
• Joan Alberta Logan and Roy Gordon Harriman, September 10, St. Margarets
• Julie Robitaille and Edgar Andrew Parent, September 13th, St. Patricks
• Vivian Archer and Brian M. Jones, September 24th, St. John’s Anglican, Waverley
• Lois Kay Daymond and Charles J. Henderson, at the home of the bride
• Marilyn Joy Hornsby and Donald Eugene Edwards, September 24th, Waverley United Church
• Mary Diane Taylor and Kenneth William Hooper, September 3rd, at the home of the brides grandparents

• OPP and Midland Police raid three concession stands at the Midland Fall Fair, seven persons arrested for operating a gambling devise, released on $500.00 bail each, three cars impounded
• Patricia Grisé, 17 year old daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Didace Grisé wins $1,200.00 Loretto Alumnae Scholarship, money will pay four years of university tuition. She obtained eight firsts and one second in her grade 13 departmental examinations this year. Her sister Kathleen won the same scholarship two years ago
• New CKVR channel 3  signal is interfering with reception of channels 2 and 4 from Buffalo, Midlanders were never able to get steady reception of USA channels but those on Tower TV are also impacted until company can install necessary filters to allow all three channels to be received
• O. H. Swan, 84 of Vasey has never missed a Tiny & Tay Fall Fair in 60 years
• Trustees for SS No16, the one room Mountain School have a problem, the school can accommodate only 37 pupils but an average attendance of 40 is needed to apply for a second classroom
• A gremlin raided the Free Press negative files and removed all those pertaining to the local fall fairs in 1955 before they were donated to the museum, there are excellent photos in the newspaper of parades and events but Huronia Museum received none of those negatives
• Felix Turcotte, Board Chairman of the Penetang Hospital reports 2,143 admissions in the first year of operation, 200 major operations, 403 minor, 430 births, 170 blood transfusions
• Imperial Oil honours local newspaper by selecting the Free Press Herald as one of five Ontario papers, three being Toronto dailies, to be included in the contents of a time capsule placed in the corner stone of their new 19 story office tower at Avenue Road and St. Clair Ave. W.
• Midlanders will no longer hear the town fire siren, in the move to their temporary home in the Pratt building it was decided by council not to erect the siren but to use a radio warning systems to call firefighters
• Excerpts from Horst Siegfried’s article in the Ernst Leitz employee’s magazine “Objectiv” after his time in Midland; “Life in Midland, which is actually situated in a huge park, is agreeable even in the winter months”, “Hacker’s store has a wide selection of German magazines and they are not even out of date”, “it is not an exaggeration to state that a car is the same as a bicycle or a motor scooter in Germany, the reason for this is, cars cost less”, “Sundays are quieter than in Germany but this rest does one a lot of good, it is reflected in the behaviour of the population, in their friendly greeting and conversation”, “there are not many soccer enthusiasts, during the winter fierce ice hockey battles serve as compensation”.
• Globe Restaurant is advertising, “Enjoy television while you eat at the Globe”
• Victoria Harbour residents to express their opinion by ballot on November 23, whether a Brewer’s Warehouse,  liquor store or beverage rooms should be established in the village, two previous votes in the last 15 years have been “NO”. (real issue is the canteen at the legion)
• 25 Years Ago – two special trains brought 400 pilgrims from Peterborough to the Martyr’s Shrine – some features of the fall fair in 1930 were; mouth organ contest, baby show, old time car parade, girl’s softball tournament – Christian Island held its second annual fall fair – the S.S. Ralph Budd made her maiden voyage from Fort William to Midland with 243,000 bushels of oats and wheat
• Simcoe County Warden Roy Hickling at a meeting of the Georgian Bay Development Association is quoted, “the liquor industry puts cents in one pocket and takes dollars out of another”, “We are suffering more from parental than juvenile delinquency. Fifty-two new liquor outlets have been opened in Simcoe County in the last few years and liquor is one of our biggest problems”, “at least half the time, of not only County Council but local councils as well, is taken up by welfare problems”, “it might be wise for taxpayers to double the amount spent on education thus reduce the adult welfare costs, specialized teachers might be needed”
• The Free Press has over 60 correspondents and staff and five out of six homes in North Simcoe receive the paper, 5,000 copies per addition
• George Lynn of Highland Point loses large barn and vegetable sheds to $17,000 fire
• George Wismer, 80 year old Wyebridge resident, killed instantly when struck by a car while walking along Highway 27, twenty three year old Midland man charged
• In 1953 the port of Midland unloaded 1,685,344 tons of grain, coal and gasoline, the most of any of the eight Georgian Bay ports. Port McNicoll handled the second largest, receiving 1,077,845 tons
• In the past eight years primary school enrollment in Simcoe County has risen 45%. (now we have a name for it, the Baby Boom)
• Ten Years Ago – The new club rooms for the Canadian Legion were opened at Dominion and Midland Avenue – ad in the September 26th Want Ads read, …wanted, wife, middle aged, for further particulars apply…

 Click on photos to enlarge:

 Trophy winners at the Midland Golf & Country Club annual awards night, last Wednesday. Les Marsell, winner of the Strathspey trophy, emblematic of the men’s championship; Maurice “Moe” Beteau, with the Hugh Wallace Memorial Trophy; Mrs. H.L. Wilson won the Haig Rose Bowl and George Ross the O’Hare Trophy for senior play. 

 Midland Police  have moved from their location of the last fifty years in the old town hall on King Street to a temporary location in the Pratt building on Bay Street. Constable Ray Atkinson takes a call at his new desk, only complaint, no heat yet. 

 Pair win Pinchin Trophy. Newest trophy at the Midland Golf & Country Club has been donated by Dr. A. H. Pinchin, center, and is presented to Mrs. Jim Thomas and Bill Hack winners of the mixed two ball. 

 Fifty six ton excavator got in too deep, construction workers on the Trans Canada Highway 5 miles north of Port Severn worked day and night for ten days to free the unit from the mud that almost completely buried it. 

 Art Bath, veteran Midland business man tries out this 1860’s steel wheeled, wooden seated bicycle. Eric Eisenburg has it on loan from one of his bicycle suppliers and featured it at the recent fall fair.

 Serious threat to fishing in the North Simcoe area, Sea Lamprey Eels have attacked both of these rainbow trout caught in the Sturgeon River. Reg Smith and Pete Pettersen point to marks left by eels.

The devastating impact of the sea lamprey on Great Lakes sport, commercial and Aboriginal fisheries in the 1940s and 50s led Canada and the United States to form the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in 1955. Since then the commission has led a program to assess and control the species using measures that target different stages of its life cycle. These include chemicals that selectively kill lamprey larvae, and barriers and traps that prevent adult lampreys from moving upstream to spawn.

Although it is likely impossible to eliminate the sea lamprey from the Great Lakes, ongoing efforts to control the species have reduced populations by 90 per cent. Unfortunately, the remaining sea lampreys continue to affect native fish species.   (taken from http://www.invadingspecies.com)

RCSCC Huron got a new commanding officer Tuesday night when Lieut. Jack Harber, at the right, resigned from the post he has held since 1953, he has been a member since 1943. Sub-Lieut Robert McLeod is taking over. 

Ross Creser of RR 2 Markham collects the outboard motor boat he won in the Midland Intermediate Hockey Club draw. Jack Martin club president on the left makes the presentation with Jack Valliear team manager on right.

Obituaries

Mrs. James Dalziel died September 8th in her 97th year. She was born Edith Maud (Amanda) Archer in Elmvale, November 6th, 1858 and received her education there. She lived in Elmvale and Hillsdale for 52 years and the last 45 years in Midland. Lakeview Cemetery.

Mrs. Napolean Andrew Somers, a Midland resident for 55 years died September 8th in her home on Fifth Street. The former Catherine Rose Dubray was born in Quebec in 1874 and married Napolean Somers in Penetang in 1898. Survived by four daughters, Bertha, Mrs. Charles McKeown, Midland; Molly, Mrs. Angus Willette, Midland; Mary, Mrs. Earl McConkey, Toronto; Dolly, Mrs. John O’Hara, Midland. Three sons, Ernest, George and Bob all of Midland. St. Margarets Cemetery

John Alva Connor, a lifelong resident of Sturgeon Bay died September 12th in his 58th Year. Mr. Connor was born December 7th, 1900 and married Cora Brooks in 1927. Besides his wife he is survived by his mother Mrs. Oakley Connor, daughter Ann, Mrs. William Potter, sons, Oakley & Dale at home and Albert of Toronto. Also a brother, Ben Connor of Sturgeon Bay and sisters Hattie, Mrs. Willaim MacDonald and Katie, Mrs. William Crawford, both of Midland. Waubaushene Cemetery

A life well lived. 
A lifelong resident of Midland, Frederick Hill, died September 14th in St. Andrew’s Hospital. Mr. Hill was born on July 8, 1881, in a house on the property now occupied by the Alliance Tabernacle. He received his education in a wooden four room school on the site now occupied by Glen Mawr Frocks Ltd. At thirteen he quit school to help his father, the late Joshua Hill, operate the old American Hotel, then located across the street from the IGA store on King Street. The Hills ran the hotel from 1893 until 1903. After the hotel was sold Fred worked on a gold mining claim in the Haileybury area with the Turnbull brothers of Victoria Harbour. Later he worked for two years in the men’s furnishings department of the Playfair Preston Store. The Hills, junior and senior, acquired a 33 1/3 square mile timber site in the townships of Freeman and Conger on the Moon River in 1908. The company was first known as Hill and Demorest and was later changed to the Freeman Lumber Co. Ltd. A sports enthusiast, Mr. Hill played junior hockey, lacrosse and other sports. He speedskated and won several bicycle races. In 1942-43 he skipped one of the two rinks which brought to Midland the only provincial championship, the Governor General’s Trophy. Del Hastings skipped the other.  On February 14, 1912 he married the former Lena M. Garbutt in Arthur Ont. He was a member of the United Church and served several terms on Midland Council, including terms as Reeve and Deputy-Reeve. He is survived by his wife and two sons, Bert and Stanley. One son, Lawrence, pre-deceased him in 1938. Internment, Lakeview Cemetery.