• Shoe Corporation of America buys substantial interest in Fern Shoe Co., Midland Footwear Manufacturing Limited and Midland Industries Limited, announces Sydney Caplan, president of the three companies. Caplan purchased the old Adams Shoe Company plant in 1939 and moved his Fern Shoe Company to Penetang. After the war he moved the rest of his Toronto operation to a new plant on Elizabeth St. in Midland and now employs 350 people in the three operations
• Simcoe County Council authorizes construction of a new 50 bed “old people’s home” in Penetang. After nearly three years of push and pull Penetang will get a new facility and the province will fund half of the cost and the old hospital will not be used
• Department of Highways announces that Hwy 93 between Craighurst and Waverly will be paved
• Tiffin elevator gets upgrades; slip is being dredged to a depth of 25 feet for 120 feet north and south and 200 feet out into the bay, a new transformer has been installed to accept the 44,000 Volt power now available, concrete flaws on the exterior of the grain silos have been repaired and new dust collectors installed
• Effective August 31st the Church of England in Canada will be renamed the Anglican Church of Canada, the climax of 55 years of debate
• Twelve Lafontaine residents who have chosen teaching as a career are leaving for their respective schools; Miss Mona Maurice, Ottawa; Miss Julia Brunelle, Windsor; Yolande Marchildon, Penetang; Armand Robitaille, Field; Olive Robitaille, Port Colborne; Howard McNamara, Capreol; Denis McNamara, Penetang; Patrick McNamara, Thunder Beach; Justin Maurice, Northwest Basin; Guy Laurin, Elk Lake; Henri & Cleo Desroches, Sarnia.
• Thirty Four year old Paul Gignac of Perkinsfield died Friday morning under four feet of sand while digging a well at Balm Beach. Survived by his pregnant wife and four children, funeral services were held Monday morning, the date of his 35th birthday. His father Celeste Gignac who died 27 years ago was also buried on his 35th birthday and left a pregnant wife and four children.
• St. Andrew’s Hospital appoints a committee to assist hospital office manager Alex Craig in controlling account receivables which have grown to $80,000.00. Government subsidies are too low to cover current charges, patients are often unable to pay the difference. Some accounts are going in for collection
• Owing to the dry weather this summer many wells in Tiny have gone dry, on the Midland Road six families have been drawing one or two loads of water per day from the Penetang waterworks
• 1,058 enrolled in Penetang primary schools, the Protestant Separate School has 208, 12 classes in the girls section of the Public School have 268 attending bilingual classes and 137 English classes. The boys section occupying four rooms of the old high school as well as their regular classes total 445

Click on Photos to Enlarge

1955 may be known as the year of the peach in North Simcoe, good crops are reported. Nancy Lea 6, and her sister Mary Lea 8, daughters of Orr Lake forester Joe Lea admire some of the 75 peaches on their garden tree.

Like their fathers and mothers before them these eight young golfers learn that no matter how long you stare at your score card the figures just don’t change. Participating in the first ever junior championship at the Midland Golf & Country Club these boys did well. Seated, Bill Moss, Stephen Bell and Sandy Campbell; standing, Peter Jackson, Bill Swann, David Bertrand, Paul Jackson and Winston Schell. Bertram emerged the winner with a 92 gross score. Bill Swann 96, Sandy Campbell 99, Peter Jackson 106. Hidden hole prizes were won by Campbell, Bell and Moss.

Man sized Muskie, 46 inches, caught by Gordon Parker near Snake Island while trolling with a pikey minnow. The fish, held by Fred Howard, weighed 25 pounds.

Mary Lou Edwards of Midland caught this 41 inch 18.5 pound muskellunge off Present Island with a Canadian wiggler. Fishing with her brother Bill Edwards, pictured here, they had to beach the fish to secure their catch. Bill caught a nine pound yellow pickerel on the same trip.

New 50 ton weigh scale being installed at the Century Coal Dock on William Street in Midland. The addition was required for the large trucks now moving coal to Base Borden and the Ontario Hospital in Orillia.

First day of school at Regent Public School. Five hundred and forty five children are enrolled this year, many pictured here are in the primary grades.

Hugh Blair Construction is adding a second story to the Ernst Leitz Canada building on Ellen Street. New space will be used for offices and a research division, recently announced further addition to be built will be used for storage and shipping receiving.

 Ads of interest in this week’s paper;

• Dorothy Swallow advertising Piano Theory – Fall Term Commencing September 6th
• Gibson Company Main Street Penetang, change of ownership, now Economy Stores, same location
• Ontario playoffs baseball, Midland Indians vs Georgetown Raiders, Midland Town Park, Sept 3rd, 3 P.M. Midland won at Georgetown 4-3 Watch them do it again
• Under new management, LeCamp’s Clothing Store, Port McNicoll, formerly Patterson’s Store
• Sunday Milk Delivery to be Discontinued Immediately – Penetang Dairy
• Audrey’s Beauty Salon – Port McNicoll, Cold Wave (Lanolin) $4.75, Shampoo and finger wave $1.00, Haircutting and shaping .50cents
• 39 plate, 12 volt, 80 – 96 ampere car battery at Canadian Tire, $7.95 with your old battery

 Marriages;

• Patricia Rosalie Hodges, Reg. nurse, and Edward Wallace Hook, Knox Presbyterian, August 20th
• Fleurette V. Dupuis and Robert John Lynch, St. Ann’s Church, August 20th

Friday, September 11, at 7 pm

Best Western Highland

924 King Street Midland Ontario

Tickets at $30 and are available at the museum or online  through ShopMidland.com.

Whiskey Jack is one of the foremost vocal harmony, acoustic country stalwarts in Canadian music, with an impressive recording and broadcasting career. Hailed as “the Manhattan Transfer of country music”, they are clearly having fun as they perform with a relaxed enthusiasm that comes only from experience. If you like good times, good music, and a few laughs, you owe it to yourself to come out and hear Whiskey Jack.

Toronto based band, Whiskey Jack has become one of the most celebrated Roots / Country / Bluegrass band in Canadian music history.  Touring and recording for 35 years they were best known for their years as regulars on the CBC’s Tommy Hunter Show. In addition to Tom’s Peterborough Postman, expect to hear Bud the Spud, Tillsonburg, Sudbury Saturday Night, Big Joe Mufferaw, The Ketchup Song and of course, be prepared to sing  along on The Hockey Song.

Featuring Special Guest Douglas John Cameron

Douglas John Cameron, grew up in Midland Ontario, where he studied piano and took up the guitar. At the age of nine he began to compose songs. Douglas later added  drums, bass guitar, mandolin, and banjo to his catalogue of instruments, and influenced by his father and a healthy diet of Hank Williams and Buck Owens, developed a lifelong love for Country music.

Douglas John Cameron’s songwriting and performing career spans almost four decades and is rooted deeply in the folk/blues/country tradition. In 1985 his tune “Mona With The Children” hit the top 20 in Canada and garnered a Juno nomination. Recently he has applied his songwriting and composing talents to the world of television and movies.

• First full fledged strike, complete with pickets, ever to hit Penetang, started Friday noon when beverage room waiters and tap men formed a picket line outside the Brule Hotel
• 30 Girl Guides from Penetang and Midland spent August 14th at Doe Lake, Huntsville, and met Lady Baden-Powell
• C. Wansbrough, vice-president and managing director of the Canadian Metal Mining Association assures the Huronia Historic Sites and Tourist Association that he will restore to its former condition the Stephen Leacock estate, which he has just purchased for $50,000.00
• Veteran ship engineer George W. Crossan describes the death of the Midland Queen, the first Great Lakes freighter to be sunk by a German submarine in WW1. Built in Scotland at the turn of the century for James Playfair’s Midland Navigation Company, the 245 foot canaller was sunk by submarine U68, 70 miles off Fastnet, Ireland. The German commander allowed everyone into lifeboats before shelling the Queen
• Pete Pettersen tells a town hall meeting that Midland will host the Dominion ski jumping championship next year if $15,000.00 can be raised to complete the jump
• Moving anyone? Mrs. Xavier Contois has a home which stood in Tay Twp. west of Eighth Street, just outside of Midland, it was moved over the boundary into Midland (no reason given), whose officials refused to have it there and it was then transported to Chatham Street in Penetang. When residents there complained the owner was ordered to remove it from Penetang and police escorted it to the town limits. It now sits on a lot in Tiny Twp. east of Howe’s Corner and is causing fiery debate at Tiny Council
• Gordon Shakell of Horrell Avenue reports a good crop of peaches from his two trees, cites the very hot summer as the reason for his success
• Free Press reporter Ken Somers interviewed Captain Ed Burke and they reviewed his salvage records from the busy years in the teens and twenties before radar, depth sounders and direction finders. It is a long list of dozens of grounded vessels, some close to home such as the Glenbogie at the Simcoe Elevator and the Manodock at the Tiffin
• 1,600 wrestling fans pack the Midland Arena Gardens
• Patriarch of Owen Sound’s Jewish community and father of Samuel Gadesky, Midland, Isaac Gadesky, 94, died in that city Monday. Survived by ten sons and one daughter
• Restock Severn River and Tea Lake with over 300 Bass parent fish in an effort to increase stocks. Believed that the mature fish harvested from an over populated lake will produce better results than fry and fingerlings
• 25 years ago this week –  One of Midland’s oldest landmarks, the original smithy owned by William Ney, was torn down. Only one anvil was still in operation by Mr. Ney in the brick building at the rear of the shop located near the corner of King and Bay   –   348 students enrolled in the Midland High School  –  Jory’s selling Ontario Public School readers for the 1930 school term, primary 4 cents, first reader 6, second reader 9, third reader 14 and fourth reader 16
• High School will start with staggered classes in 1955 until the new school is ready; grades 10, 11, 12 will start at 9 AM and grades 9 and 13 will start at 1 PM
• Some staggering of classes will be necessary for public school students as well due to the loss of Central School and until the old high school becomes available (Parkview); pupils west of King Street will attend Sixth Street School and those on the east side, Regent School
• Johnstone’s advertising “Back to School Headquarters” school bags, pencil boxes, binders, scribblers, etc. (they also sold fishing equipment, we know them as Johnstone’s Music Land)
• Fire on the farm of Gordon Strath, concession 13, Flos, caused $20,000.00 damage, destroyed the barn, implements, hay, grain and one calf. A horse which went wild and ran onto the road, collided with a car driven by William Curry of Waverly, injuring his two sons, Randall 16 and Lloyd 15. The horse was killed in the collision
• Gray Coach Lines is offering round trip adult fare including admission to the CNE for $5.50. Leave Penetang, Stewart’s Service Station, 7:30 AM, leave Midland, Georgian Hotel, 7:45 AM and depart Toronto at 11:15 PM
• Brickwork started on the new public school in Coldwater on Gray Street, expected completion date, December 31st, 1955
• Two Balm Beach summer residents are reported to have drifted across Nottawasaga Bay Wednesday night when the engine of their motorboat quit, they landed near Meaford
• Walter Van Luven born May 31, 1882 in Glen Major Ont. dies in St. Andrew’s Hospital August 17th. The Van Luven’s moved to Midland in 1908 where Walter worked for Chew Brother’s Mill, Tay Township and the CPR. Fifteen years ago they moved to Sunnyside. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Allison, his mother Mrs. Sarah Booth, brother Willis, sons Clifford and Kenneth and three daughters, Bernice, Beatrice and Gladys
• Tobbacco pickers wanted at once, $12.00 per kiln and board, apply Octave Dorion, RR Utopia
• Mr. & Mrs. Ken Taylor wish to announce the engagement of their only daughter, Mary Diane, to Kenneth William Hooper, son of Mr. & Mrs. William Hooper. Wedding will take place September 3rd at the home of the bride’s grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. John Quinlan, 325 Yonge Street
• New hours for Penetang drug stores; Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri, 9 AM to 8 PM; Wed, Sun & holidays, 9 AM to 12:30 PM  and  6:30PM to 8:00 PM Saturday 9 AM to 9 PM Hartt’s and Morrison’s

With temperatures in the nineties hockey is far from most people’s minds except Jack Martin president of Midland’s Intermediate Hockey Club as he signs Ted Brady to the team. Defenseman Brady played for the Guelph Biltmores and the Scottish Hockey League. Looking on is Jack Valliear, upper left, team manager and Wm. MacArthur witness. The location is the lobby of the Georgian Hotel.

This old bus once transported patrons for PMCL, it has now been bought by George Stanley, eldest son of Ben Stanley, to be used as a residence for his family at Camp Petawawa. George, 25, of Concession 3 Tay, painted and renovated the bus when he found housing both scarce and expensive at the military base. George’s wife Patricia (nee Bell from Halifax) and son Robert are seen inside their portable home.

The Hyatt home was the scene of a triple shooting early Saturday morning. Awaiting trial on three counts of  assault causing bodily harm and one of attempted murder is their boarder, Albert Casey. Chief William Nicholas examines the bedroom where a pool of blood covers the floor. Archie Hyatt, his wife and son were all wounded by Albert Casey after a dispute over money. Archie Hyatt is the new manager of the plastics division of Midland Industries. (If you live in Midland you may recognize this home but may not be able to place it?)

 Four of the prize winners in Friday night’s carnival fundraiser on King Street sponsored by the Intermediate Hockey Club are pictured here, Joyce Walker, Benje Karsh, Bjorn Pettersen and Joan Charlesbois. Threatening rain kept attendance down.