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Strub family brought pickle recipe from Russia

Condensed from The Canadian Jewish News, August 4, 1983 When the cucumber harvest is in, the Strub brother’s facility in Dundas, Ontario goes into their busiest season. The cucumbers are brought to the plant, unloaded, washed, sorted, packed into big barrels and vats filled with special pickling ingredients and then put into cold storage. Some…

Toronto Police of 1912 was “cosmopolitan” (Tely 1912)

From The Toronto Evening Telegram, May 6 1912 Note: This article describes the surprisingly high cosmopolitan character of the Toronto Police Force of 1912. For the previous decade the city had been filling up with tens of thousands of European and other immigrants, so it only seems appropriate that some would find their way onto…

Profile: “Button King” Sam Sterling (1983)

Condensed from The Canadian Jewish News, July 28, 1983 Sam Sterling was named Man of the Year of the Fashion Industry by the Fashion Division of State of Israel Bonds despite the fact that Sterling has never visited Israel, Frank Rasky wrote. Sterling — the courtly 66-year-old “Button King” of Toronto’s garment trade — was…

Canadian Parliament hears of Polish atrocities (1919)

S.W. Jacobs, K.C., M.P., Draws the Attention of the Members of Parliament to the Fact That Jews Have Been Murdered in Poland Even After the Treaty With Poland Had Been Signed From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, September 19, 1919 Ottawa, Sept. 12 — Two resolutions calling for approval of compacts entered into by certain of…

Portrait of Walter Winchell (1936)

Archivist of Gothomania By Hye Bossin From the Canadian Jewish Standard, September 1936 New York’s prize piece of human curiosa is Walter Winchell. He climbed over Shaw, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, etc., to top the New York Post’s poll. Suckers stare at him in night clubs instead of the floor show. You are likely to hear…

Bungalow craze has Toronto builders gripped (1922)

From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 Toronto is becoming a bungalow city. Entire streets of new houses built this summer consist of nothing but one storey, four, five and six roomed bungalows. To sell a new house, real estate men say, you must describe it as a bungalow, even if it is a…

Story of Toronto’s First Telephones (1922)

They Were Used for Amusement by Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, Who Secured Instruments from Dr. Bell, Inventor Wires Ran on Poles of Fire Alarm System Dr. Rosebrugh Tested a Line to Hamilton and Started the First Telephone Company in Ontario From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 By Knight N. Day Toronto has had…

Wife versus Secretary (1922)

From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 2, 1922 Stenographer holds up the mirror to wives If Wives Could Get a Little Office Training Husbands Would Be Better Understood By Mayme Ober Peak In life’s triangles the stenographer seems to play a leading role. The movies and the colourful pens of the fictionist are wont to…

A Toronto map from 1914 (in six easy pieces)

I often get requests from researchers who have seen their family in the 1901, 1911 or 1921 census of Toronto but can’t find the street they were living on a modern map because the street has disappeared or the name was changed. Where was Buchanan Street? Where was Cuttell Place? Where was Alice Street? Etcetera.…

Holocaust survivor sees photo of family for first time

From the Canadian Jewish News, October 2013 Some 70 years after he last saw his father, mother, brothers and sisters alive, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and Bergen Belsen concentration camp was recently given a photograph of his family for the first time. “When I received this photo, I said, ‘This is better than…