Barnett (Barney) Danson, the Canadian politician and Cabinet minister, died October 17, 2011 at the age of 90. Born to a Jewish family in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood, Danson joined the Queen’s Own Rifles in 1939, rose to Lieutenant Colonel and lost an eye in the Battle of Normandy. He returned to Canada and joined his…
Category: Obit
Obit: Roger Boisvert, internet pioneer in Japan
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From The Toronto Globe and Mail, 2001 If it is true that part of Roger Boisvert’s phenomenal success as an internet pioneer in Japan may be attributed to his being in the right place at the right time, that luck failed him miserably on September 30, 2001. After taking a wrong turnoff on a Los…
Obit: Eric Armour Beecroft (1903-2001)
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Eric Armour Beecroft, a Toronto-born political economist who worked for the U.S. Roosevelt administration during the Second World War and helped establish the World Bank, has died (2001) in Toronto of pneumonia. He was 98. Through a diverse and illustrious career that stretched from the 1920s through the 1970s, Prof. Beecroft held professorships at universities…
Obit: Dr. Nestor Yanga, Toronto SARS victim (1948-2003)
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As the first doctor in North America to die of SARS, Toronto physician Nestor Yanga may have gained more prominence in death than by anything he had accomplished in life. He was a dedicated general practitioner, church volunteer and family man who was passionate about everything he did, according to friends. A former president of…
Obit: Nancy Wade Stadler, Toronto librarian (1948-2002)
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When it came to literature and children, Nancy Wade Stadler was like an open book: she loved reading and she loved transmitting the joy of reading to young minds. Stadler worked as a children’s librarian and branch head throughout the Toronto Public Library system for 20 years. She had an extensive knowledge of literature and…
Obit: Ben Kayfetz
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Forty years ago, Ben Kayfetz, the longtime director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress, flew to Cuba to oversee distribution of a shipment of kosher food to Havana’s isolated Jewish community of 2,500. Benjamin Gershon Kayfetz, former community relations director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, born Toronto, December 24, 1916; died Toronto, February…
Obit: Anthony Adamson (1906-2002)
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Anthony Adamson, the architect who designed Upper Canada Village and oversaw the restoration of Hamilton’s Dundurn Castle, has died in Toronto (May 2002) at the age of 95. Descended from some of the most wealthy and historic families in Upper Canada, Adamson used to joke that he had been “relatively successful in the inheritance business.”…
Obit: Isabel LeBourdais (1909-2003)
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When Isabel LeBourdais first heard that an Ontario court had condemned a 14-year-old boy to death for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl, she was appalled that the criminal justice system showed no interest in giving a deeply maladjusted teenager the psychological therapy he so obviously required. But her opinion quickly changed once…
Obit: Toronto fire chief Walter Shanahan (1931-2002)
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Walter Shanahan, a firefighter who climbed the ladder to the top of the Toronto Fire Department, has died at the age of 71, largely as the result of lingering respiratory problems caused by injuries suffered in two catastrophic city fires. Shanahan joined the fire department in 1953 and served for many years as a firefighter,…
Obit: herniologist Nicholas Obney (1918-2003)
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Dr. Nicholas Obney, who performed more than 32,000 hernia operations during his long career at the renowned Shouldice Hospital in Toronto and Thornhill, Ont., once told a television interviewer that he had never encountered two hernias the same. Dr. Obney joined the Shouldice Hospital in 1946 and was its chief surgeon between 1965 and his…
