Len Fairchuk, The Western Hour and the Rex Theatre

  Go here for an expanded and updated version of this post !!!

The Western Hour, The Rex’s last owner

I’ve been thinking a lot about Len Fairchuk recently. Yes, THAT Len Fairchuk - of The Western Hour fame !

Recently I was invited into the Rex Theatre before its demolition to help salvage some chairs that will be used in the expanded West End Cultural Centre. While there, I found some remnants of Len's The Western Hour which was the theatre's last owner, (he rechristened the place The Opry Grand.)

I remember watching the Western Hour growing up. It was hard to miss in the 13 channel universe. It was a very low budget, oddly edited, no frills, talent show of sorts featuring pro and amateur singers, jiggers and fiddlers from around Manitoba.

I saw Fairchuk a couple of times away from the show walking about town with his art portfolio under his arm, but didn't really know anything about the man.As Len was the last person to give a damn about the Rex, I thought I would take a look back at his life.

Len Fairchuk (1932 - 2004)

Fairchuk was born in 1932 in St. Boniface and raised in Horad, Manitoba, north of Elphinestone. Len’s day job was a mechanic, but the arts would become his career. He was a fiddler, carver and painter, his talent for the latter landed him a job as a sign painter, then a set designer at a Los Angles movie studio. 

Upon his return to Manitoba, Fairchuk wanted to continue in the entertainment industry. He used the format of a popular 1940’s to 60s Manitoba radio show called “The CJOB Western Hour” and revived it for a television audience focusing on Aboriginal and Metis artists.

If the embedded version doesn't work go here

The Western Hour began its impressive 12-year run on VPW (Winnipeg's Cable Access Channel) in 1979 based out of the Rex, which was then called he Epic Theatre.

Soon, the show went on the road and long before live satellite feeds and "palm of your hand" camcorders, Fairchuk and wife, Sandra, would rent a single television camera for the weekend and travel to towns and reserves throughout Manitoba to showcase Aboriginal talent, including jiggers, fiddlers and country music bands. He gave more ordinary people their 15 minutes of fame than any Manitoba television production ever has, or likely ever will.

After VPW, the show continued on CKND and MTN. It still lives on today, back in radio format, on NCI-FM.

Fairchuk's involvement with the Rex theatre seems to have had two distinct periods. From about 1979 to 1981 the Rex was home base for The Western Hour, but he did not own it.

In 1987, The Western Hour Ltd., a non-profit group, purchased the theatre, which by this time had become a XXX cinema, from the owner. It was rechristened the Opry Grand with the hopes of becoming a counry music hub for the city.

I recall media stories about Fairchuk fundraising by selling his art to keep the place going. 

In 1991 the theatre closed for the final time.

Fairchuk died of a heart attack on April 4, 2004 at the age of 71. The following year he was among the inaugural inductees into the Aboriginal Music Hall of Fame for his support of aboriginal artists throughout the province.

Seeing the stage and the old posters I wonder what would have happened if more people had rallied behind Fairchuk and supported his dream to create an Aboriginal country music venue and preserve a magnificent theatre ?

Sadly we will never know.

Sorry, Len.

Related:
- Go here for an expanded and updated version of this post !!!
- For more photos of the Rex before demolition.

Obituaries:

April 7, 2004, Winnipeg Free Press

April 8, 2004, Winnipeg Free Press

Upper Fort Garry Notes

Originally written April 13, 2008

I did some newspaper and Henderson Directory research on the gate. Here's what I found:

Late 1880s: The walls and gates were torn down to allow for the straightening of that section of Main street. One gate was saved, not a main gate but a private gate that allowed access to the house and gardens.

Image from Manitoba Historical Maps on Flickr

1897: “Gateway Park” around the remaining gate has been there in some form since the walls were removed. In 1897 “Gateway Park” was presented to the city by the HBC.

Image: Postcard of Gate with Manitoba Club in the background

1904: With a newly straightened and widened Main Street, the Winnipeg Electric Railway built their main car sheds at Assiniboine and Main. Aside from sheds, they would also build their rolling stock at this location (1904 – 1914) and generate electricity for the rail system.

from Winnipeg Colour Streetcar Photos

The layout for the west side of Main from the River to Broadway is as follows:

1905:
- Winnipeg Electric Railway Car Sheds
- 140 Hudson Bay Chambers
- 144 Wm Becher, Accountant
- 148 Alexander Burgess, Secretary

1911:
- Winnipeg Electric Railway Car Sheds- Fort Garry (Gateway) Park
- 140 – 148 Vacant

1916:
- Winnipeg Electric Railway Car Sheds
- Athletic Grounds (included a soccer pitch and some track and field)
- Fort Garry Park

1920:
- Winnipeg Electric Railway Car Sheds
- Athletic Grounds
- Fort Garry Park

1925:
- Winnipeg Electric Railway Car Sheds
- Fort Garry Stadium
- Athletic Grounds- Fort Garry Park
- 142 Fort Garry Gate Service Centre- The stadium was a small open air stadium with soccer and rugby in summer and ice skating in winter.

- The service station appears on the site (140 Main Street) was the Fort Garry Gate Service Station (Phone 23-777 !) in 1925. It was owned by Thomas E Montgomery of 5-559 Ellice and George Alvare of 703 Anderson.

1930’s: The city parks committee received more land around the site in the 30’s. The parks board, after years of creating large scale parks, now wanted to focus on small, corner lots and neighbourhood parks. The manager of the Bank of Montreal told the parks board that on a recent visit to England that he brought the matter of additional HBC land around the gate be given to the city with the HBC Governor.

1936: There was sentiment, even back then, for the gate. An op-ed in the May 21, 1936 FreeP by Archbishop Matheson said: “in view of…the important part which the fort played in the early history of what is now Manitoba does in not seem regrettable that in 1880 the old fort was demolished and nothing left except on of its gates ? …. Will the time come when we shall allow the old Fort Garry Gate to disappear ?”

1948: Grain Exchange Club/Rink is constructed at 75 Fort Street

1949: “City May Reconstruct Old Fort Garry Gate” story appears in the Freep. The gate was in disrepair and they was a study underway to find out the costs to reconstruct it.

1953: The Fort Garry Chamber of Commerce felt that the gate should be theirs, as it was not located in “Fort Garry”, and made a play for the gate. They offered the city $500 to purchase it and move it to the Chamber’s centre on Pembina Highway “to return it to its rightful home”. (FreeP April 13 1953).

1960: Metro Council agrees to purchase the Imperial Oil Building at 100 Main Street for $500k. At the time the council, was already leasing space for it's executive offices and planning department at this location. With the transit garage right next door it was thought that this would make a good location for a future city hall.

1963: Plans appear for the reconstruction of LOWER Fort Garry wich could become “Western Canada’s greatest tourist attraction” (FreeP June 22 1963). Perhaps spurred on by the talk of revitalizing Lower Fort Garry the city does a large cleanup around the gate. Trees that hid the site were removed and new landscaping and flower gardens were installed.

1972: The idea of expanding the park was touted as a good project for the 1974 Centennial Year Celebrations. On December 22 it was reported that an agreement was reached on a plan to expand the park site and rebuild a replica of one of the old fort buildings. It noted that “the expansion of the park, located behind the Manitoba Club, …was part of Metro’s original downtown development plan”.

The plan was to take over the gas station and Manitoba Club sites and possibly have the area declared a National Historic Site. In the end the Centennial library, instead, became the Centennial project for the city.

1975: The gas station, (a Gulf since 1973) applied to demolish the old fashioned service station and replace it with a self serve. Once again this got wheels turning at city hall - an article in the September 10, 1975 FreeP said that the city was looking to purchase the service station lot “for completion of the Fort Garry Gate Park area”. DI McDonald, Chief Commissioner, said the land was “one of the really significant historical sites in the city”

2008: After decades of relative inaction, the city put a tender out for the 100 Main stie and adjacenet parking lot. In the end, a group called Friends of Upper Fort Garry intervened to stop any development deal to allow time to fundraise and purchase the land to create a larger park and interpretive centre.

Do We Dare Squander ...

When in Chicago I visited the Chicago Architecture Foundation. If you love cities and architecture that is a great place to spend time. They have a Cityspace Gallery with their Chicago: You Are Here display that “provides a tour of the spaces, places, and structures that define Chicago. It highlights the people who built the city, from the Sears Tower to the Illinois and Michigan Canal.”

The Foundation also currently has a display entitled Do We Dare Squander Chicago’s Great architectural Heritage . The title is taken from a sign that photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel first carried in a 1961 protest to save the Garrick Theater in Chicago.

Nickel became the focal point of the preservationist movement in Chicago in the 60’s and 70’s when many of the city’s old theatres and office towers were being torn down> Ironically, he was killed by a staircase that fell from the semi demolished Chicago Stock Exchange building while photographing and collecting artifacts.

The Do We Dare Squander display was not just visual. A series of public lectures, tours, videos etc. are part of it as well. Here’ an overview from the Chicago Tribune.

I felt inspired to be in a place that celebrated and embraced its built environment like that.

Sadly in Winnipeg, which has a large collection of Chicago school buildings left, we will still gladly tear one down when a parking lot is called for.

The Commercial Bank of Manitoba (1885 - 1893)

Image: Sir Hugh Allan. Source: Library and Archives Canada. 
From wikipedia ‘Hugh Allen’

One of the earliest banks in Manitoba was the Commercial Bank of Manitoba, 1885 - 1893.

In 1872 Donald Smith, (Lord Strathcona) sponsored a bill to incorporate the Bank, along with some other financial institutions. The first president was Sir Hugh Allan, a shipbuilder, financier and banker. (Allan had another claim to fame - his company was awarded the first contract to build the CPR but the 1873 Pacific Scandal that brought down MacDonald saw his Allan's contract declared null and void).

The Commercial Bank of Manitoba along with three others: The Sovereign; Banque du Peuple de Montreal and The Ontario Bank, failed in an 1893 market crash. 

Some blamed the crash on an over-regulated banking system at the time but it “…had been an example less of the inadequacy of the Canadian system of regulation than of the punishment which irregular banking brings in its train.” ( Source: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Aug., 1900), pp. 543-551). 

In the end, the CBM was able to pay back its depositors.

Examples of Bank of Manitoba money:

 

Bank note sources: here and here. To examine the $5 in great detail go here.

Public Transit Strikes in Winnipeg

Originally written June 8 2008

Word is that Winnipeg Transit may be ready to strike. Talks have been stalled (no pun intended) for some time now. Compared to some jurisdictions, Winnipeg has not had a lot in the way of transit strikes. There have been only three:

Metro Transit: 26 January 1976 to 12 March 1976
47 days

Winnipeg Electric Railway Company
May/June 1919

Winnipeg Street Railway Company
March 1906

Kenneth Leishman - The Flying Bandit (UPDATED)

© 2008, 2011, Christian Cassidy

Leishman in 1966, U of M archives, Tribune Collection

William Kenneth Leishman, also known as the 'Flying Bandit' or 'Gentleman Bandit', has been referred to as “one of the most beloved of Canadian criminals.”

During the 1950s and early 1960s he committed numerous crimes, including bank robberies, plane thefts, prison breaks and his piéce de resistance: the March 1, 1966 heist of nearly $400,000 worth of gold bouillon from the Winnipeg International Airport. The latter is the largest gold theft in Canadian history.

Instead of being labelled a public enemy, the North Kildonan kitchenware salesman and father of seven charmed Canadians and gained a sort of folk hero status!

Holland, MB ca. 1910 (Source: Peel's)

Kenneth Leishman was born on a farm in Holland, Manitoba on July 20, 1931 to Norman Allan Leishman of Treherne and Irene Beatrice Agarand of Holland, Manitoba. The couple married in Winnipeg on September 25, 1928 and had three children, Elizabeth, Kenneth and Robert. 

Norman was good with his hands and worked fixing farm machinery.

Holland was a pretty typical Manitoba farming community. At the time, it would have had at least three or four grain elevators that were serviced by the two railway tracks that passed through town. It also had a bustling Main Street thanks to the 400 or so area residents.

This, of course, changed as the Depression wore on. The effects of drought and bottomed-out commodity prices would have rippled from farmers to farm workers to townspeople.

Irene Agarand, ca. 1980s

In 1938, Norman and Irene separated and divorced in 1943. This left Mrs. Leishman was in a terrible predicament as a single mother of three in rural Manitoba at the tail end of the Depression. Fortunately for her, she managed to find a live-in domestic job with an area widower.

The man and Ken, then seven-years-old, did not get along. According to Irene, it led to the physical abuse of the boy. She was then given an ultimatum: give up your job, which was also your home, or give up Ken. She made what must have been a wrenching decision to send Ken into foster care.

Ken bounced from foster home to foster home and eventually landed in a residential orphanage after Children's Aid seized him from an abusive household.

In 1943, after the divorce was granted, Irene married William "Bill" Brooking of Treherne, Manitoba. He, too, had issues with Ken who at age 14 was sent to live and work on his grandparent's farm.

The farm brought a stability to Ken's life, though he was prone to accidents. One incident invovled being kicked in the head by a horse, something Irene claimed in the 1960s may have accounted for some of Ken's bad behavior, (Winnipeg Free Press Nov 2, 1966).

At age 16, Ken tried to reconcile with his father and came to live with him in Winnipeg.

Norman had enlisted in the army during World War II and was assigned to the A15 Infantry Training Centre at Shilo, Manitoba where he reached the rank of lance-corporal. There, he met Norah Michels who had enlisted with the Canadian Women's Army Corps and was also assigned to Shilo. The two married in 1944.

After the war, the couple settled in Winnipeg where Norman worked for Western Elevator and Motor Company and Norah for Eaton's. They initially lived in a small apartment on Garry Street before moving to a house on Lipton Street in the West End.

Ken stayed with the couple on Lipton Street. In the summer (likely of 1947) he went to cottage country to work at a resort in Kenora. He ended up braking his ankle not to long into the job and had to return to Winnipeg.

At age 17, Ken returned to one of the towns he stayed at while a child to attend a funeral, likely Holland or Treherne. There, he met Elva Shields. She would later say that it was "love at fist sight". The two stayed in touch and were married the following year and relocated to Winnipeg. 

Elva got a sign of things to come when Ken spent a few months of their newlywed year in jail.

Ken worked part-time with his father at the elevator repair company which gave him access to a variety of buildings. He would case the interior for products he wanted then came back after hours, broke in and, posing as an employee of that company, called a transport company to come get the goods and deliver them to the couple's suite on Gertrude Street.

In February 1950, his thefts included: a radio from a downtown building; a fridge and range from the Westinghouse building; a chesterfield suite, dinette suite and chairs from a Genser's warehouse on Market Street; a bed and kitchen suite from the Genser's warehouse on Ross Avenue. The total value of the goods was just under $1,000.

The arrest came in early March while at Genser's Ross Avenue facility again. The transport company dispatcher was suspicious of the late night call and tipped off police.

Ken pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months in jail, he apparently got out in three due to good behavior.

Nov 2, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

After jail, Ken pursued another interest of his: flying.

It is unclear where this love came from. He could have been exposed to small airplanes in his youth through crop-dusters servicing Manitoba farmland. Perhaps it was during World War II when south west Manitoba was dotted with hangars, airfields and control towers for the Commonwealth Air Training Plan (CATP).

Ken took flying lessons and began a series of machinery repair and sales jobs where he could use his plane to fly in to rural communities to work. (In October 1953, he received a two-year suspended sentence for flying without a pilot's license - it is unclear whether he obtained one after that or if he just kept flying.)

Street directories show that through the 1950s he had a new job and a new address each year until 1956. That's when the family, which now consisted of five children, bought a house on Lindsay Street in River Heights.

In March 1957, Ken was a member of the newly founded Manitoba Volunteer Air Patrol, a civil defense organization and was in charge of organizing a national meeting in Winnipeg on the topic of having a nation-wide VAP. This invovled meeting high-level officials in Ottawa.

Outward appearances were that Ken was doing well with a house in a tony suburb, a plane, a Cadillac and his expensive wardrobe. The truth was that he was living beyond his means and in 1957 started supplementing his income by robbing banks.

Second Toronto Bank robbed by Leishman (Ottawa Citizen)

Ken decided that he would go to Toronto to commit the robberies. He later told police that while Manitobans had money, it was usually tied up in land, equipment and other investments. Toronto, he felt, was where  cash flowed more freely.

In December 1957, Leishman boarded a commercial flight to Toronto, rented a nice car and checked into a luxury downtown hotel. The following day, after some clothes shopping, he committed what the Canadian Press reported was “one of the most daring robberies on record.”

Posing as "Mr. Gair", a Buffalo businessman, he entered the Toronto-Dominion Bank at Yonge and Albert and asked to meet with the manager. Inside the office, Ken produced a gun, forced the manager to write a cashiers cheque for $10,000 and stayed with him while he cashed it at one of the tellers.

Ken then had the manager escort him to his car and wished the manager and his family a very Merry Christmas before speeding off. he returned the car and took his return flight to Winnipeg. Hi family thought he had been on one of his fly-in sales jobs.

Witnesses described Ken as well-dressed, polite and dignified, which led to the "Gentleman bandit" nickname.

Leishman returned to the airport and flew back to Winnipeg that night to a family who thought he was off on a repair trip to rural Manitoba.

In March 1958, Ken was back in Toronto to rob the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at the busy intersection of Bloor and Yonge Streets. This time, when the gun was produced the manager became angry at Ken and a scuffle ensued. A staff member noticed and sounded the alarm.

While fleeing, Leishman tripped over someone on the sidewalk outside. Another pedestrian, a minister, kicked the gun out of his hand. He was held by bank staff until the police arrived.

March 18, 1958, Winnipeg Free Press

Ken's arrest and the exploits of "The Flying Bandit" were front page news. The fact that the wannabe criminal mastermind wasn't some lowlife, but a well dressed repairman from River Heights gave the story extra life.

As for Elva, who was expecting the couple's sixth child at the time, she claimed she knew nothing of the robberies and only learned about his arrest when two of her children came home from school in tears after having been teased about it by fellow students. She said, "I never pry into his affairs. He is a perfect husband and father and just a wonderful guy." 

Ken plead guilty to the two robberies and he was given a 12-year sentence to be served at Stony Mountain Penitentiary. He was paroled after just 3.5 years, described by Stony’s warden as a ‘model prisoner’.

Elva for a time operated Elva's gift shop at 2635 Portage Avenue in St. James to put food on the table while Ken served his sentence.

After jail, Ken went back to fly-in sales with a company called World Wide Distributors selling kitchenware and silverware. After a couple of years with the company he was a supervisor and they purchased a new family home on Mark Pearce Avenue in North Kildonan.

Despite appearing to settle down, Ken was actually plotting his biggest caper yet.

March 12, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

The next time Winnipeggers read about Ken Leishman on the front page of the paper was in March 1966 when he was arrested for a parole violation at Vancouver's airport. He was returned to the city under RCMP escort on March 11 in what the Winnipeg Free Press called "one of the hushiest hush-hush police operations on record in Winnipeg."

Proceedings got underway to have Leishman returned to Stony Mountain to fulfill the remainder of his 12-year bank robbery sentence while Winnipeg police were working hard to get him for something bigger: the Winnipeg International Airport gold heist of March 1, 1966.

March 2, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

TransAir was an airline that connected northwest Ontario and Winnipeg. Ken knew that it regularly flew gold bullion from Red Lake, Ontario to the Winnipeg International Airport where it was transferred to an Air Canada flight bound for the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa.

Ken's plan was daring and simple: to intercept the gold at the airport and drive off into the sunset.

For this scheme, Ken would need accomplices. They included three bar buddies and a Winnipeg lawyer named Harry Backlin. While studying law, Backlin visited prisoners at Stony Mountain. The two hit it off and even even went into business together after Ken was released. They operated a small cleaning supplies wholesale business on the side.

Ken assembled other items needed for the plan: blank waybills from an Air Canada Cargo counter and two pairs of white coveralls on which crude Air Canada logos were stenciled.

An accomplice in Red Lake tipped Ken off that the TransAir flight arriving on the night of March 1, 1966 would contain a gold shipment and the plan was put into motion.

When the flight arrived, two of the bar buddies stole an Air Canada Cargo van from an airport parking lot and drive onto the tarmac. They met the plane, showed the TransAir ground crew a fake waybill and the gold was loaded into to their van.

The two drove away with nearly $400,000 in gold bullion, (worth about $13 million today), in 12 wooden boxes. It was Canada's largest-ever gold heist.

March 2, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

After the heist, the two accomplices drove about a kilometre away where they had stashed a getaway car. The cargo, which weighed about 600 pounds, was transferred and they drove to the small office / warehouse that Ken and Backlin ran their cleaning supply business out of. From there, it was up to Ken to drive it to the farm of a relative of Backlin's a couple of hours away from the city.

There were a couple of factors that played on Ken's mind.

One was the fact that the two airlines would have figured out by now that something had gone awry on the tarmac. There was a strong possibility that city police and RCMP would have roadblocks set up on major routes out of town.

The other concern was that a Colorado Low was sweeping into the province bringing with it heavy winds and snowfall. (Within 36 hours it would turn into a full-fledged blizzard, one of Winnipeg's worst on record.)

Ken instead decided to drive the gold, still in their boxes, to Backlin's suburban Winnipeg home. Backlin was away, but his mother was house sitting. Ken told her that the cargo was boxes of moose meat that Ken had ordered. He was shown the chest freezer in the basement and stashed the gold there.

When Backlin returned home, he was unimpressed with Ken's decision and at night took the boxes and buried them in the snow in his back yard to avoid raising his wife's suspicion.

 

 March 22, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

The two men had to act fast as the snow wasn't going to stay around forever. They decided to forego stashing it somewhere longer term and instead sell it off on the black market in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, both had passport issues.

Unfortunately, both men had passport issues. Backlin had recently anglicized his name and his old passport was at the passport office while he awaited a new one. Ken was still on parole and if someone checked the name on his passport they would find that he could not leave Manitoba, much less the country.

Still, the two decided to take the chance. Backlin bought a ticket to Hong Kong and Ken would travel there on his passport.

When Ken reached the Vancouver airport with part of one of the gold bars he noticed a strong police presence. One source says that his name was paged over the PA system. He knew it was just a matter of time before he was caught, so he ditched the gold. (To this day, nobody knows what happened to the gold.)

Winnipeg Free Press, March 12, 1966

As Ken was being escorted back to Winnipeg for a parole violation, he didn't realize that he was about to be charged with the robbery.

The abandoned Air Canada van was found with a fingerprint of one of the accomplices inside it.  Police eventually tracked the two drivers down and through interviews and the use of informants acting as cellmates the story of the theft unravelled.

On March 20, 1966, Ken and his four accomplices, including Backlin,were charged with conspiracy and robbery. For Ken, it meant being returned to Headingley Jail to continue serving his "flying bandit" sentence and await trial.

 Returned from Indiana (source)

While at Headingley, Ken masterminded the escape of ten prisoners, himself included.

On the evening of September 1, 1966 one member of the group overpowered a guard and stole his keys. Others entered the office and stole weapons. Within 15 minutes they were outside the gates. Ken, along with three other prisoners, (a murderer, a rapist and someone awaiting transfer to Selkirk Mental Hospital), stole a Chevy from the prison parking lot and took off.

News of the escape set off what is believed to be Manitoba's largest manhunt. Every municipal police force was placed on high alert and told to set up road blocks at the perimeter of their communities. The RCMP called in every officer on the force and manned their own roadblocks on highways throughout southern Manitoba. Bordering provinces and states were also alerted as were airports.

Ken and company made it to Steinbach where he stole a plane and the four headed across the border. They landed in a farmer's filed outside Gary, Indiana. He managed to sweet talk the farmer into given them a ride into town.

The men rented a hotel room and went down to the bar to celebrate. The bartender recognized the men from a report on the news, their nationality confirmed when tehy used Canadian bills to pay for their room and drinks, and called police.

When police arrived, Ken and one of the escapees gave themselves up. The other two led police on a foot chase and were captured.

The arresting officers from the West Kildonan PD (source)

Ken was then held at the Vaughan Street Jail to await trial on an even longer list of charges.

By this time, the Vaughan Street facility was used mainly as a remand centre as the city's Public Safety Building had just opened. Ken was held in an empty wing and had access to the corridor outside of his cell.

On October 30, 1966, Ken managed to pick the lock on the old steel door at the end of the hall, overpower three guards and escape through a back door and over a fence.

Four hours after the break, Ken called his lawyer from a phone box at Main Street and Jefferson Avenue. The lawyer either convinced himself to give up or turned Ken in as just a few minutes later two officeers from the West Kildonan picked him up. He surrendered peacefully.

The next day, jail administrators had experts go over the door to see how he managed to turn the locking bolts on the ancient door and they were baffled, calling the escape 'miraculous'. (After his conviction they had Ken re-enact his MacGyver-esque escape for them. He used a strip of cloth and piece of wire.)

On November 1, 1966, Leishman plead guilty to all nine charges against him. He received a sentence of nearly 15 years, seven for the gold heist and escapes plus the remaining eight years left on his Toronto sentence.

November 2, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

Ken spent his years in prison reading and writing poetry. he had one more escape up his sleeve, but this time in was administrative.

In June 1974, Ken applied for parole and was denied. He then requested an official review of the length of his sentence which was a complicated mesh of various sentences spanning years, osome to be served concurrently, some not.

Leishman struck gold when the Parole Board review panel ruled that, his sentence HAD been improperly pieced together and that he was to be released immediately! The ruling sparked a review of hundreds of similar sentences around the country.

In 1977, the Leishman family moved to Red Lake, Ontario where Ken took a job as a bush pilot and opened a tourist shop.  The couple, who became devout Mormons, were well liked by community members and Ken even served as the chair of the local Chamber of Commerce.

The notoriety of being the "Flying Bandit" made Ken a cause celebre. There were TV appearances and newspaper interviews where he was more than happy to relive his crimes and charm reporters and audience members.

In early 1979, the Winnipeg papers reported that Ken was working on a manuscript that had attracted the attention of Hollywood actor Darren McGavin, who bought the rights to Ken's story. According to Ken, he and his wife had gone to California to meet McGavin and locations were being scouted north of the border.

Ken continued to fly and on December 14, 1979, Leishman was performing a medi-vac flight out of Red Lake when his plane disappeared in Northern Ontario. The following spring, a Canadian Forces search flight found the wreckage. The bodies of the patient and medical assistant aboard were positively identified but all they could find of Leishman was his wallet and some scraps of clothing.

Given his colourful past, there was speculation that the Flying Bandit had escaped again. At the inquest, however, experts concluded that his body was likely taken away and eaten by wolves.

On December 16, 1980, Leishman was declared legally dead at the age of 48. He left behind his wife of 30 years, seven children and quite a legend.

His obituary, which makes no mention of the time before his release in 1977, includes a poem written by Leishman:

The day's are long and endless
And the sun does not take rest
Tis a barren hostile country
And man is put to test.

Yet there's a compelling remote beauty
In this land so fresh and clean
With it's waters pure as crystal
And trout that few have seen.

I've drunk of nature's beauty
And I've suffered natures pests
I've co-existed with God's creatures
And I've met and passed the test.

But this is a land of special beauty
It's a land for special men.
When I leave I'll do so gladly
But I know I'll come again.

I'll bear memories of kind people
Of sunsets without end
I'll respect and fear the northland
And I'll do so as a friend.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press, May 7, 1980

Update 2011:

I originally posted this in 2008, (this is a 2011 update.) Since then, it has remained one of my most-read blog posts showing that there is still a great deal of interest in Leishman and his antics. Why?

I wasn't around at that time, so I can only guess that being an "everyday man", (a kitchenware salesman from North Kildonan with a wife and kids), pulling off  crimes worthy of a Hollywood film had a huge appeal. 

This was also the 1960s - a decade of rebelling against authority. That is exactly what Ken did in a typically Canadian courteous way. Even though the authorities always caught up with him, he still kept trying.

Mix in a sense of humour and charm that seemed to enthrall people and you had quite the figure.

As you will see in the comments below his demeanor appears not to be something just for the cameras. He appears to have been a genuinely charming person, well liked and respected by those who knew him.

Online news stories
The Flying Bandit
Winnipeg Free Press, April 29, 2018

Ottawa Bound Bullion intercepted at airport 
Canadian Press, March 1966

He went on business trips - to rob banks
Saturday Magazine, July 18, 1958

Flying Bandit out again - this time it's legal 
Canadian Press, May 1974

The Flying Bandit Died Hard 
Macleans, December 29, 1980

Other reference

RCMP Court Briefing for 1966 Trial of Ken Leishman et al

The Flying Bandit and the Great Winnipeg Gold Heist

Adaptations of the Flying Bandit's story
- a play (The Flying Bandit, by Lindsay Price);
- a book (The Flying Bandit by Heather Robertson);
- a documentary (Ken Leishman: The Flying Bandit - trailer above);
- a podcast in the True North Heists series, including an interview with on of Ken's sons

Who was Ralph Brown ?

U of M Roll of Honour 1914-1918. Roll of the Fallen (pg. 18)

Ralph Russell James Brown was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1875. He came to Winnipeg with his family later that year. He graduated from Wesley College with a BA in Education in 1896 winning the Governor General’s Medal for his grades.

Education was his calling and he spent a dozen years, 1902-1914, as the first principal of Somerset School at Sherbrook and Notre Dame (where the Shoppers Drug Mart is now). He married Harriet Belle Brown, an art Supervisor in the Winnipeg School Division then left Somerset to go back to school to study law at the U of M.

Brown was also involved in the military. He was a Captain in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles militia. When war broke he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 44th Battalion, and left Winnipeg on October 18, 1915. While overseas he fought at Mons, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele.

November 15, 1919, Winnipeg Free Press

Brown was wounded at Passchendaele on October 28th, 1917 and died three days later from his wounds. He was 42 and left behind his wife and two young children, Eleanor and Isabel. He is buried in the Nine Elms British Cemetery in Belgium.

In the ‘History of the 44th Battalion’ the chaplain wrote:

“Enemy air raids a nightly occurrence. The German planes came over in bunches. Major R.R.J. Brown of the 44the, Area Commander of the Fourth Division, with his characteristic ccontempt of personal danger, continued to live in a tent despite the fact that other Divisional officers sought the protection of re-inforced cellars. One night he was hit by the flying fragment of an aerial bomb. He died two days later. So passed a very gallant gentleman, whose work and influence, particularly in the early history of the 44th, have been of inestimable value to the Battalion.” (p.128)

If Brown survived, he would have received his law degree so he does appear on the Honor Roll of the Manitoba Law Society. He also appears on page Page 208 of the First World War Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower in Ottawa.

In 1918 a temporary school building on Andrews Street was renamed for him. A permanent Ralph Brown School was built the following year. In 1989 that school was replaced by a new structure that also has an adjoining community centre.
Reference:
Ralph Russell James Brown Virtual War Museum
Winnipeg School Division History of Schools - Norquay to Rockwood (source of above quote)
Ralph Brown School Winnipeg School Division

Eaton's Catalogue Houses

© 2008, Christian Cassidy

1913 Eaton's catalogue (Museum of Civilization)

The Timothy Eaton Company is legendary for selling everything an urban dweller or rural settler needed to outfit their home - including the house itself !

Eatons sold houses, (and barns, and churches, and schools), from their catalogue in the early 1900s to meet the needs of families settling Western Canada. It was also an easy way for a developer or railway company to instantly create a town site. Instead of years of planning, development and construction, one could pop out of the soil within a matter of weeks with the help of a small team of labourers.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization has a section on their website dedicated to the 'mail order home'. 

One interesting passage I found there was:  "...after the First World War,  Eaton’s Catalogue offered a complete farm – everything but the horses – to returning veterans taking up land offered in the prairie provinces. No assembly instructions for these houses, barns, and milk-sheds or pig pens has yet been dug up."The Winnipeg Architecture Foundation has an undated copy of the "Eaton Plan Book of Ideal Homes" at their website if you'd like to check out the many different styles that were on offer. It also goes into detail about where they are milled and what other items, from bathtubs to furnaces, that you could order along with them.

It is impossible to tell how many Eatons homes and other buildings were built and how many are left standing.  This is further complicated by the fact that there were a number of companies that sold prefabricated houses in the early part of the last century, some of which are mistaken for Eatons homes, (see below). 

What got me interested in this subject was what some THOUGHT was an Eatons house in Rivers, Manitoba that was being renovated in 2008 -2009.

It turns out that this is a bank building from the catalogue of B.C. Mills Timber and Trading Company. Like Eaton's, you could order an array of buildings from their catalogue and the package would be shipped from their mill in British Columbia to the rail station nearest you.

You can read more about the Rivers home and B. C. Mills' prefabricated buildings here and here.

UPDATE: There is a book and video series called Catalogue Houses: Eaton's and Others. You can read more by the author here and see the videos here.
 

The Titanic's Manitoba Connections

Originally posted July 2008. Updated Mar / Apr 2012

White Star postcard (source)

On April 10, 1912 the RMS Titanic of the White Star Steamship Line left Southampton on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,223 people aboard, ten were from Manitoba and at least sixteen new immigrants listed Manitoba as their final destination.

At 11:40 p.m. on the night of April 14, the Titanic struck an iceberg 640 km south of Newfoundland. By 2:30 a.m. the next morning she was gone and 1,517 people were killed. Only four of the Manitobans, or want-to-be Manitobans, survived.

Minnedosa Tribune, October 22, 1908

By the time passage on the Titanic's maiden voyage was being advertised in summer of 1911, Manitobans were well aware of the world's largest ships, the Olympic and the Titanic. From their commission through to their launch, local newspapers provided regular updates on their status.

An unlikely Winnipegger who had a small part in their construction was Mrs. Helen Sandford, an immigration agent who specialized in importing British girls to work as domestic servants in Western Canada. Beginning around 1902 she would return from each of her recruiting trips with dozens of girls in tow.

In 1910 while on a visit to Belfast, she was invited to visit the shipyard where the ships were being built. According to a passing mention in a September 30, 1910 Free Press story, she “...has the proud distinction of having driven a rivet in each of these steamers …” and a paperweight made from a part of steel plate from the construction site.

White Star's office in Farmer Building, Portage and Main.

(Sources: left p.31, right)

Tickets for the Titanic could be purchased from the White Star's Western Canadian passenger ticket office in the New Farmer Building at 333 Main Street, immediately south of the Bank of Montreal building at Portage and Main. (The building was demolished in 1980.) The windows featured numerous, regularly updated, photos of the construction.

The general manager was W. M. McLeod who began working at the Winnipeg office in 1890.

Advertisement, Manitoba Free Press, July 29, 1911

Most of the Manitobans aboard were from Winnipeg's business elite. They were keeping a long-standing tradition of leaving as a group in December, touching base at various overseas locales, then returning together as a group in the Spring. (Source).

In December 1911 the S.S. Franconia arrived in Gibraltar carrying Winnipeggers Hugh Sutherland and Family, W. H. Gardner and Family, C. J. Campbell and family, D. R. Dingwall, Mark Fortune and Family, J. J. Borebank, Hugo Ross and Thomson Beattie. Many in the party met up in Cairo and again in London.

The Fortunes, Ross and Beattie booked their return passage on the Titanic.

One Winnipegger who had a ticket on the Titanic was Tom Dunderdale, Superintendent of Winnipeg’s gas works. In what he later called a “fortune of chance” urgent business in Winnipeg caused him to take an earlier voyage back.

April 15, 1912, Manitoba Free Press


April 15, 1912, Brandon Sun

On April 15, 1912 Manitobans awoke to the shocking news that the Titanic had struck an iceberg. It began an agonizing wait for loved ones, the length of which varied by passenger, to find out who survived.

The Winnipeg White Star office does not appear to have been a source of information, that all came from New York. The Alloway and Champion Bank, which had large steamship holdings and access to shipping news and passenger manifests, were at least able to confirm for some families whether or not their loved ones were even booked on the Titanic or on another ship.

The Brandon Sun, April 19, 1912 (view more articles)

Even after the main rescue ship the Carpathia landed in New York, there was still confusion as to who survived. Some passengers shared the same name, which led to Winnipeg's George Graham being confirmed as rescued when he was not. Edith Fortune's name was badly misspelled either in the Morse code transmission or transcription leading some to believe she did not make it.

In the end, at least 23 passengers with a Manitoba connection died. Here are their stories.

The Titanic's Manitoba Victims:

THE FORTUNE FAMILY (Winnipeg)

The Fortune Family of 393 Wellington Crescent were returning from an extended winter vacation and travelling first class. Mark, 64, was a millionaire land developer, the Avenue Building and the Fortune Block were part of his portfolio. Wife Mary, 60, was born Mary McDougald in Portage la Prairie. Also along were children: Ethel 28; Alice 24; Mabel 23 and Charles 19.

The New York Times included the Fortunes on their front page list of the "well known persons"about to set sail on the maiden voyage.

On the afternoon of April 18 the Fortunes were the first to get a message back to loved ones. A relative and a family friend each received the following telegram: "Mother and three girls are well, Charlie and Father missing- signed Ethel Fortune."

Portage la Prairie Weekly Review, May 1, 1912 (source)

The bodies of Mark and Charles Fortune were never recovered. The Fortune women, the only Manitoba survivors, arrived in Winnipeg by train at 1 p.m. on May 1, 1912 dressed in black.

Adding to the sadness is that according to a Brandon Sun story, Ethel was engaged to be married to Hugo Ross (see below) in summer 1912.

Robert Fortune, a son who did not go on the holiday, made the journey to Halifax to search through the hundreds of bodies brought back by recovery boats. On May 5 he told the Free Press that he could no longer face the task and was returning before the next boat arrived "... never look upon the Titanic's dead again."

The Free Press reported on April 20, 1912 that like many of the passengers, the Fortune's had little concept of how serious the situation was. They assumed that the Carpathia would arrive, take people off the stranded Titanic and they would all be reunited shortly after. In fact, one of the sisters gave her money roll to brother Charles for safekeeping before she left on the lifeboat and their last words were "take care of father." (Source)

A memorial service was held at the old Knox Church at Portage and Fort, the Fortune's home church. When the new church opened in Central Park in 1918 the bell chimes were dedicated to Mark Fortune.

Mary moved to Toronto and died March 8, 1929.

Fortune related links:
Fortunes tell how they left Titanic Brandon Sun, April 23, 1912
* Note: this wire story was printed world-wide but the Fortune women strongly denied that they claimed to see Ismay departing the ship.
Women revealed as heroines by wreck New York Times
The Fortune family and the RMS Titanic MB Historical Society
Mark Fortune and Family weeksfamily.org

LEONARD HICKMAN (Eden MB)

Portage la Prairie Weekly Review, May 15, 1912 (source)

The strangest story is that of Leonard Hickman of Eden Manitoba. Hickman, 25, came from Frithan, Ryndhurst, Hampshire, England and settled in Neepawa before taking a live-in job as a farmhand in Eden, Manitoba. Hickman returned home for a visit and to do a little recruiting.

Explains the Neepawa Press of Friday, May 3, 1912:

"Amongst the bodies of the Titanic victims found was that of Leonard Hickman of Eden who went home last December and was returning with two brothers and several other young men to accept positions with farmers in the neighbourhood. Private correspondence from Fritham tells of the terrible affliction of two families there as a result of the Titanic disaster. Parents of Mssrs. Leonard, Stanley and Lewis Hickman are so prostrated that there are fears for their recovery, and a Mrs Davies, whose son was also on the lost vessel en route to Eden is believed to be hopelessly unnerved."

Hickman's funeral took place in Neepawa on Friday, May 10, 1913, two days later than scheduled due to a transportation delay from Halifax. All Neepawa businesses and offices closed that afternoon out of respect and flags flew at half mast.

The service was held at the Presbyterian Church with Reverend H.G. Crozier presiding. A band then led the procession to Riverside Cemetery where he is buried. It is the most westerly grave of a Titanic victim.

"Had he been a state dignitary or a millionaire, there might have been more pomp, but there could not have been more genuine sorrow and respect manifested. All honour to Neepawa..."

said the Neepawa Press the following day.

May 8, 1912, Brandon Sun

The Hickman story took a strange turn when it was disclosed that they had actually buried the body of one of Hickman's brother Lewis. How could this happen ? The remains could only be identified by the name on a membership card for the Eden branch of the IOOF in his jacket pocket. The assumption is that he grabbed his brother's coat in the rush to leave the boat.

A modern relative says that the error was noticed in Neepawa the day of the funeral but I have read previously that the error was confirmed after the burial by his brother's widow in England. Either way, there was little that could be done and the Neepawa headstone was changed to read as a memorial for all three Hickman brothers, Leonard, Stanley and Lewis.

The Hickmans were travelling with others that they had recruited to come to Manitoba. Charles Henry Davies, Percy William Deacon, William Dibden, and Ambrose Hood would never see their new home. (See below.)

Hickman related links:
Leonard Hickman documents Nova Scotia Archives
Leonard Hickman page Encyclopedia Titanica
Titanic centennial brings back memories mywestman.ca
Titanic victim's great-nephew pays respects Neepawa Press (Aug 17, 2010)

GEORGE E. GRAHAM (Winnipeg)

Source: St. Mary's Museum

Graham (38, first class) had worked for Eaton's in Toronto for nine years before he came to the new Winnipeg store in 1906. By this time he was head of the China Department and one of Eaton's international buyers. He and a number of colleagues were in Europe on a buying trip but Graham was the only one to make it back to Southampton in time to sail.

April 20, 1912, Manitoba Free Press

At the news of the sinking, his wife Edith went to Toronto and stayed with relatives while waiting to hear if the body was recovered. She was under medical care for stress which was not helped by some confusion over names.

There were a number of Grahams aboard. At one point it was reported that SHE was the Mrs. G. Graham on board that had survived. Later, word came that George was found alive but Eaton's could not locate him. It took the Eaton's office in New York to investigate the matter and have to break the sad news that, in fact, her G. Graham was among the missing and presumed dead.

April 20, 1912, Manitoba Free Press

Eaton's Winnipeg and Toronto stores closed for the weekend at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 20th after staff were informed of the news. "The whole store is permeated with gloom" the Winnipeg store manager said. Eaton's traditional full-page newspaper ads were printed blank with a small notice about the closing in the middle.

Graham's body was recovered on April 30 and buried in his home town of Harriston, Ontario. Mrs. Graham continued to live in Winnipeg until her death in 1960 though chose to be buried in St. Mary's, Ontario, the same cemetery that their child was buried in. George's body was then exhumed and transferred to St. Mary's. The family was again reunited.

Graham related links:
George E Graham page Encyclopedia Titanica
Intrigue of Titanic draws visitors Welland Record (Jan, 2011)

THOMSON BEATTIE (Winnipeg)

Thomson Beattie was 36 and travelling in first class. A businessman, he was owner of Haslam Land Co. in Winnipeg and for ten years partnered in a real estate company with with sitting Mayor R.D. Waugh. He lived at 560 River Ave.

Morning Telegram, July 4, 1903

Beattie travelled the entire Winnipeg - Cairo - London vacation with John Hugo Ross (see below). His body, along with two others, were found adrift in one of the Titanic's collapsible boats a month after the sinking. It was assumed that they died of dehydration. The ship's log of The California noted:

May 13, latitude 39.56 north longitude 47.01 west.
Picked up collapsible boat containing three bodies. Committed same to deep. One apparently Thomson Beattie, passenger, one sailor, one fireman, both unidentified.
(Source: wire story in Manitoba Free Press, May 16, 1912)

In 1915 Beattie's sister-in-law went to visit her husband, Thomson's brother J.A., in London. She and her son set sail aboard the Lusitania which sank en route. Both survived.

JOHN HUGO ROSS (Winnipeg)

John Hugo Ross, (36, first class) was a Winnipeg land merchant who had an office in the Merchants Bank Building. Ross came to Winnipeg as a child in 1877. After going away for school he returned in 1894 and started a realty company. He had been a treasurer of the Winnipeg Stock Exchange and a president of the Winnipeg Real Estate Exchange.

Ross was big rugby supporter. When the Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta unions merged in 1911 to form the Western Canadian Rugby Union it was Hugo Ross who donated the cup. By the time the Calgary Tigers won the league championship just months later, the cup had been renamed the Hugo Ross Memorial Cup.

The Hugo Ross Trophy remained the western football prize until 1949 when it was replaced by one named for N. J. Taylor.

J.P. Alexander (Boissevain)

J.P. Alexander was a Manitoba victim who actually wasn't aboard the ship. The former MLA for the Boissevain area, had a heart condition and when told the news of the Titanic's sinking died of a heart attack.

Victims with Manitoba Connections:

The Danbom Family

Manitoba Free Press April 20, 1912

The Danbom Family were listed in a press wire story as a 'Winnipeg Family missing'. That's not quite the case.

Ernest Danbom was an American who married a Swedish girl named Sigrid Bogren in Winnipeg. This city was chosen because the bride had once lived here with her sister, Mrs. Zachrisson, in St. James. The couple left for a two-year European honeymoon, had a child and were returning to settle in the U.S..

All three died but only Ernest's body was found and is buried in the U.S..

The Andersson Family

Manitoba Free Press April 20, 1912

Poor Mrs. Zachrisson had a second sister on the boat.

The seven member Andersson family were travelling with the Danboms bound for Winnipeg. Travelling third class, the entire family died. Their bodies were never found.

J.J. Borebank

J.J. Borebank, (36, first class) was from Toronto but had lived in Winnipeg for ten years and worked in real estate. He left to visit his daughter at her boarding school in Europe and was returning to settle back in his native Toronto. He is included on the city hall plaque commemorating them.

Thomas McCaffrey

Thomas McCaffrey was from Quebec but spent time in Neepawa and Winnipeg managing Union Bank branches from 1894 to 1900. He was managing a Union bank in Vancouver but was travelling with old Winnipeg friends Ross and Beattie.

A mix-up in the spelling of McCaffrey saw him buried in Montreal rather than Vancouver, where his family was now living. Corrections to his death certificate were made after his burial.

The Hart Family

Source: Find a Grave.com

The Hart Family were emigrating from England to Winnipeg where Mr. Hart hoped to open a drug store. He died but his wife and seven year-old daughter Eva Miriam Hart survived.

Later in life she became a vocal opponent of salvaging objects or "grave robbing" the site (see one of her interviews here.) ship. Eva died in 1996.

Stanley Hickman
Lewis Hickman
Charles Henry Davies
Percy William Deacon
William Dibden
Ambrose Hood

All of Hampshire, England were travelling with Leonard Hickman back to the Neepawa area to work on area farms.


Other Victims:

S.H.F. Chaffee

The nearest victim in the U.S. appears to be S.H.F. Chaffee of Amenia N.D., near Fargo.

April 16, 1912, Manitoba Free Press

Manitobans made up a large number of the Canadian victims.


Manitoba's Reaction:

The Brandon Sun, April 19, 1912 (view articles)

Like the rest of the world, Manitobans were stunned at the news of the sinking and struggled to come to terms with it. Flags were ordered at half mast throughout the province and church bells rang in mourning.

Portage la Prairie Weekly, April 24, 1912 (source)

Church services across the province were packed for many Sundays following the disaster as memorials for ever more victims were held. The tragedy was inescapable as for months newspapers carried daily tales of heroism, heartache, recriminations and the discovery of new bodies.

July 20, 1912, Manitoba Free Press

On April 20, 1912 Winnipeg City council passed a motion that those aboard who intended to settle in Winnipeg " ...will be cared for by the City of Winnipeg and aided in every possible way, both financially and otherwise" regardless of whether or not they eventually arrived here. (Manitoba Free Press, April 20, 1912.)

In Winnipeg there were a number of events to raise funds for widows and orphans. There was a musical concert at Grace Church featuring the Salvation Army Citadel Band. The Manget Theatre on Main Street donated an entire day's receipts. Other groups held recitals, sports matches and other special events in aid of the fund.

November 24, 1913, Brandon Sun (Source)

Brandon, in particular, took to raising funds for the families. Immediately after the disaster the local Football Association played a benefit match and the Sherman Theatre donated a portion of a day's receipts. On November 23, 1912 a gala concert was held at the Sherman. That was followed in November 1913 by a repeat concert.

Children's hospital on Aberdeen (source)

In the summer of 1912 the Winnipeg Real Estate Exchange, of which a number of the victims were members, decided to furnish a fourteen cot ward at the new Children's Hospital on Aberdeen Street in their honour. On November 16, 1912 a ceremony was held and a plaque unveiled that reads:

In Memorial, Mark Fortune, John Hugo Ross, Thomson Beattie, who perished on the 15th day of April. A.D. 1912 when the Titanic foundered at sea. To the heroic and inspiring memory their fellow members of tho Real Estate Exchange have furnished this ward and erected this tablet.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.


Plaque from city hall

Saskatoon Phoenix, December 19, 1912

The main Winnipeg memorial was bronze tablet commissioned by the City of Winnipeg and placed in the main corridor of city hall in December 1912. It reads:

"Erected by the People of Winnipeg in memory of their fellow citizens:
Mark Fortune; John Hugo Ross; Thompson Beattie; Charles A. Fortune; George E. Graham; and J. J. Borebank
who with 1484 others lost their lives when the Steamship Titanic Foundered in mid-Atlantic April 15, 1912.
They died that women and children might live.”

Each year until the late 1930s flowers or a wreath were laid there on April 15th.

When the new city hall was built the plaque was relegated to a basement entrance. Recently it was moved to a more prominent place in the basement, next to the entrance to the print shop. It is accessible to the public during regular office hours.

It is said that a number of street names in Winnipeg were renamed after the disaster, which is not quite true.

Graham Avenue in Winnipeg, which ran behind the Eaton's store, was not named for Eaton employee George Graham as is sometimes claimed. It was named prior to 1895 for HBC employee James Graham.

Hugo Street is named for Hugo Ross but decades before the Titanic disaster. His father Arthur Wellington Ross was a land developer, among other things, and many streets in the city were named for him or family members including Wellington Crescent and Arthur, Arbuthnot, Jessie, Helen and Flora.

Borebank Street is said to be named for J. J. Borebank. If it was, it has to be a situation similar to Hugo as lots and houses were being advertised for sale on the street starting in 1906.

Carpathia Road may have been named after the ship, but not until the residential street was created in 1951.

There is a Fortune Street, said to be named for Mark Fortune. Barely a block long, the ca. 1970s street is an access route to a back lane with a few houses.

From the Newspapers

The Brandon Sun, April 19, 1912 (view more Sun articles)

"They died so that others may live and in dying they wrote their names on the pages of history in letters of gold for all the world to see..."
Portage la Prairie Weekly Review, April 16, 1913. (Source)

It puts a breaking strain upon the mind to try to imagine the scenes on the different decks of the great steamer when she suffered her death wound as the result of the collision with the iceberg that came bearing death to so many hundreds. The appalling suddenness of the disaster, the agonising terror, the heroisms that we may be sure there were, the partings, the terribleness of the ice-laden midnight ocean to the women and children in the life-boats - these things the imagination is powerless to realize in any of their actual poignancy as it was felt by those who passed through the disaster, either to be rescued, or to perish. Every feeling heart will sympathize with the families and friends of the victims of the shipwreck.
Manitoba Free Press editorial, April 17, 1912

It is impossible to exaggerate the horror of the occasion. The implacable calmness of the merciless and all-engulfing ocean; the absolute isolation from any possibility of escape for the majority; the darkness of night and 2,200 human souls in the full vigor and healthfulness of life, the agonizing farewells between the few that were being saved and the many that were doomed to be entombed in the cold, dark waters – truly a grim experience and a terrible catastrophe.
The Voice (Winnipeg), April 19, 1912 (source)

Titanic Links

Manitoba:

The Titanic Western Grain Growers Guide

Manitoba newspaper coverage
Manitoba's Titanic Victims MB Historical Society
Manitoba Index Encyclopedia Titanica

General:
Wreck and the sinking of the Titanic Neil Henry (1912)
The Titanic Historical Society Manitobia.ca (select "1912" form list of years)
The Titanic S.O.S. Canadian Disasters
RMS Titanic Nova Scotia Archives (new material added for April 2012)

Books:
For books related to the Titanic, check out the Titanic Histories page at my Amazon a-store. For Canadian-related items you can find Titanic Victims in Halifax Graveyards and Titanic: The Canadian Connection at McNally Robinson.

Victims at a glance:

George E. Graham, 38, Winnipeg.
Buried in Ontario.

William Dibden, 18, England.
Destination Neepawa. Body not recovered/identified.

Charles Henry Davies, 18, England.
Destination Neepawa area. Body not recovered/identified.

Thomson Beattie, 36, Winnipeg.
Body recovered one month after sinking, buried at sea.

John Hugo Ross, 36, Winnipeg.
Body not recovered/identified.

The Hart Family, England.
Benjamin, 43, Ester,45, Eva, 7, England
Destination Manitoba. Parents died, bodies not recovered/identified. Eva survived, returned to England.

Hickman Brothers
Leonard, 30, Eden MB. Lewis, 24, Stanley, 20, England - destined for Neepawa. Lewis mistakenly buried in Neepawa as Leonard. Gravestone commemorates all three.

Ambrose Hood, 21, England.
Destination Neepawa area. Body not recovered/identified.

J.J. Borebank (36), Winnipeg.
Body not recovered/identified.

Percy William Deacon, 20, England.
Destination Manitoba. Body not recovered/identified.

The Anderssons, Sweden.
Anders 39, Alfrida 39, Sigrid 11, Ingeborg 9, Ebba 6, Sigvard 4, Ellis 2.
Destination Winnipeg. Bodies not recovered/identified.

The Fortunes, Winnipeg
Mark Fortune 64), Charles Fortune 19. Bodies never recovered identified.
Wife Matry and three daughters survived, returned to Manitoba.