January 31, 1913 - Winnipeg Firefighter Capt. George W. Starmer, 53, died as a result of injuries sustained in an accident in November 1911.
Responding to what would turn out to be a false alarm on Market Street, Starmer's fire wagon was struck by a streetcar. The accident left him shaken and with bouts of paralysis. He returned to work but finally had to retire in 1912 when the paralysis became constant.
In his final days of failing health, brigade members kept a round-the-clock vigil at his bedside in his home on Smith Street. A 28 year veteran of the force, Starmer left a wife and two children.
January 31, 1977 - The Town and Country Lodge apartments at 877 Preston Avenue burned to the ground killing 8 and injuring 17.
The 31-suite terraced housing block built around 1906 hd been deemed insanitary a couple of years earlier by the city but but re-opened after basic renovations were done. It was claimed by some to be a 'flop house' with up to five or six people living in some suites. This made identifying two of the dead impossible.
Many who escaped had to do so through upper storey windows as fire escapes were either blocked or iced up. The cause of the blaze was accidental: careless smoking or an electrical short in a main floor suite. For more about the fire.
January 31, 1989 – Sir William Stephenson died in Bermuda.
Born in Point Douglas, he served in the military during WWI earning the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, he taught science and math at the U of M and also invented an early fax machine – a way to transmit photographs via radio waves or the phone. He made a fortune from the invention in Britain thanks mainly to newspapers eager for his invention.
Prior to WWII, Winston Churchill put him in charge of British counterespionage in the Western Hemisphere and he acted as the liaison between Churchill and Roosevelt during the war. For more on the man, code named Intrepid, see The Intrepid Society’s website.
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