Longevity
Irene Caron, 92
February 22, 1996
Peter Power/Toronto Star
92-year-old Irene Caron was featured in a 1996 Toronto Star article on memories of the Great Depression.
“I made most of our everyday clothes. We each had one good outfit for Sunday to go to Church. We bleached the empty flour sacks to get rid of all the printing on them. This took three or four days of soaking and rubbing. Then I would make tablecloths, tea towels, pillowcases, aprons […]”
Lucy Tinning, 83, Toronto’s first female driver
February 7, 1977
Doug Griffin/Toronto Star
Lucy Tinning first learned to drive in 1905, when she was only 10-years-old. By 1915, when she was 20, she was known as a bit of a “hot-rodder.”
“We used to race up to the top of the hill [of Avenue Road] and there was always a policeman there, always the same one. He’d wave us over and yell at us but John would say ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’ And they’d go off for that drink and we never got any tickets.”
James Templeman, 100
October 14, 1980
Boris Spremo/Toronto Star
In 1980, James Templeman of Danforth Road, Scarborough, celebrated his 100th birthday.
Born in Somerset, England, in 1880, he immigrated to Toronto in 1910 with his wife, Gertrude.
He retired from the Don Valley Paper Co. at the age of 70, after spending 49 years with the company.
Donald Moore, 95
February 4, 1987
Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star
Donald Willard Moore was a community leader and civil rights activist.
He is pictured here at the age of 95, after having received the Service Medal of the Order of Barbados.
Moore successfully lobbied for changes to Canada's discriminatory immigration laws.
He died in 1994, at the age of 102.
Thomas Wardlaw, 98
December 4, 1980
Ron Bull/Toronto Star
In 1980, Leaf-fan Thomas Wardlaw recalled going to Maple Leaf Gardens when it first opened in 1931, back when admission was just 60 cents. He rarely missed a game in the next 50 years.
Wardlaw was born in 1882, in Scotland, and spent five years working in Pennsylvania coal mines before coming to Canada in 1922.
Tom Williams, 84, oldest licensed pilot in Canada
April 27, 1969
Victor Aziz/Toronto Star
In 1969, 84-year-old Tom Williams was the oldest licensed pilot in the country.
He is pictured waving from the cockpit of his biplane as he prepares for his takeoff to celebrate 60th anniversary of powered flight in Canada.
Williams was a pilot in the First World War, and won the Military Cross and Valore Militare, Italy’s highest decoration.
Mrs. Howarth, still working at 80
June 13, 1970
Bob Olsen/Toronto Star
80-year-old Mrs. Howarth is shown at the keyboard of her graphotype machine, a job she began when she was 70 years old.
The graphotype machine was used to address mass mailings.
John Sneath, plays bridge at 93
January 12, 1982
Andrew Stawicki/Toronto Star
In 1982, 93-year-old John Sneath was an occasional bridge player: “I sit in my living room and think, why can't I get three or four men to play? And when I phone to ask, they're all dead or senile.”