The chief magistrate’s sugar beeting gave Kitchener’s two newspapers ample fodder. “Just how the boys of the [118th] Battalion came to the belief that Mayor Hett was opposed to their wintering in Kitchener is difficult to establish,” said The Daily Telegraph. Previously, Hett didn’t want other cities’ battalions here, and called out local shopkeepers who […] Read more…
St. Mary’s General Hospital St Mary’s Church’s Fr AJ Fischer announced plans for the city’s second general hospital to be built on five acres of land on Queen’s Park Crescent. The facility for 50-60 patients would be run by the Sisters of Charity (see notes) and would house a nurses’ training school. The Berlin and Waterloo Hospital […] Read more…
Life at Camp Borden Heat and dust continued to bedevil Borden’s battalion boys. After long days training and marching, keeping clean was the hardest thing to do. This seemed especially so for those who were used to someone else doing their washing. “Mothers, sisters and friends of the 118th boys, if you could see them […] Read more…
SOS A severe storm passed over the northern part of the County just before suppertime on 15 June. The next day, The Berlin Daily Telegraph’s front-page story, “Cyclone sweeps over Elmira,” described the swath cut through the small town. No one was injured, but shortly after the winds picked up, “it developed into a […] Read more…
George Rumpel (10 May 1850 – 05 June 1916) “He remained warm-hearted, fair and diplomatic. His employees liked him for this and because wealth did not deprive him of his genial, companionable attribute. Without ostentation, he was considerate of and helpful to those in unfortunate circumstances.” Berliners were rocked by the sudden death of former […] Read more…
Sorting through thousands and thousands of names With the name change vote done and over with, Aldermen Cleghorn, Hahn, Hallman, Rudell and Master winnowed the estimated 30,000 submitted names to 113. They easily tossed thousands of entries: contest rules precluded names already in use in Canada (the Post Office demanded an original name). It seems as if […] Read more…