Florence Vale, Canadian artist, was born on April 18, 1909 in llford, Essex, England and died on July 23, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her family immigrated to Toronto two years after her birth, where she grew up with an interest in music. She married artist Albert Franck on June 8, 1929, and together they bought a house on Hazelton Avenue in Toronto which became a centre for artists, writers, musicians, and critics. Florence Vale was the mother of two children, Trudy (who died as an infant) and Anneke.
Florence Vale began to paint with her husband’s paints and brushes in the late 1940’s with no previous artistic training – only what she had learned under the influence of her husband and the artists who visited her home. Her art was influenced by Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, and the works of Paul Klee. After her husband’s death in 1973, Florence Vale continued to express her artistic ability with oil paints, collages, and ink, also including her own poetry in some of her works. Many of her works, most prominently after the death of her husband, were erotic, while still viewed by critics as keeping a whimsical, innocent tone. Her art appeared in exhibitions throughout Ontario, with exhibitions also in Quebec and New York, U.S.A. She was associated with the Gadatsy Gallery, Toronto.
David Brown Milne (Burgoyne, Ontario 1882 – Bancroft, Ontario 1953) was a painter and etcher; he is widely considered to be among the most outstanding Canadian artists. He worked as a schoolteacher before deciding to study painting in New York where, in 1903, he enrolled in the Art Students’ League. Milne supported himself through commercial artwork but actively and successfully developed his own painting, exhibiting five canvases in the famous Armory Show of 1913. His friends during this period included James (“René”) Clarke, with whom he maintained a correspondence for many years. In 1916, Milne and his wife Patsy (née May Frances Hagerty), whom he had married in 1912, left the city and settled in Boston Corners, New York. In late 1917 Milne joined the Canadian army as a private, and in 1918 was appointed as a war artist to record the locations of battles that had involved Canadian troops. Milne returned to Boston Corners in 1919, where he spent most of his winters until 1928, summering in the Adirondacks. He moved to Ottawa for one year in 1923, when the National Gallery of Canada bought six of his watercolours. In 1928, Milne moved permanently back to Ontario (he separated from his wife in 1933), spending extended periods of time alone in the wilderness regions north of Toronto. Palgrave, a short drive from Toronto, became Milne’s home from 1930 to 1933, and from 1933 to 1939 he lived in a cabin on Six Mile Lake near Georgian Bay. He maintained an interest in the Toronto art scene and developed a small group of patrons including Alice and Vincent Massey, and Douglas Duncan of the Picture Loan Society, who acted as Milne’s agent and dealer for many years. He met his second wife Kathleen Pavey in 1938 and lived with her from 1939; their only child David Jr. was born in 1941. The Milnes lived in Uxbridge from 1940 to 1946. From 1947 Milne lived and worked at Baptiste Lake, with Kathleen and David Jr. joining him periodically. As Milne’s health deteriorated, the family moved to Bancroft to be closer to Baptiste Lake. Milne died at Bancroft in December 1953. His work is represented in numerous public collections, notably the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Sam and Ayala Zacks were prominent Canadian art collectors of international repute active in the mid-20th century whose gifts form the basis of the modern European art collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Ayala Ben Tovim Fleg Zacks Abramov (1912-) was born in Jerusalem and educated in Israel, Paris and London. In 1938 she married Maurice Fleg in Paris, and joined the French Resistance after her husband died in action in1940. Active in Zionist circles after the war, she met Sam Zacks in Switzerland. Samuel J. Zacks (1904-1970) was a financier, Zionist and art collector, born in Kingston Ontario and educated at Queen’s University and Harvard. Following their marriage in 1947 they immediately began to collect art of the School of Paris as well as Canadian and Israeli art and antiquities, amassing an extensive collection by the late 1950’s that was in continual demand by museums around the world. In 1956 a collection of Canadian art was donated to Queen’s University, Mr. Zack’s alma mater, the first of many significant gifts to institutions in Israel and Canada including the Hazor Archaeological Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Mr. and Mrs. Zacks were both involved in international art circles, sitting on the Boards of the International Committee of Museums (ICOM), a branch of UNESCO, the International Committee of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario and others. In 1969 Mr. Zacks received an Honourary Fellowship from St. Peter’s College, Oxford. He died in 1970 in Toronto. After his death, Ayala Zacks was awarded the Order of Canada and an honourary degree from the University of Toronto. She married Zalman Abramov, an Israeli lawyer and politician in 1976 and moved permanently to Israel in 1982.
Samuel J. Zacks (1904-1970) was a financier, Zionist and art collector, born in Kingston Ontario and educated at Queen’s University and Harvard. He married Ayala Ben Tovim Fleg in 1947, whereupon they immediately began to collect art of the School of Paris as well as Canadian and Israeli art and antiquities, amassing an extensive collection by the late 1950’s that was in continual demand by museums around the world. Mr. and Mrs. Zacks were both involved in international art circles, sitting on the Boards of the International Committee of Museums (ICOM), a branch of UNESCO, the International Committee of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario and others. In 1969 Mr. Zacks received an Honourary Fellowship from St. Peter’s College, Oxford. He died in 1970 in Toronto.
Dr. Yehoshua (Shieky) Brownstone is a photographer in London, Ontario. He was formerly a Professor in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Western Ontario.
Aaron Moulton was born on November 17, 1859 and he left for the Klondike in August 1897, leaving behind a wife and children. He arrived in Dawson City, Yukon on September 15, 1897 and spent the winter of 1897, and spring and early summer of 1898, mining before returning to Tacoma, Washington in July or August 1898.
Dr. Allon Peebles was born October 20th, 1900 in New Westminster. He graduated from UBC in 1920 and had a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia. Dr. Peebles taught economics at the University of California and at Columbia had worked with a committee in the United States on the costs of medical care. A medical and labour research economist, he was chairman of B.C.’s first Health Insurance Commission in 1936 and helped fashion the later B.C. Hospital Insurance Service. The 1936 Health Insurance Act was written by Peebles and Harry Morris Cassidy. In 1941, Peebles went to Ottawa as first executive director of the Unemployment Commission and was in charge of the labour department’s research and statistics. He wrote several books on medical facilities, insurance and care. After retiring from the labour department in 1947, Allon Peebles entered private business in Chatham, Ontario. He died in Ottawa on March 13, 1962.
The University of British Columbia's Faculty of Law opened in September 1945. Prior to this, law students in British Columbia articled for three years and attended lectures given by the legal profession at the Vancouver Law School (V.L.S.) operated by the Law Society of British Columbia. After lengthy discussions a joint Law Society/UBC committee was struck in July 1945 to submit recommendations and plans for the establishment of a Faculty of Law. The University's Board of Governors and Senate approved the committee's recommendations late in August. The faculty's original staff consisted of George F. Curtis (professor and dean), Frederick Read and Alfred Watts. The Faculty was housed in converted army huts on campus and would remain there until 1952. Student enrollment increased significantly following World War II. By the early 1950s the Faculty had outgrown its accommodations and Dean Curtis began plans for a permanent Faculty of Law Building. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent opened the new building in 1952. Curtis was succeeded in 1971 as Dean by Albert J. McClean. The Faculty continued to grow throughout the seventies, again raising the need for a larger building. In 1975 the existing building was remodelled and a new addition constructed. This new structure was completed in 1976 and named the George F. Curtis Building. In 1985 Chinese Legal Studies was added to the East Asian programme through a
joint U.B.C./Peking University exchange of legal scholars and graduate students. That same year also saw the establishment of a Cooperative Project in Law and Computers with IBM Canada.
Wilfrid Laurier University Women's Association (1960-1993) was a social group for female faculty and administrators as well as the wives of faculty members of Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier University) in Waterloo, Ontario. Its purpose was to welcome new members, develop social events and foster member participation in University and community affairs. The group was established under the name of Faculty Wives, which was changed to Waterloo Lutheran University Women's Association, and later to the Wilfrid Laurier University Women's Association.
The YDMA has administrative relationships with the International Sled Dog Racing Association, the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Committee and Alaskan dog mushing associations. The YDMA has an executive and board of directors. Past presidents have been: Paul Sheridan, 1973-1975; Elmer Bankhead, 1978; Ken Weagle, 1982.; Secretaries have been: J.B. Fitzgerald, 1964; Marion Elden, 1968-1973; Jan Couture, 1975; Pam Buckway, 1982. Function: The object of the YDMA is to promote dog sled racing in the Yukon Territory and to promote and improve the class and type of dogs and equipment. The Association organizes and operates dog sled races and one dog pulls, and especially the dog sled races and mushers parade at the Sourdough Rendezvous. They also acquire land for and maintain permanent trails and facilities.