Glad tidings approach...

As Christmas fast approaches, I know that many will have already headed to The Point. 

 

With family and friends there is so much to celebrate... We are all so blessed.  As we gather around our respective trees, we will remember those who are celebrating their first Christmas - be they newly born or new to the community, and we will remember those who have moved on - whether they have moved or passed on.

As my own family is one who has moved - and we are missing being a part of the Point at this time of year - I am going to be challenged to maintain this blog and the History Project at the same level.  So I am asking the Sturgeon Point Santa for some elves who might be available to lend me a hand...  I've put the scotch by my tree... and perhaps I might get some "Christmas at The Point" photos in my in-box.

Have fun with the last minute details and Merry Christmas everyone!

Bugle Call: Flora Agnew 1927-2012

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Flora Agnew.  A wonderfully involved member of the Sturgeon Point community, from the Golf Club to the Sailing Club.  She was an early supporter of the History Project, endlessly willing to answer questions and sort through photographs and steer us through the politics of previous generations.  Flora's contributions to the project have been invaluable and she will be sorely missed by us all.

We have some wonderful pictures of Flora - they will follow.

Her obituary, as follows, appeared in the Globe & Mail:

AGNEW, Flora
Born August 2, 1927 in Lindsay, Ontario. Died peacefully November 11, 2012 in Toronto surrounded by family. Wife for 60 years of Arnold Agnew. Beloved mother of John (Jodi Woollam), Sarah (Stephen Zeifman), David (Sheila Kirouac) and Elizabeth (Bruce Lourie) and proud grandmother to George, Jane, Emmett, Clancy, Michelle, Nick, Ellen and Claire. Also Jesse Zeifman and Michelle Chan, Jack and Olivia. Predeceased by parents Dr. C. V. and Isobel Mulligan and sister Mary Prendergast. Graduate of University of Toronto. A tireless and committed volunteer, Flora was at both the front lines and the board table for many local and national organizations. She started her volunteer work in the Red Cross Canteen on Adelaide Street as a teenager during WWII. She ended it at a place she was devoted to, as past president of the Association of Volunteers for Women's College Hospital where she worked at the information desk. Flora was a volunteer for more than 50 years at the Art Gallery of Ontario, including serving as the President of the Volunteer Association. It was at the AGO that her interest in the Arctic and Inuit art was born, and she made more than a dozen trips by air and water to various parts of the Canadian far north and Greenland. She was also active in the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums and was the first female chair of the Board at Bishop Strachan School. On her retirement as President of the Sturgeon Point Golf Club she was made an honourary life member. Her broad and varied service was recognized by the Toronto Community Service Volunteer Award in 2000. Flora spent her 85th summer at Sturgeon Point this year, happily presiding at a large gathering of family and friends celebrating her 85th birthday, her and Arnold's 60th wedding anniversary and the cottage's 100th year (and George's 8th birthday!). Visitation at Morley-Bedford, 159 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto on Tuesday, November 13 from 5 pm to 8 pm. Funeral services will be held at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, November 14. A special thank you to the caring and compassionate doctors, nurses and staff of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Please make a donation in her memory to a charity of your choice.

We will remember them...

As another Remembrance Day rolls around, we would like to pay tribute to the members of the Sturgeon Point community who have served.  From the Battle of Batoche to Afghanistan & Iraq, members of our community have served on the front lines and on the home front to preserve those values that we as Canadians and our allies hold as sacred.

We ask you to share their stories with us so that their sacrifice is not in vain.  It is 127-years since a young Major General Dr. Sterling Ryerson served in the medical tents at Batoche patching up Canadians of Metis, English and French origin.  It is 102-years since that August morning, the day after the Regatta, that young men got on to the ferry at the Upper Wharf and left to enlist.  It is 73-years since a September morning at the end of summer, when the next generation picked up the torch thrown and took up the quarrel.  

Since then we have seen action in Korea and Afghanistan.  Served as peacekeepers in the Cyprus, Israel, Bosnia... A roll call of places in which our soldiers have served. 

For their sacrifice, we thank them.