Arthur Milton Forth
Arthur Milton Forth was born December 13, 1904, in Utterson, Stephenson Township, District of Muskoka. According to the 1921 Census, Art was a delivery boy for Forth’s Bakery (the family business). It was likely his first job.
In Gran’s effects after she died, I found a book her mother had given her for Christmas. It was inscribed to both Art AND Edna as the lower note from my gran confirms. Times are tough when you have to share a gift with your next older sibling. Gran also named her elder son, Art, so I think she must have had a certain fondness for her brother.
On December 28, 1929, at the First Baptist Church in Parry Sound, Art married Mabel Winnifred Jones. Winnie, as she was called, was born December 7, 1905, in Ahmic Harbour. She was an elder sister of my mother’s dear friend, Ann Jones. One of the witnesses to the wedding was great aunt Mabel’s husband, Charles Poytress. Art was recorded as a ship’s steward on his marriage record.
On the 1931 Census, Art and Winnifred were recorded living on Wood Street. Art was listed as a baker and I believe he was working at the family bakery, by then under the ownership of Alf Forth, an elder brothers. What I found particularly interesting on this census was that it was recorded that there was a radio in the house. Also, although they had been married in a Baptist church, their faith was recorded as United Church.
On December 1, 1931, Art and Winnie’s first child, a daughter, was stillborn. She was never named but was buried with her grandmother, Lucy Ellen Scott Forth in Hillcrest Cemetery. This has been confirmed by the cemetery administrator at the Parry Sound town office.
Roger Charles Forth
About 14 months later, on February 3, 1933, their first son, Roger Charles, was born. According to my Uncle John, when Roger was young, he worked for Jack Thompson, the photographer who lived behind us at our home on Almonte Drive in Parry Sound. Roger learned to colourize black and white photographs.
Uncle John believes that it was Roger who colourized the photo below of my grandparents, Harold and Edna (Forth) Prosser. What is interesting to me is that the original photo is in colour already rather than black and white. I have no idea why the photograph was painted then, unless it was just to get a suit on Poppa!
It was REALLY hard to get a good photo of this framed photo as the glass is beveled and so it catches light in every direction. Roger also likely was responsible for colourizing a wedding photo of my parents as that photo is in an identical frame to this one and the style looks the same as well. This was an interesting art form!
Roger later went to work as a cook at the Brunswick Hotel which led him to be the cook at the Waubeek Day Care Centre where he worked for 22 years until he retired March 31, 1995. The daycare was situated beside what was then my gran's house at 60 Waubeek Street in Parry Sound. Roger never married or had children (as far as we know). He died May 9, 2004, and was buried with his parents.
Seven years after Roger was born, his brother Alfred Wayne came into the world on September 25, 1940. According to Uncle John, Wayne worked as a handyman at all kinds of jobs. He never married and also didn’t have children (again, as far as we know). Wayne died August 24, 2009, and was buried with his parents.
I located a listing for Art Forth in the book History of the Orenda Test Establishment at Nobel by John L. Armstrong. The book was printed in March of 1991 and records some of Art’s work history. The notation is as follows:
Forth, Art M., Electrician, 1 (pre-48) 2 3 4 5, deceased, 59. Wife Winnifred, 18 Wood St., Parry Sound, Ont. P2A 2C6 (705) 746-9680. Sons Roger, Wayne. Forth Bakery, Parry Sound. 27?, Department of Transport, on Murray Stewart, cook and later radio work. 40?, Defence Industries Limited. 47, A.V. Roe-Orenda.
From this information, it is confirmed that the family home was 18 Wood Street in Parry Sound and that Art had worked for the Forth Bakery about 1927. It also recorded that he had worked for the Department of Transport aboard the ship HMCS Murray Stewart in the 1940’s. The Murray Stewart, built in 1918, was used during WWII as an examination vessel and spent most of the war moored in Saint John, New Brunswick. An examination vessel would typically be responsible for examining and verifying all merchant ships and small craft entering or departing a port. Art worked as a cook and later did radio work aboard the ship.
Art worked as an electrician for DIL (Defence Industries Limited) in Nobel in 1947 and beyond.
DIL was founded in 1939 as a subsidiary of Canadian Industries Limited, C-I-L. Its purpose was to manufacture munitions for use in World War II. Nobel was the home of two explosives factories in World War I, The British Cordite Limited and Canadian Explosives Limited, but both plants were closed in 1922. DIL opened two new plants in WWII on the site formerly used by British Cordite. After the war, DIL converted the munitions plant to a test establishment for A.V. Roe Canada. This is where much of the testing for the Avro engine, to be used in the Avro Arrow, was carried out.
Art Forth is number 4 in this photo that was taken in the machine shop of the Orenda plant in late winter of 1953. My dad is number 23.
The photo is from History of the Orenda Test Establishment at Nobel page B8.
Art died at age 54 on April 26, 1959. I have not been able to find out his cause of death but assume it to have been by accident or something like cancer as he died so young.
Winnifred outlived Art by 35 years before passing away December 15, 1994. They are buried, along with their sons, in Hillcrest Cemetery in Parry Sound.
