1928

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1928--

 Model A Fords roll off the assembly line in Windsor, Ontario. Workers build 75,292 Ford passenger cars during the calendar year, of which 37,828 are sold throughout the Dominion.

January 2: Avie Bennett is born. He will grow up to own McLelland & Stewart. In 2000 he will donate 75 percent of the prestigious publishing company to the University of Toronto. In 2011 the company will be purchased by Random House.

February 1: The first Model A engine is produced in the Ford plant in Windsor, Ontario. The starting code is CA1.

February 13: Gerald Augustine Regan is born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. He will grow up to become premier of the province from 1970 to 1978. 

February 16: Les Costello is born in South Porcupine, Ontario. He will grow up to play for the NHL but then leaves the game in 1950 to become a priest. He will found the Flying Fathers, a team of priests who play exhibition games for charity. Costello will die in 2002 after being struck in the head by a hockey puck.

February 19: It’s gold for the Canadian Olympic hockey team in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Our boys beat the Swiss in front of a crowd of 7,000 spectators.

March 1: The first issue of Chatelaine appears on newsstands. The magazine is geared to women and filled with recipes, beauty tips and short stories.  Singer-songwriter k.d. lang will immortalize the magazine in her song Miss Chatelaine.

Eileen Vollick will be honoured with a commemorative stamp in 2008.

March 1: The skies will never been the same. Eileen Vollick becomes the first Canadian woman to pass her test and is now qualified to fly an airplane. 

March 9: The world grows smaller as first long distance phone call takes place between Vancouver and London, England.

March 2: Seagram’s Distilleries Limited is sold to Samuel Bronfman of Montreal. Company products include Chivas Rigal, Crown Royal  and VO Whisky. Seagram’s will have more than 250 brand names in its portfolio in 2006.

March 8:  Gerald Vincent Bull is born in North Bay, Ontario. He will grow up to be an engineer, designing the world’s largest artillery gun, nicknamed Project Babylon. The super gun is intended for the Iraqi government. Bull will be assassinated in March 1990. Some say Mossad killed him; others believe it is the CIA. A movie called The Doomsday Gun will be made about Bull.

March 28: A bill is introduced into Queen’s Park that will amend the Theatres and Cinematographics Act. If passed, the new law will regulate what movies children in Ontario can see. It is believed that the shocking rise in youth crimes is directly tied to violence seen on the silver screen.

March 31: Gordie Howe is born in Floral, Saskatchewan. He will strap on his skates for the Detroit Red Wings in 1946. Truly gifted on ice, people will call him Mr. Hockey.

April 5: De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited is born. The subsidiary of the successful British manufacturer will sell and service De Havilland planes throughout the Dominion. The company will be bought by  Bombardier in 1992.

April 14: The New York Rangers skate past the Montreal Maroons in game five to win the Stanley Cup.

April 13: The German single-engine airplane,  a Junkers Bremen, completes a 35-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down on successfully Greenley Island, Newfoundland. Pilots Hermann Köhl and Günther Ehrenfried Freiherr von Hünefeld are hailed as national heroes in Germany.

April 24: The Supreme Court of Canada rules unanimously that women are not persons and not fit to hold public office.

1928 Marmon

April 27: Vehicle operators must now drive to the right when negotiating the highways and byways of Prince Edward Island.

May 4: Maynard Ferguson is born in Montreal. He will grow up to become one of the great legends of the big band world with a worldwide fan base.

From 1972 to 1990, The Beachcombers will air for 19 seasons, the longest-running show in English-language TV history.

May 7:  Bruno Gerussi is born in Medicine Hat, Alberta. He will grow up to be an actor and star in the long-running CBC television comedy/drama, The Beachcombers. He will die of a heart attack at home in Vancouver in 1995.

Eaton's sold Barbara Ann Scott dolls in its department stores in the 1950s.

May 9: Barbara Ann Scott is born in Ottawa. She will grow up to be an Olympic gold medalist, known to millions as the First Lady of Ice Skating.

A 1928 Ford Model A Tudor Sedan.

May 11: Ford Canada president W.C. Campbell reports that $1,464,109 has been spent on machinery equipment to produce the new Ford Model A cars and trucks.

May 23: Pauline Julien is born in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. She will grow up to become one of Quebec’s most beloved singers. Diagnosed with a disease of the brain, the chanteuse will take her own life in 1998.

May 25:  The Department of Agriclture’s Dairy Branch reports that we licked our way through 31,316,057 litres of ice cream last year. That adds up to 43 ice cream cones per person. The figure is low compared to our American neighbours who eat triple the amount.

May 31: Established in 1838, Nova Scotia votes to abolish the Legislative Council, its upper legislative house. Members who sat in the Red Chamber were appointed, not elected.

July 21: Surveyors discover the remains of British trapper Jack Hornby, his cousin Edgar Christian, and their friend Harold Adlard in a cabin on the Thelon River in the Northwest Territories. Christian's diary chronicles their slow death by starvation.  Hornby died first on April 16 followed by Adlard’s death on May 4.  Christian wrote entries until his final one on June 1 in which he wrote he is too weak to walk and could not get wood for the stove. 

July 26: Peter Lougheed is born in Calgary. He will grow up to become Premier of Alberta, best remembered for promoting the gas and oil industry and his wisdom in establishing the Alberta Heritage Fund.

August 11: Our athletes have earned four gold, four silver and seven bronze medals at the Olympic Summer Games in Amsterdam.

August 20: The Attorney General of Quebec announces that dog racing is now illegal in la belle province.

September 8: The first airmail is delivered in Vancouver. RCAF Squadron leader A. Earle Godfrey has made the flight from Ottawa. 

October 1: James Allen Pattison is born in Saskatoon. He will grow up to become CEO of Canada’s third largest privately held company, the James Pattison Group. The billionaire will have 28,000 employees on his payroll in 2006.

October 20: A talking motion picture, one of the first ever made, arrives in Vancouver. Folks line up to see Mother Knows Best.

October 27:  Gilles Vignault is born in Natshaquan, Quebec. The poet, song writer and publisher will become Quebec’s best known ambassador when he pens Mon Pays, the touching anthem-like hymn known by millions the world over.

December 1: At the AAA Grounds, before a hometown crowd of 4,767 fans, the Hamilton Tiger Cats trounce the Regina Roughriders 30 to zip and claim the Grey Cup as their own. This 16th Grey Cup match marks the first time that the game is broadcast live on radio.

December 23: His Majesty's Royal Post Office gives all of us an early Christmas present. The price of a stamp will drop to two cents for a letter mailed anywhere within the British Empire.

The 1928 Erskine is Studebaker's economy brand, built in Walkerville (Windsor), Ontario.

December 31: For the first time ever there are more than a million vehicles on the nation’s highways and byways. Statistics show there are 1,070,664 cars, trucks and buses registered throughout the Dominion.

During the 1928 calendar year, dealers sold 1,952 Nash automobiles in the five eastern provinces. The Standard Six Coupe is seen here.