Celebrate 60 Years

1964 to 1973: A Hamilton Landmark Leaves its Legacy

Robinson’s department store was a landmark for decades in Hamilton and many people fondly remember shopping there in the 1960s and 70s.

The stores are gone now, but the legacy of the founding family lives on at Hamilton Community Foundation.

When Kathleen Robinson McBride, the daughter of the department store’s founders, passed away she left her estate to HCF’s Community Fund. Her generous bequest was the largest unrestricted gift the Foundation had ever received. To this day, it fulfills her intentions of addressing the community’s highest needs and priorities.

Kathleen and her husband Robert McBride also had a daughter, Peggy, who created a private foundation in 1966. She later transferred her foundation to HCF and in honour of her long-time lawyer, Doug McCallum, who had devoted much time and energy to her foundation, it was renamed the McCallum, McBride Fund. Its annual grants for environmental issues and abused women and children touch hundreds of lives in Hamilton every year.