Francis Spence Hutton Fund

Francis Hutton

Hamilton-born Francis Hutton attended Delta Collegiate before heading to the University of Toronto where he studied civil engineering. In 1941, he married Bette Margaret Brown, a girl he had met at the Hamilton Figure Skating Club where the two shared a passion for ice dancing. The following year, he left his bride behind to serve with the Royal Canadian Engineers in France and Germany where he helped to rebuild bridges when were destroyed during the Second World War. Returning to the CNR in 1946, Mr. Hutton held a variety of positions that kept him on the move.

His family, which grew to include daughters, Deborah and Margo, lived in many cities across Canada. Eventually, Oakville became home and Mr. Hutton immersed himself in the community by giving his time and expertise to various boards. “My father was a patient, thoughtful and astute man. Emotionally, he was very even. He was on dialysis for the last nine years of his life and he coped with this difficult challenge with a great deal of dignity and courage, ” daughter Margo recalled.

Mr. Hutton’s generous bequest to the Foundation was one of the many in his will.

Excerpt from 1995-1996 Annual Report

Helen Gertrude Harrison

Helen Harrison was born in Hamilton in 1905, graduated from Loretto Academy and took a job as a secretary at Firestone. Her first big summer holiday was a trip to New York City, but when she married Chester Morgan Harrison, the couple fell in love with the tranquility of Ontario’s north, especially Algonquin Park. “Parts of the park were quite inaccessible, so Helen and Chester would hire a guide for canoe trips in the remote areas. She really loved to get out doors and leave civilization behind,” recalls her cousin Mary Lees.

An amateur artist, Mrs. Harrison did pen and ink drawings of plants and animals. She was also an accomplished pianist with tastes ranging from classical to jazz. Although an intensely private person, her home was always open to family visitors according to her nephew Peter Brown. “My aunt was an avid Scrabble and card player who also loved crossword puzzles. Uncle Chester and I had lively discussions about Shakespeare, ” he reminisced. Predeceased by her Husband, Mrs. Harrison lived the last seven years of her life at Highgate Manor in Ancaster. After remembering many family members and charities in her will she left a share of her estate to the Foundation.

Excerpt from 1997-1998 Annual Report

Heels Family Vocal Award Fund

Heels

Mary Josephine Heels, born August 25, 1908, had a life-long passion for music, and church music in particular. An accomplished pianist and singer, Mary was the contralto soloist at Zion United, Central Presbyterian and Binkley United churches. In the late 1920s she and her sister Ellen – later the Rt. Honourable Ellen Fairclough – entertained each week on their own half-hour radio program. Mary’s daughter, Dr. Joan Heels, said the $5 they were paid for each show was immediately used to purchase sheet music for the following week.

Her mother was vivacious and full of life, Dr. Heels said, and she loved to hear and tell a good joke. A graduate of Commercial High School in Hamilton, Mary worked full time at the Fairclough Printing Company and was busy every night of the week with community activities. A president of the Zonta Club Hamilton 1 and president of the Women’s Ad and Sales Club, she also established a scholarship with the Hamilton Kiwanis Music Festival in the church solo class.

As a tribute to her mother, Dr. Heels, a vocal teacher herself, established a fund at the Hamilton Community Foundation this year for worthy young music scholars.

“I was able to have piano and singing lessons as a child because my mother worked and I feel this is a way to honor her memory. I hope it will help students further their music education,” says Dr. Heels. The Hamilton Community Foundation, she added, is a safe place for the fund. “They have the expertise and will take care of it when I’m gone.”

Excerpt from 2000-2001 Annual Report

Lillian & Marvin Goldblatt Family Fund

This fund supports initiatives that address and build on the concept of family values within the community, especially in the area of seniors, children and youth.

Gibson Trust/Town of Flamborough

James Lewis Gibson Fund has been established with a purpose to assist in the payment of medical and health care expenses, including expenses related to nursing, respite care and health care received at home for sick children in the Town of Flamborough who are acutely ill or medically fragile or who are receiving in-patient or out-patient hospital care whose families would not otherwise be able to afford such expenses.

The Gallagher Family Fund

T. H. L. “Shiner” Gallagher was born in 1900 in Ottawa and grew up on Montreal and Toronto, where he attended Lower Canada College, Montreal and St. Andrew’s in Toronto. He spent his working life with Dominion Securities Limited, opening its Hamilton office in 1921 where he was a managing partner.

Mr. Gallagher was Alderman in 1933-34 and was active in the community. He served as Director of Chedoke Hospital. During the Great Depression, Mr. Gallagher was the driving force, along with G. Vert Rayner and Jean McTaggart, in answering a community need by founding Amity Goodwill Industries in 1935. In 1984, to celebrate his 50th year of volunteer to service to Amity, “Shiner” established the Amity Goodwill Fund to encourage and stimulate people with disabilities in their efforts to recreate their lives and achieve their career and personal goals. Mr. Gallagher was a valued ambassador for this agency in our community for many years.

Mr. Gallagher served during the last World War as Commanding Officer of the Sea Cadets Corps of Hamilton.

Mr. Gallagher passed away on August 28, 1999. He was predeceased by his beloved wife Frances (nee Innes), daughter Willemene Agro and son Harold. His contributions will be long remembered and he has left the world a better place than he found it.

Russell I. Elman Fund

The Russell I. Elman Fund was established with the Foundation in 1985 as a donor advised fund. Arising from Mr. Elman’s interest in the written word, the purpose of the Fund is to support initiatives related to reading and literacy.

Income from the Fund has provided a scholarship to a Canadian student studying at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. This Fund has also supported the Day Care Link initiative, a pilot project of Hamilton and District Literacy Council being undertaken at the MacNab Street YWCA Day Care Centre. The project is designed to stimulate the interest of preschoolers in books and reading.

Cygnus Fund

The Cygnus Fund supports Long Point Bird Observatory (LPBO), a program of Bird Studies Canada, located in Port Rowan, Ontario.  The purpose of the Fund is to strengthen and perpetuate LPBO’s ornithological research, population monitoring, and training.  Donations are welcome.  For more information, please contact the Hamilton Community Foundation.

Mary L. Cassidy Fund

Mary Lauder Cassidy, the only daughter of Edwin Cassidy, a longtime manager of the Hamilton branch of National Trust, graduated from Trinity College in 1931 with a degree in modern languages. She also studied business and became a secretary to the Dean of Medicine and worked at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She traveled extensively throughout Europe, Great Britain, Japan and the high Arctic, and took a great interest in matters of culture, civic affairs and education.

Her bequests confirmed these interests, whereby she supported scholarships, health and human service organizations and arts groups.

Miss Cassidy became sick with cancer. While in the hospital she developed an interest in the workings of the complicated equipment which surrounded her. Two of her bequests memorialized her late parents; perhaps it was her observation of their aging process that induced her gift to the community foundation “for charitable purposes in connection with aged people”.

Grants have been made from this Fund: to support footcare clinics in homes for the aged and nursing homes; to develop programs protecting older persons from abuse and self-neglect; to start up a stroke survivors’ group; to conduct hearing testing programs; to publish a directory of services for seniors; to investigate the service needs of rural seniors; to support seniors centres and residences, and for several other projects of benefit to the elderly.

J. Nelson Allan Fund

This fund supports services which provide care and assistance to seniors who are mentally and/or physically disabled and those services which help alleviate the stress on the caregiver.