Ike and Shahnaz Ahmed Foundation Fund

Ike & Shahnaz Ahmed

Ike and Shahnaz Ahmed at one of the many community events they liked to attend.

Ike Ahmed was thinking about the past, the present and the future when he created the Ike and Shahnaz Ahmed Foundation Fund at Hamilton Community Foundation last November.

The past was his blissful 36-year marriage to Shahnaz, who passed away suddenly in April 2005 at the age of 60, and Ike’s desire to honour her memory, their life together, and their mutual love of Hamilton.  The present is the community need he sees: hunger, poverty and unemployment, and the arts and cultural organizations that contribute so much to quality of life.  The future is his plan that the fund will grow when part of his estate is designated to it.

Ike is a well-known figure in Hamilton: a very successful financial planner; a generous and active patron of the arts, and a community volunteer through the Downtown Rotary Club, St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and other organizations.  His journey to Hamilton from his birthplace of India came by way of Karachi, Pakistan, then to Vienna, Austria, for university, with jobs that followed in Sweden, Denmark and then Berlin.

It was in Berlin that he met Shahnaz, who was German but took a Pakistani name when she married Ike.  Ike was transferred to Hamilton and they began to build their life here.  Ike and Shahnaz were famously close and Ike says they literally never spent one day apart in all their years of marriage.  Pictures of the two of them, often in formal dress at community events, adorn the walls of Ike’s home and his corner office at the Standard Life Building.

“What we achieved, we achieved here in Hamilton, and Shahnaz helped me every step of the way,” Ike explains.  “I’m glad we settled here 38 years ago.  I thought of Hamilton Community Foundation for this fund, and for part of my eventual estate, because there are good people who run the Foundation.  They will make decisions about how it is to be disbursed, knowing what my interests are.”

Excerpt from 2006-2007 Annual Report

Flora Frid Fund

Isabella Flora Frid was the daughter of a country doctor and sister of the founders of the McGregor Clinic. She was renowned for her handcrafted Christmas crackers and for her magnificent gardens in Waterdown. A charter member and former President of the Garden Club in Hamilton, Mrs. Frid enjoyed its activities up to her death in her ninety-eighth year. She graduated from New York’s Roosevelt Hospital and nursed overseas during the First World War.

The widow of H.P. Frid of Frid Construction, she was Hamilton Foundation Board member in the 1960s.

Excerpt from 1987-1988 Annual Report

Vera M. Elwin Fund

Vera Elwin, born at the turn of the century in Dymock – a tiny agricultural village in England – was in her early teens when she emigrated to Canada with her parents. Her father, an insurance agent, settled the family in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Although she contracted polio as a child, she was a tall, slender, health -conscious woman who lived to the age of 95.

When she married for the first time at age 65, Mrs. Elwin had already supported herself for years working as a secretary, first in Montreal and later in the U.S. Her husband, George Elwin, had been vice-president of finance at Stelco and sat on the first Board of Directors of Hamilton Community Foundation. A sister-in-law, Jean Bendall of Ottawa, describes Mrs. Elwin as self-sufficient, clever and extremely loyal to her family. Mrs. Elwin had a lively interest in current and community affairs and indulged a whimsy for astrology. She kept her own apartment on the mountain and drove her deep green Mercedes Benz until 18 months before her death.

Many individuals and organizations were remembered in her will including the Foundation.

Excerpt from 1995-1996 Annual Report

Mary Kathleen Drynan

Mary Drynan, born in 1902 in Woodstock, Ont., had decided on a career in nursing when she enrolled at the Wellesley Hospital in Toronto. Before her studies were completed, however, she accepted a proposal of marriage from the dashing William Drynan, a businessman employed at Canadian Canners. The couple settled in Ancaster and the family grew to include three children – Bill, George and Alice. Daughter Alice Lundon remembers how her mother turned her considerable intelligence and energy to community work with the Junior League and a boys’ orphanage. She was also an avid reader, antique collector and a gardener with a penchant for roses and peonies. The Foundation received a bequest from her estate. This gift reflects the long-standing interest both she and her husband, Lt.-Col. William Innes Drynan, had in the Foundation. Lt.-Col. Drynan, who was elected Foundation president in 1968, also served on the Board of Directors.

Excerpt from 1958-1996 Annual Report

Alphonse Dirse Fund

Alphonse Dirse came to Canada in the late 1940s, having left his native Lithuania to avoid the Russia invasion. Born in 1913, the eldest of five children, he completed his schooling at 15, worked on the family farm and served in the army before making his decision to emigrate. Eventually, he found employment in the mines of Northern Manitoba and worked underground until a mining accident intervened. He then moved to Ontario and finally settled in Hamilton where he worked in a factory until his retirement in 1978. To keep busy, he continued to work whenever possible, usually on the Hamilton docks during the shipping season.

Upon his death in 1989, the Foundation learned of his bequest, a gift for general charitable purposes in the community.

Excerpt from 1991-1992 Annual Report

E. Francis Dennee Fund

Francis Dennee

Edward Francis Dennee is remembered by his many friends as a warm and gregarious man, one who was always concerned about the needs of others. Born in Hamilton in the early 1920s, Frank Dennee served in Burma during the Second World War. Later, he continued his education and worked in finance at Stelco. Mr. Dennee traveled extensively and developed a discrimination taste for opera, dance and theater. He was a well-known bridge player and a valued member of the Board of Players’ Guild.

He died in 1993 and, without any immediate family to consider, left his estate to friends, and to several local organizations involved in the arts, health care, social services and animal welfare. The Foundation also received a gift.

Excerpt from 1994-1995 Annual Report

Mary Margretta Day

Mary Day graduated from McMaster University and worked with National Trust in their real estate division throughout her business career. She lived on Fairleigh Avenue South with her parents, Edwin and Maple, and greatly enjoyed her English gardens and her cats. Miss Day was a devoted member of the Church of St. Peter and Past President of the Y.W.C.A.’s “Happy to Serve” Club, a group of senior business and professional women.

Excerpt from 1990-1991 Annual Report

Walter & Mildred Danby Fund

Originally from a farm near Mt. Forest, Ont., Mildred Leanna Gilstorf was a physician’s house keeper before her marriage to Walter Danby, a Hamilton homebuilding contractor. Together, they built a substantial trust fund for causes of deep personal concern, including severely burned children, church and missionary work, and health problems such as arthritis, cystic fibrosis and mental disabilities. The Walter and Mildred Danby Fund supports several named organizations working in these areas. Following her husband’s death in 1978, Mrs. Danby stayed on in her Florence Street home, which Mr. Danby had built some 60 years earlier, until she passed away in 1988.

Excerpt from 1988-1989 Annual Report

Vangie M. Crosthwaite Fund

Vangie Crosthwaite took a great interest in documenting her family’s early history in the Hamilton area. Her ancestors settled in Bartonville, and today a street in that area bears the family name. As was the custom, she stayed at home on King Street East to look after her parents, Nellie Gage and Harvey Franklin Crosthwaite. Her garden was a source of great pleasure, not only to her, but to others who nominated her for several Trillium Awards.

Excerpt from 1989-1990 Annual Report

Donald A. Cooper Fund

Donald Armstrong Cooper died at the age of 86, was a well-known and respected teacher and administrator within the Hamilton Board of Education.

A 1928 graduate of Queen’s University, Mr. Cooper taught mathematics and became Principal of Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute and was Superintendent of Secondary Schools at the time of his retirement in 1969. He was past President and life member of the Ontario Educational Association. Mr. Cooper was also a musician, singing with the Bach Elgar Choir and playing violin in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.

His bequests to arts and cultural organizations, hospitals and educational institutions, as well as his gift to the Foundation for general purposes, reflect his lifelong interest in culture and learning, and his concern for the well-being of his fellow citizens.

Excerpt from 1991-1992 Annual Report