With the owner of Exclusive Ambulance threatening to shut down his business, the only ambulance service in the city, the push was on in December 1962 to find provincial funding for the essential private service.
Previous to the private ambulance service, Miller’s funeral home offered a make-shift ambulance service. The only requirement for attendants was a driver’s licence and a St. John Ambulance first aid course certificate, if they wanted to take the course. Lawrence “Rat” Miller was a bit of a local ambulance driver celebrity.
His claim to fame was that he rushed a patient to Montreal Neurological Hospital from Cornwall in under 90 minutes. There was no Highway 401. It was all two-lane Highway 2.
The Exclusive Ambulance owner said many times people transported to hospital were either unwilling or unable to pay for the service which had a big impact on his bottom line. There was no government funding.
He told the city that a Quebec municipality had offered him a contract to leave Cornwall.
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A little too much affection.
In December 1962, that was how the judge hearing the case of a Cornwall resident charged with common assault soft pedaled the case before him.
A 13-year-old girl, a Montreal Road neighbour, complained that the man molested her by grabbing her, putting her on his knee and forcibly kissing her. The distraught teen told her parents who called the city cops who put a detective on the case.
The police, after consulting with Crown attorney R. Percy Milligan, decided to charge the man with simple common assault and not sexual assault which they said would not stand up in court because there were no witnesses to collaborate the young teen’s story.
Oddly, defence attorney George Stile, who would become a county court judge, did not dispute the girl’s story of being put on the man’s knee and kissed by him.
Instead, Stiles called it a “foolish” thing and his client now realized how “foolish” he was.
Even Mag. P. C. Bergeron weighed in on the “foolish” part of the incident.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” said the judge.
And with that he ordered the accused, who generously pleaded guilty to the common assault charge (and why not) was “slapped’ with a $25 fine.
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ALSO IN DECEMBER 1962 – Nick Kaneb was re-elected mayor with a 3,000-vote edge on challenger Dr. Elzear Emard. Others in the race were former mayor L. G. Lavigne and Robert MacDonell. Six new councillors – Norm Baril, George Charlebois, Douglas Warner, Aurele Clement, Lionel Vaillancourt and Matthew Holden – were elected.
For the first in a local municipal election, church halls, public buildings and schools were used along with homes for polling stations. In all, there were 73 polling stations spread across six wards, stretching from the Monte Carlo Motel, 1700 Montreal Road to Blackadder’s Motel, 1613 Second St. W.
Cornwall native Bernard Lajambe was ordained to the priesthood at Nativity Church. … Det. Herb Raymond was elected to his second term as president of the Cornwall Police Association. Sgt. Stan Harkin was first vice-president and Const. Ivan Cardinal second v. p.
George Harrop was re-elected president of the Cornwall and District Labour Council. Const. William Vipond and Const. Camille Roy became a piece of Cornwall Police Department history when they became the first city police officers to attend the new Ontario Police College at Alymer, Ont. They were enrolled in a 12-week course. The OPP maintained its own police college in Toronto.
Const. Ford McGillis, who suffered a shotgun blast to the chest while on a “routine” domestic call early Christmas morning, was making a slow but steady recovery in hospital.
An editorial in the Standard-Freeholder noted that the income tax introduced by federal finance minister Sir Thomas White in 1917 was sold to Canadians as a “temporary” tax to pay the First World War debt. The paper wondered how long was temporary? The Ontario Housing Advisory Committee recommended loans be given to owners of older homes to keep them from deteriorating into slums. It said many families could not afford to make needed repairs. The loans, it said, would help replenish the country’s low housing stock.
The YM-YWCA was selling the three-storey, 14-room house with almost a half-acre of property at 329 Sydney St. The home had been willed to the “Y” by the owner.
Cornwall Motor Sales, 25 Second St. W., offered tune-ups for $8.
The pre-Christmas rush at the Cornwall post office had staff handling 13,000 parcels and 110,000 pieces of mail each day. To help out, 110 part-timers had been hired.
Owner-manager Larry Lascelle was struggling to keep his league-less Cornwall Royals operating with a series of exhibition games. If the junior club could make it to the end of the regular season it would be eligible for the Ottawa and District Hockey League playdowns. Lascelle, a Courtaulds shift worker, was dipping into his pocket to keep the team afloat. Eventually, he found a sponsor, Gordon Refrigeration, and was joined by Norm Baril. The shoe-string budget required players to supply most of their equipment. Volunteer drivers, many parents, were recruited to drive players to out-of-town games. In a rags-to-riches story, within 10 years the rag-tag club was transformed into Memorial Cup champions.
TRIVIA ANSWER Former Saskatchewan premier and national NDP leader Tommy Douglas was voted greatest Canadian in a 2004 CBC poll. His daughter Shirley was married to actor Donald Sutherland. His grandson is Kiefer Sutherland.
TRIVIA This TV actress turned down an offer from Playboy in the early 1970s to pose nude for $1 million: 1) Angie Dickinson (Charlie’s Angels), 2) Loni Anderson (WKRP), 3) Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman), 4 Suzanne Somers (Three’s Company, 5) Cathy Lee Crosby (Barnaby Jones), Sally Struthers (All in the Family).
QUOTED – “Halloween is the beginning of the holiday shopping season. That’s for women. The beginning of the holiday season for men is Christmas Eve.” – David Letterman
