Home Care In Lindsay, CA

Opinion Columns The Lindsay Advocate

A graduate of the University of Toronto, Trevor Hutchinson is a songwriter, writer and bookkeeper. He serves as Contributing Editor at The Lindsay Advocate. He lives with his fiancee and their five kids in Lindsay.

To date, 2025 has been an eventful year for weather events. That’s understating it. It has been a year of the type of storm that hits the fan.

We had the snowiest January on record. Lindsay, for example, received 113 cm of snow in January, over three times the average amount and required extraordinary public and private snow removal.

And who can forget the ice storm that happened in late March. The city was required to declare a state of emergency that lasted two weeks. Power outages and damage to buildings and property damage were widespread. There were more than 2,300 hydro poles destroyed. The clean-up went on for weeks. This timeline pales in comparison to the decades it will take the tree canopy to repair itself.

From that precipitation disaster we jumped to a lack of precipitation, with below-average amounts from April through to July (and counting). For much of the city, rainfall was 75 per cent below normal, according to Parks Canada. The long-term average for July is around 99.5 mm of rain. Some areas received as little as 12.6 mm. This led to heart-breaking conditions for local farmers. By mid-August the Kawartha Region Conservation Authority would call on residents to reduce their water consumption by 10 per cent.

And that drought led to yet another problem: two provincially classed forest fires, with more than 60 hectares of forest on fire at its zenith.

The city has yet to announce the municipal costs of the ice storm, however, we can expect it to be in the millions. It will probably be a couple months before the costs of the forest fires are in.

Paying the climate-change piper is not just some abstract thought here in Kawartha Lakes. These weather events are — and will — cost us large, both at the public and private level. And let me be unequivocal: severe weather events will be more frequent because of human-caused climate change, negatively affecting our health and standard of living.

The idea that climate change will lead to increased costs for us is not new. Government and private forecasts have predicted increased food, goods, insurance and health costs for Canadians with reduced GDP for years and the province’s independent Financial Accountability Office predicts a 16 per cent increase in municipal infrastructure costs due directly to climate change.

Although this city was one of the hardest hit by the storm, we were sadly not among the 50 municipalities to receive an Ice Storm Recovery Grant of $10,000 (that’s not a typo) from Hydro One.

With the city into its budget consultation process, hopefully some will advocate for more climate-change cost line items. Taking the steps as per our aspirational Healthy Environment Plan might reduce how much climate change will cost us. But some of those ideas require investment. Without bold action, we might be like the homeowner who can’t afford to fix the problem because of the mounting repair costs.

Community Education The Lindsay Advocate

The installation of playground equipment on the grounds of Central Senior Public School earlier this past summer heralds a significant change in the history of public education here in Lindsay. Starting in September 2025, the venerable old institution will welcome Grades 4 to 8 French Immersion students – and will thus cease to be a Grades 7 and 8 intermediate school, a role it has held for 70 years.

Central was more than just another elementary school. It was for four generations of Lindsay residents a kind of preparatory institution, a way station en route to high school. Parkview Public School’s 2003 yearbook, prepared by that year’s graduating Grade 6 classes, reveals that a significant number of students were looking forward to having their own lockers at Central, as well as enjoying the freedom to leave the school grounds for lunch. For this writer, the creaking old wooden floors and Edwardian architecture were the big draws: to walk the halls of Central was to take a trip back in time.

Although it was constructed in 1910, Central traced its origins back to the Union Grammar School, an eccentric-looking Gothic Revival building that was located approximately mid-way between Central and what is now LCVI. Opened in 1863, the Union school served the needs of elementary school students until Central School was ready to welcome students nearly half a century later. (Alfred Lafferty, who served as the Union school’s headmaster from 1871 through 1872, would go on to become the first Black high school principal in Ontario.)

The red-brick Central School was opened with great fanfare on July 6, 1911. Local clergymen offered up prayers and readings from the Bible, while Thomas Stewart, chairman of the board of education, spoke glowingly about the importance of free public education. Distinguished by symmetrical massing, the new building sported 11 classrooms and was crowned with a belfry that remains in situ to this day.

Despite their seemingly spacious quarters, Lindsay’s elementary schools were becoming crowded by the late 1940s. Trying to mitigate classroom congestion, the school board approved a plan in 1954 that would see Central become a Grades 7 and 8 “senior school” starting in September of 1955. This plan also called for the elimination of two recesses and a shortening of Central’s lunch hour.

To smooth out the transition, space was initially provided at Central for a Grades 3-4 and Grades 5-6 combined class, respectively. Not many students can claim to have attended their elementary school twice, but this is exactly what happened to Linda Thomson as a result of these changes. Thomson was enroled at Central from 1952 through the middle part of that decade, after which she had to make the walk up to Alexandra Public School for Grade 6 before returning to Central for Grades 7 and 8.

Perhaps somewhat awkwardly, Thomson’s mother, Jean Tompkins, was also her classroom teacher. “Mom taught gym at Central,” Thomson recalls. “We learned to dance with the boys’ gym class to be ready for our first close encounter of the opposite sex – the ‘Sadie Hawkins’ dance (an event in which girls invited boys to a school dance, rather than the other way around). If adding strings of numbers was frightening, inviting a boy to the dance was even more so.”

Population growth in Lindsay spurred the construction of an unsightly-looking addition to Central in 1962, complete with a new gymnasium and new classrooms. By the mid-1960s, its identity as an intermediate school was becoming firmly entrenched among students, who were by that point wearing school uniforms. A regular column authored by the “Central Senior Press Club” appeared in the pages of the Lindsay Daily Postthroughout that decade, and it offers some interesting – and amusing – insights about life at Central. “This year a graduation will not be held,” intoned a disappointed correspondent on June 3, 1965. “The staff felt that in other years the girls outdid themselves with expensive fussy dresses and high heels that did not suit a grade eight student.”

Central was also long known for its arts programming, with music classes being conducted by Mrs. Erma Garbig through the 1960s. By 1963, its choir numbered 80 voices and when it wasn’t performing in the school auditorium, it would join the Kinsmen Band at its Moods in Music concerts. “I think my favourite memories involve the bands, choirs, and musicals,” says Eric Smeaton, who taught music at Central for several years in the first part of this century. “There were rehearsals pretty much each day, so you really connected with the students and became a family of sorts,” Smeaton reminisces.

Those musicals were among the memories that have stuck with Katherine Eddy, who graduated from Central 20 years ago. “My two years at Central Senior were a special time,” she tells the Advocate. “I couldn’t have asked for better teachers and our principal, Mr. Sanderson, who really cared about their students and their success. The memories made in choir, taking part in The Music Man and school concerts, and simply walking the halls will last a lifetime.”

Though an intermediate school no more, Central’s legacy as Lindsay’s answer to a preparatory school will assuredly live on as it begins the next chapter in its long and intriguing history.

Community The Lindsay Advocate

F.B. ‘Daddy’ Silverwood

The Silverwood family of Oakwood, Ontario, has left a lasting mark both locally and nationally. William Alexander Silverwood and Mary Jane Cooney raised nine children in the mid 1800s, on a farm near the bustling village of Oakwood in modern day Kawartha Lakes.

The most famous locally of their nine is undoubtedly Albert Edward Silverwood, who founded Silverwood’s Dairy in 1928. The dairy grew into one of Ontario’s largest producers, becoming one of the leading dairy suppliers in the country. Albert’s brother, William Alexander ‘Billy’ Silverwood, also made significant contributions to Canadian history when he moved to Saskatchewan in 1907. There, he became a successful cattle rancher and later operated the Silverwood Springs bottle plant, just north of the city. Today, the neighbourhood of Silverwood Heights in Saskatchewan still bears his name.

Another famous, although lesser-known Silverwood offspring, is Francis ‘Frank’ Beatty Silverwood, hailed as one of the great leaders in the American men’s clothing industry. Born on May 18, 1863, Frank was the third of the nine children.

Around 1877, at just 14 years old, Frank left home and traveled to the United States to find work, he sold newspapers in New York City. Unsatisfied with his early struggles, Frank returned to Canada, where he was listed as a clerk in the 1881 census. At 18 he returned to the U.S., working his way across the Pacific Northwest before settling in San Francisco in 1883.

According to research conducted by Chris Jepsen for his article, “F.B. Silverwood and Our State Song” in 2018, “He (Silverwood) couldn’t find a job, and he only had $2.50 to his name.” Hearing of a job opening at a clothing store in Eureka, northern California, he sold his prized watch to pay for transportation to get there. In Eureka, Frank worked at Crocker Bros., a move that changed his life. It was also here that he became a U.S. citizen in 1892, and formed a lifelong business partnership with fellow merchant, George Edward Nagel.

After five years of hard work, Frank rose to the position of manager at Crocker Bros. In 1892, aged 29, he left the company and partnered with fellow clothier, William A. McNamara, to co-found McNamara & Silverwood Clothiers. However, after just two years, Frank set his sights on Los Angeles, where he opened his own men’s clothing store on May 13, 1894, with Nagel’s support. The opening of the store was announced with an advertisement in the Los Angeles Herald, where Frank personally invited the community: “In view of the fact that we are strangers among you, we take the liberty of specially inviting you to visit our store.”

Frank’s generous personality and humble attitude attracted Mary Funk, the daughter of Reverend Edward Funk and Lydia Newberry, of Illinois. The two were married on January 27, 1897.

This was the beginning of a prosperous venture that would cement Frank Silverwood’s place in California’s commercial history. By 1904, Frank opened a flagship store in downtown Los Angeles, known as Silverwoods, followed by a larger flagship store in San Bernardino in 1910. That same year, Frank and his wife travelled together to Japan, China, and Hawaii, one of Frank’s favourite destinations.

In 1909, inspired by his own difficult childhood as a newsboy in New York, Frank launched a nationwide program to support other young newsboys. He provided 500 boys, many of them orphans, with six copies of sheet music of a popular song to sell for 25 cents each, with the proceeds going to the boys’ savings accounts. Frank matched every dollar in the account if the account was still open in five years. By 1920, he had helped 12,000 boys. Frank’s goal was to teach them the value of saving and investing, writing, “You are living in a land where nobody is held down by caste… where poor boys become great men.” He signed his letters simply as “Daddy,” earning him this nickname.

Although Frank initially avoided the spotlight (there are very few photographs of him), the newsboy program eventually brought attention. His store became known as “the store with a conscience,” and other business owners followed his lead in promoting fair and ethical practices.

According to Jepsen, in the winter of 1912, Frank was sent to New York City on a buying trip and “found himself eating dinner alone in a New York café, homesick for Los Angeles and fed up with the miserable snow and cold.” On the train ride back, Silverwood captured his love for California in a song. Upon returning, he approached Abraham Franklin Frankenstein, conductor of the Orpheum Theatre Orchestra, who set the music to Frank’s words. The song, I Love You California, quickly gained popularity after its public debut by Mary Garden of the Chicago Grand Opera in early March 1913.

The song’s fame grew, later being played on the S.S. Ancon, the first merchant ship to pass through the Panama Canal in 1914. It was also adopted as the official song of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego in 1915.

However, as his music gained recognition, Frank’s personal life faced turmoil. In 1915, he filed for divorce from Mary, citing her desertion. Around the same time, Frank returned to his hometown to celebrate his parents’ diamond anniversary. The Daily Gazette (Beaumont, California) reported in its September 23, 1915, edition that:

“On August 7, Mr. and Mrs. William Alexander Silverwood of Lindsay, Ontario, Canada, parents of Mr. and Mrs. Silverwood of this city, celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. The evening was especially remarkable as all nine of their children were alive, six of whom were present at the festivities. F.B. Silverwood, the well-known clothing merchant from Los Angeles, attended and acted as toastmaster at the wedding feast. He is also the oldest living Mason in Lindsay.”

In 1920, aged 57, Frank married Happy Winkler from Wisconsin after meeting her earlier that year. The couple wed on Dec. 14, in San Francisco, and enjoyed a month-long honeymoon in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Frank wrote Honolulu, I Am Coming Back Again. However, just eight months after their honeymoon, Happy filed for divorce.

Even as Frank’s personal life was floundering, his business and songwriting were continuing to gain in popularity. His store was revolutionary in its approach to business, becoming one of the first to operate on a profit-sharing basis and pioneering the practice of “all merchandise plainly marked, the same price for everyone.” As his reputation grew, Frank expanded his business into a new, grand location at the corner of Broadway and 6th Street in 1920.

The new store, with 115,000 square feet of retail space across six floors, symbolized Frank’s belief that business should be about more than just profits — it should serve the community and promote fairness and equality.

Frank described the meaning behind his new building to The Los Angeles Times, saying, “I want this new store to stand as a tribute to service, to fair dealing, to the conscience of business. I want it to prove that there’s more to business than just dollars and cents.” He believed that success in business came from treating everyone equally and cultivating genuine friendships.

In 1922, Frank decided to step back from his business, giving the keys to his business partner George Nagel so he could travel the world. However, during a layover in Honolulu, on his way back to California, Frank suffered a stroke in January 1924. His close friend, George Nagel, quickly travelled to be by his side. After returning to Los Angeles, Frank suffered two more strokes and passed away on March 11, 1924. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Nearly 30 years after his death, Frank’s tribute to California became the state’s official song. In 1951, the California State Legislature passed a resolution declaring I Love You, California as the official state song, with lyrics by F.B. Silverwood and music by A.F. Frankenstein. Despite the song’s success, Frank and Frankenstein never received royalties from it. All proceeds were designated for the Shriners, with whom Frank had a strong connection through his charitable work.

In keeping with his humble beginnings in Ontario, Frank’s legacy lives on. It does so not just through his business and musical innovations, but through the lives he touched with his kindness, his generosity, and his enduring belief in the power of service.