Podcast

Peter Handley:
Hi there and good day! Welcome to North Bay's heritage diary. Listen up, and we shall weave for you tales of days and times gone by which can inform today and show the way to tomorrow. This municipal Heritage Committee podcast looks at our town, our people, and our stories. This time we open our diary of voices from the past for a conversation with the late World War II Veteran, City Politician, and businessman— Don King. This was originally recorded in 1999 as part of the Cogeco cable series, “Life Is.” In part one, King talks about family history, the war, and amalgamation. Please excuse any date in references.

Peter Handley:
Your family came from England, is that right?

Don King:
Yes from England originally. My dad was born in Sturgeon Falls.

Peter Handley:
Is that right?

Don King:
Yeah, and my mother was born in South River.

Peter Handley:
So do you remember when the family came over?

Don King:
I don't remember when they came from England; I can't remember that part of it. But I know that my dad or my grandfather worked for the CPR. And I was told that he died of pneumonia on the track. He was a track mines man or something, mines informant or something where they walk the track so many miles a day and do the inspections. So that was back in the 1800s. My dad was born; I guess, in 1887 somewhere around there, 86.

Peter Handley:
Okay.

Don King:
And they came to North Bay after his dad died. He was only five years old when he came to North Bay.

Peter Handley:
And we're talking around the turn of the century are we?

Don King:
Yes this would have been around about 1891/92, somewhere in that neighborhood.

Peter Handley:
And you're 77.

Don King:
I'm 77.

Peter Handley:
So, before we get into you, we want to take a look at some old pictures that you have that date back to the very early 1900s.

Don King:
1904 to be exact.

Peter Handley:
And we have one with the young man on a horse sitting on what looks like Acorduroy road.

Don King:
That's right, that's over where the fire station is today on Ferguson Street. And that was the outside road of the city of North Bay in 1904.

Peter Handley:
And that's your dad? That's my dad. The next one is a building with a carriage going in front of it.

Don King:
That’s a big shop

Peter Handley:
A Big shop. Okay.

Don King:
But it was beside where Deegan's store is today. Deegan's burnt down in the 40s or 30s, as I understand it, but that was in 1904 as well. And my dad was the delivery boy on the wagon.

Peter Handley:
And there's a wooden house.

Don King:
That's where Brown Firs was on Main Street East. That was one place— the second place that my grandparents lived.

Peter Handley:
And there's some people, seems to look like a mother, maybe, with some kids in the backyard.

Don King:
That's my grandmother and two of my aunts.

Peter Handley:
Okay and the last one is a strange one. We've got a moose. A moose that is surrounded by a bunch of kids and a gentleman holding the moose. It looks like he's got it as if the moose is going to serve as a horse.

Don King:
Form the story that I was given, that's where the St. Regis Hotel was. It's an apartment building there now. And they'd cut the moose and they were going to use it for labour.

Peter Handley:
Oh, wow.

Don King:
And he's got a halter put in his hand there. My dad is one of the young guys that is behind it.

Peter Handley:
What do you remember yourself of North Bay, when were you born in the 20s?

Don King:
I was born 1921.

Peter Handley:
What do you remember about the city and the area? What part of the city did you grow up in?

Don King:
I was born on McIntyre Street. No! Worthington Street, which is kitty corner from the post office the second house in. It's a little red brick house. It's still there.

Peter Handley:
All right. So that that was... where was that, that was around the center of the city?

Don King:
That was the center city.

Peter Handley:
Okay. What do you remember about it growing up that neighborhood?

Don King:
Well, from there the first part I remember is basically we moved from there to Maher Street. That's up off Laurier Avenue behind Fisher Street. I was about five years old when we moved up there.

Peter Handley:
All right.

Don King:
I remember one time my dad had an old Model T Ford. And he was going downtown to do some shopping. He wouldn't take me with me so, if couldn't go, he wasn't either. So I took a bunch of tacks and laid them behind the tires. I'll tell you, I never did it again.

Peter Handley:
He found out what happened?

Don King:
He found out what happened.

Peter Handley:
You've always been unafraid to do things like that.

Don King:
That’s the pleasure of living.

Peter Handley:
So some others like Jimmy Kelly grew up in the same area.

Don King:
Yeah, Jimmy was up on Hardy Street actually Maher Street ran into Hardy Street, and it ran into Laurier Avenue. Jimmy wasn't living there when I lived up on Maher. He came later when I was living on Laurie Avenue at that time after we moved from Maher Street to Laurier Avenue.

Peter Handley:
What, as youngsters now nowadays, youngsters have so many different things they can do. From A to Z just about, how did you amuse yourselves in the in the late 20s.

Don King:
You know what? That wasn't hard at all. We used to...we were creative, I guess. When you look back at it, there wasn't a lot of money. The pleasures you made yourself and we did. We'd just go what now it'd be two blocks, and we'd hunt rabbits. We'd play cowboys and Indians. We have one tree that we called the pears and tree. It was a big, white birch. That's only about two blocks from Laurier Avenue. But that was in really backwards. And that's just about where the bypass is now. So the gang got together down on Fisher Street and we'd build a skating rink and the hockey rink. We raised the money for it. The city didn't give us any money. We built the boards, leveled off the ground, paid for the hookup of the water services, used horse manure to keep it from freezing. So anyway, and we'd flood the rink ourselves. We built a little building on the corner across from Bob Taylor store. The first part we use his stores wireless covers and he gave us permission to use the back porch. The Taylor's were all involved in the group there and the whole gang around there. There were always lots of kids. So we created our own entertainment.

Peter Handley:
Was sports a major part of it.

Don King:
That would have been correct. Yeah, we did a lot of a lot of sports.

Peter Handley:
But it would be pickup sports?

Don King:
Yeah and we organized the sports and all.

Peter Handley:
Okay, did you play ball at all?

Don King:
Yeah. In the schoolyard, we used to use the schoolyard for ball, soccer, football, hockey, down there.

Peter Handley:
Your own kids didn't do that. Right?

Don King:
No, not in that. No, they didn't have to.

Peter Handley:
It’s more organized.

Don King:
That's right. Like when my first boy came along. I lived on Cassel Street, which used to be called Dominion. Now just at the side of the bypass. I was the first chairman of a Kingsmenrose level playground on the old Cassellhome property, behind the old building. And we raised the funds, I think the most we got from the city on that project was $3,000 and we built the rink. We built a ball field with likeminded standards. We got the tubing from the ONR and had the shops and ONR weld them together for us. There was a pull track and we hauled from the ONR out there and stood them up. So everything was of voluntary nature. We build the building which is 30 by 40 out of cinder blocks because the city gave us no money. For me what happened I guess, they had a lease of $1 a year from Cassellhome and they failed to pick up the lease. So they lost.

Peter Handley:
So, Don King's growing up, he's got a whole bunch of buddies. The Fisher street gang, I guess you call them pretty close friends.

Don King:
Yep.

Peter Handley:
And then World War Two comes along in 1939, the late 30s.

Don King:
Yeah.

Peter Handley:
And what happened? What changed? You'd been working for the ONR and you decided you were going to enlist.

Don King:
There wasn't a great deal going on in those days for teenagers. So, I guess I'm getting... I don't recall but it had to be the base of just sitting around and talking and someone said, "Okay, let's go enlist." So we decided, and on one Sunday morning in July and we went up to the old armournies on Oak Street.

Peter Handley:
Armouries on Oak Street?

Don King:
Yeah. It used to be where...you wouldn't remember Gamblin Robertson at Berlanti restaurants. It's just west of Berlanti's on Oak. And we went up and joined the army.

Peter Handley:
The whole group?

Don King:
The whole group was about 35 of us.

Peter Handley:
Had the Algonquin regiment been formed?

Don King:
It just mobilized at that time. It was brought into; it used to be the old 159

Peter Handley:
All right

Don King:
That was a pioneer regiment in the First World War.

Peter Handley:
So, they put you in the Algonquin regiment?

Don King:
No we joined.

Peter Handley:
So you joined the Algonquin Regiment?

Don King:
It was recruitment for the Algonquin Regiment.

Peter Handley:
Okay, what kind of kind of training did you go through?

Don King:
We started up at the Collegiate on Algonquin Avenue, but it wasn't called Algonquin then, it was called Ian? We started regional training with route marching around the city down Fisher Street, their old stomping grounds, Cassel Street, wherever that was the exercise to get coordination, I guess. Lots of emphasis on turns, working on left turns, right turn, whatever. That was behind the collegiate where the cadets used to do their training. And then the old timers would remember the cadets. And then we went to Camp Borden, in town board and we had about six to eight weeks. And while I was there I got pneumonia, and I ended up in the Hospital in Toronto. I caught up with the unit in Port Arthur. They took me back to the unit and so near to Manitoba, shallow Manitoba. Near back down to Niagara-on-the-Lake. I did guard duty on the canals and whatnot. Route marches down in Manitoba were terrific. You'd walk all day and you're still standing still.

Peter Handley:
How did you as a sort of a free spirit as a youngster, how did you react to the discipline in the military?

Don King:
Well...not well.

Peter Handley:
Did you get yourself in hot water?

Don King:
I was in hot water all the time. I got in trouble a couple of times and had to go on leave. I ended up in the yard house.

Peter Handley:
Would you do it again, the same way?

Don King:
I think so.

Peter Handley:
Okay. Okay. Eventually you got shipped overseas?

Don King:
Yeah. We landed down in Sussex down round Brighton. So many names down in that area. We did train there. And then when we did training up in Scotland on the west coast of Scotland, we did combat training, which is scaling flips, landing from ships down under barges to the land and you’re basically your infantry right? We were all definitely infantry.

Peter Handley:
And then shipped overseas to Normandy?

Don King:
Yeah. We weren't the first group there. We came in a little later. We're about four weeks, I guess before we got there. But they hadn't gotten very far inland.

Peter Handley:
Right. Okay.

Don King:
Well we were a part of the interruption layer.

Peter Handley:
What do you what do you remember about active fighting? Was it just... do you remember anything about it?

Don King:
Really it’s gotten very dim. The majority of it. You got to figure its 55 years ago.

Peter Handley:
Yes.

Don King:
Things get a little bit dim because you remember certain things... I very seldom speak of it the ones that were basically...

Peter Handley:
It’s tough you when you got wounded and then you're taken prisoner; you can see all these war movies and so on and so forth. You were just you're just sort of enduring I guess it's just you're in prison and...

Don King:
Yeah, you reminded me there were maybe 50/60 guys, and they would be surrounded by barbed wire fence with guards around it.

Peter Handley:
We're you treated reasonably well? You know, looking back at it?

Don King:
Not really. OH, it was a little bit rough. But there were good times and bad times.

Peter Handley:
Do you remember when you were released?

Don King:
Oh, yeah. I remember getting released. Patton's Army. That came up. We were at the Castle on Main at the time, and it was a mass camp I'd been at so Patton's Army comes up through there. And they were over around the camp.

Peter Handley:
You had a pretty tough March at one point. Did you not?

Don King:
Yeah, they call it the death march.

Peter Handley:
After the war, you come back, come back to North Bay, North Bay had changed, and the world had changed. And Don King went back to work for the ONR. And eventually, you decided that you wanted to get into politics?

Don King:
Yep.

Peter Handley:
Now, I'm thinking, the wound and the years that you went through to recover from that and the surgery and so on and so forth. Most people would say, “I am not going to go public, because I just don't feel comfortable.”

Don King:
No, I basically have no shame for it

Peter Handley:
Well you shouldn't. And you decided that you wanted to represent the peoples of Widdifield. You lived in Widdifield at the time.

Don King:
Yeah, it was a good time there.

Peter Handley:
But again this goes back maybe to Don King as a young man sticking tacks under the dad's car and going AWOL, and all the rest of it. Don King was going to live his life and do his thing the way he wanted to do it.

Don King:
Peter, I always did.

Peter Handley:
Yep. I think everybody recognizes that. Back in the late 50s, early 60s it was a lot different. You ran for Widdifield Council-

Don King:
That's right.

Peter Handley:
Sort of small town politics would you call it?

Don King:
Yeah, I think you would. We had we had four members of council, the original when I ran Jack Bolton was Reeve. And it was very, very friendly. We used to hold card games after the meetings, and when I became Reeve I used to keep a bottle of whiskey in the drawer. I'm sorry to say it now, but why not. And we got after the meeting. We go into the Reeve's office and sit down for a drink and play game cards.

Peter Handley:
But you got things done too.

Don King:
Yeah. When I ran for Reeve my campaign, the first time. Well the only time around for me. I ran the Boat Hydro on King, and we were on provincial hydro works. And I wanted to drop the cost of hydro by 30%. Okay, so my argument was we, if I were elected, then I would push for the Ontario hydro to permit us to form Widdifield hydro Commission and purchase hydro on a one time basis instead of each individual peak load base. And that reduced the cost of hydro by 30%, with the exception of one group of people, and that was service stations. That was based on peak load. They had the high peak load in the fall and winter. And that brought the rates up higher than what they were paying before. This wasn’t good. But the rest of the community enjoyed a 30% reduction in class.

Peter Handley:
So you got you got in and you did this.

Don King:
And I won’t by, Oh by 20 votes.

Peter Handley:
Did your opponent asked for a recount?

Don King:
Yes, we had the recount, and recount. And I think I went down to 18.

Peter Handley:
That time though you must have been since amalgamation took place when 1968?

Don King:
1968. Actually that's a funny one, Peter. If you think about the city of North Bay, they did not make an application as the Widdifield Township would appeal with the permission of the council made the application to the municipal board for the township of Widdifield to appeal to amalgamate the city of North Bay to the township of Widdifield. That's how the thing came about. And the reason for that is very simple. North Bay was contemplating annexing certain portions of Widdifield. Which was owned by Johns Manville in that area, and they wanted the industrial part. You know if you want the industrial part, you take all or nothing. So the municipal board brought in West Ferris. We didn't ask for West Ferris to be a part of it. It was the way it came about was because of the municipal board in the hearing that was held in the Old City Hall.

Peter Handley:
So in other words, you were trying to forestall the city of North Bay?

Don King:
No, actually, you know, and in those days, you got grants in lieu of grants from the province, like for ditching culverts and things like that. And he got 80% grant and the cost of construction. So the idea was, if we became part of North Bay as city, we dropped down to I think it was 30 or 40% on the grants that were given them those days. So I was doubling grant, as a township. So revert back to Township, increase your money from the province. Simple.

Peter Handley:
Yeah. But you got to think a certain way. You got to think a certain way, don't you?

Don King:
Yeah. But it was, I knew they wouldn't let us do that.

Peter Handley:
So after amalgamation, you join them. You became a member of council; you're on Council for 24 years. You were involved with a whole lot of controversy over the years, for example the North Gate.

Don King:
Oh that was great.

Peter Handley:
Don do you enjoy controversy?

Don King:
Oh, absolutely.

Peter Handley:
Let's stir the pot.

Don King:
It’s the spice of life. Well, no, it makes things happen.

Peter Handley:
Okay,

Don King:
It makes things happen.

Peter Handley:
So when you when you're doing this sort of thing, you've got an underlying purpose to it.

Don King:
Oh, absolutely, every step.

Peter Handley:
You think things out in advance do you?

Don King:
Pretty well. Sometimes I'm wrong. Yeah, a lot of times I'm wrong. I had one where Dick Donnelly got me on it. And I was selling dog licenses. We hired a chap that was going to show us that he could sell us a great number of dog licenses and we'd pay for the cost on the Humane Society and whatnot. I fell flat on his face. That never got off the well. We sold a few but didn't get off base.

Peter Handley:
How to deal with Dick Donnelly?

Don King:
I found Dick very, very amicable. We seemed to have an understanding and we never got into any real controversy. We had differences of opinion.

Peter Handley:
Do you think that was because he felt that you were too strong to deal with?

Don King:
I wouldn’t know. You'd have to ask Dick that one. No I think he appreciated me, and I appreciated him.

Peter Handley:
Cassellhome has been your love?

Don King:
Yeah, I mean

Peter Handley:
1976

Don King:
I started in 1962 appointed by the province. I guess Cassellhome had been a financial problem. And I and Willard Richardson were appointed by the province to try and-- Willard was a strong person-- to try and bring it around out of its financial difficulties. And we did. That was 1962, just shortly after the building was built, the existing building. I've been on there ever since with the exception of one year.

Peter Handley:
And they named the auditorium for you and you're still chairman of the board, and very highly respected for the work that you've done over the years.

Don King:
I like the work. We've got without a doubt and praise of other having had some involvement. I think we got the best place in the province of Ontario here in North Bay. It's economically sound. We stay within budget. We had one of the lower homes—I don't know whether the lowest—cost per bed in the province. So that in itself says something.

Peter Handley:
This edition of our heritage diary voices from the past with the late Don King was originally recorded in 1999 for the Cogeco cable TV production, “Life Is,” and is rebroadcast in this format through the courtesy of Cogeco Your TV. Thank you for spending some time with us and listening to our stories. These productions are put together by the North Bay Municipal Heritage Committee, not only to retell old tales, but hopefully to kindle interest in area history. Local lore is important to any community. We shouldn't let it go unremarked and unremembered. Views expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the corporation of the city of North Bay, or its employees. Join us next time, when we flip another page of the diary of our shared past. You can reach us at Peter.Carello@cityofnorthbay.ca. Production – Casey Monkelbaan and Peter Carello. Pete Handley speaking.