This noteworthy save in 2024 was not made on a frozen sheet of ice, or on a baseball diamond, or on a soccer pitch.
It was made by Cornwall Police Chief Shawna Spowart.
Despite being accused of poor leadership by the police association, Spowart came out of the bull pen to save the force from a possible take-over by the Ontario Provincial Police and job losses. She could have been forgiven if she had turned her back on the same people who had turned theirs on her in an anything but positive survey carried out by the association with some calling for her resignation.
With city council gearing up for a vote to ask the OPP for a cost study, the first step in a take-over, Spowart swung into action and became a masterful lobbyist, contacting each councillor before making her pitch to council. She wasn’t down on her hands and knees begging the politicians, she was armed with facts and statistics that supported her belief that cancelling the local force would be a huge mistake, one that would be almost impossible to reverse. In the end, the idea of replacing Cornwall Police Service, with the provincial force, an idea which had been simmering on the back-burner for years, was laid to rest for good.
Don’t know if it happened, but the day after her compelling presentation to city council, every member of the force, including association brass, should have been in her office to shake her hand and say thanks. Ironically, a few months later, with the cost of using the OPP going through the roof, some United Counties’ councillors suggested they’ll reach out to Cornwall Police Service.
IN THE REAR-VIEW MIROR: On January 23, 1953, from his cell in the ancient United Counties jail, a 21-year-old farmhand convicted of murder, could hear the workers building the scaffold for his execution in three days. That afternoon Sheriff McNaughton visited the condemned man. In his hand was a telegram marked “Urgent.” It contained a rare Order from the Governor-General Council that commuted the man’s sentence to life in prison, to be served at Kingston Pen.
Work on the scaffold stopped. The ‘professional’ hangman who resided in Montreal was notified his services were no longer required. He was out his $100 fee. Three days later, on the day he was to be hanged, the prisoner was transferred to the infamous penitentiary where he was to spend the rest of his life. “I told him he was a lucky man,” the sheriff informed the media. “And he agreed.” His defence lawyer, J. C. Horwitz of Ottawa, one of the best in the country, had pleaded in his appeal that his client was not mentally competent.
A few days later United Counties council passed a resolution calling on the government to remove the burden of carrying out executions from local governments and pass it to the provincial government with a central execution site.
ALSO IN JANUARY 1953: A 50-year-old brass hand-held bell was used by public works to warn households of a water service disruption. An employee rang the bell while riding on the back of pick-up truck. (Be interesting to know what happened to the bell)…The city’s biggest bonfire was at the landfill site (a.k.a. dump) where thousands of Christmas trees collected after the 25th were burned. An estimated 6,000 trees were burned over a two-week period…Cornwall Township was seeking extended Cornwall Street Railway bus service (which ended at Ninth Street) to Eamer’s Corners…The Navy League of Canada announced that a Sea Cadet Corps would be set up in Cornwall. The corps would train at the Salvation Army Citadel (now a municipal parking lot) on First Street West…Contract for a new federal building at Sydney and Second Streets was given out. Cost of the two-storey building (now the public library) was put at $944,633. ($11.5 million in today’s dollars). The bottom floor would house the post office, while the second floor would have RCMP, immigration/citizenship and custom/excise offices. In the Cold War era, the basement was a designated bomb shelter, stocked with beds and non-perishable food, for civic officials…Vital statistics kept at city hall showed that Cornwall had 305 deaths in 1952 and 222 marriages. There were 1,438 births (baby boom was in full swing). Two busiest months for the stork were July (146) and August (134). Do the math. The grim reaper paid 42 visits in January and 35 in May. This was when the city was one square mile (Water to Ninth and Cumberland to Marlborough) with 13,000 residents…Ontario secondary teachers warned that a lack of funding by the provincial government would create a shortage of high school teachers in a few years…For the second time in three weeks there was a vehicle-CN train crash at the Cumberland Street crossing. Each crash resulted in serious injuries…Ontario dairy farmers were fighting the introduction of vegetable-based oleomargarine (known as margarine)…A survey of 13,000 male and female workers in Stormont showed that 10,000 earned at least $50 a week. … Nelson J. Charlebois, who started with Cornwall Street Railway as an open street car conductor, retired after 47 years. When the company set up a fleet of buses in 1940, he became a driver..Gus Lebrun and Jim McKeown had two goals each as Colts dumped Pembroke 5-2 in a senior hockey game.
TRIVIA ANSWER: Dudley Moore and Bo Derek shared a kiss in the 1979 movie ‘10′.
TRIVIA: Bo Derek grew up in California. She attended high school as 1) Ruth Johnson, 2) Mary Peterson, 3) Michelle Gray, 4) Mary Collins, 5) Stephanie Swanson.
QUOTED: When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something , they will tell you. – Former NFL star Walter Payton
