Former American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, wife the late Franklin Roosevelt, used her syndicated column My Day on this date in 1955 to describe her visits to Montreal and Toronto. She had spoken before sold out crowds in both cities on her trip.
“On Monday morning I flew up to Montreal to be the guest of the United Nations Association of Canada. The headquarters of the association, however, are at Ottawa.
The Canadian setup is somewhat different from ours. Their provinces being larger than our states, they have councils in some of the big cities such as Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec. They are gradually building their association to cover the country as a whole, however, and they are many of the same problems that we have here in the U.S.
Despite its vast expanse of territory, Canada does not have as great a population as we do, but its people are showing a great deal of activity.
The Montreal branch was given a reception by the mayor in the afternoon in my honor and then I attended a small dinner in the French Faculty Club which was very pleasant. After that we went to the biggest church in town, which seats 2,400 people. People even sat on the steps and in the aisles and it was estimated the audience totaled 2,700 people. The committee members were elated to have such a response to their invitation and to see such evident interest growing in the U.N.
After the meeting I took a train for Toronto and it was a most comfortable trip. I was met on arrival in the morning by Mrs. William Tucker, who as chairman of the evening meeting was supported by a number of other people including the American consul, which I thought was very kind.
After breakfast I did a recording for one of the regular stamp club broadcasts and then I had a press conference. There was a small lunch of businessmen at one o'clock, for they are making the effort, just as we do, to gain the support of business for the U.N.
In the afternoon there was an official reception and the evening meeting was in Massey Hall—a large hall—and it was filled to the topmost gallery.
The people in Toronto were most kind in their welcome and it gave me a sense of warmth to be there. After the meeting we spent a half hour in the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Edmison and then I returned to the hotel to stay overnight and catch the 7:30 Trans-Canada plane for Idlewild.
The flight was beautiful and we landed at nine o'clock. I had a full morning to catch up on the mail, which always piles up even when I go away for two days!”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.