Lions Were The First Service Club In Newmarket

About a year ago, Brad Joseph pitched the idea of doing a column on the Lions Clubs of Newmarket and their history.

He arranged for me to interview Tom Gordon from the North Newmarket Lions Club, and this column is the product of that interview and some information I had from a previous presentation.

I’ll begin with a quick history of Lions Clubs International. The organization was founded in July 1917 by Melvin Jones of Chicago to better communities beyond business issues. The first organizational meeting was held June 7, 1917 in Chicago, where the Association of Lions Clubs was formed. In October 1917, a constitution, bylaws, a code of ethics, emblem and motto We Serve were established.

The association became international in 1920, with the first international club established in Windsor. By 1931, Lions had expanded into Mexico, and the first international convention outside the United States was held in Toronto. The association continued growing rapidly, establishing clubs in Sweden and Switzerland after the Second World War in 1948.

As of 2019, Lions Clubs International had more than 1.7 million members in more than 200 countries and geographic areas worldwide.

The Lions have a long and rich history in Newmarket, founded in March 1931 as one of the first service clubs in our town. Its establishment was the result of a group of 36 prominent businessmen and concerned citizens coming together.

The club made its focus the welfare of children and broader community, paying for dental, medical and hospital bills, arranging eye exams, and starting a school milk program. For more than 93 years, the local Lions have been assisting the community through their Santa Claus Fund, providing food during the Christmas holidays.

A second club was established in 1982, the North Newmarket Lions Club, chartered with Ellerby Farr as the president.

Both Lions Clubs take the term ‘service to community’ seriously. Over the decades, the Lions in Newmarket have stepped forward to support numerous initiatives, including the building of parks, the establishment of a school for children with learning disabilities, wading pools, and contributing to the refurbishment of the community center and Lions Hall. They have also provided financial support for every expansion of Southlake Regional Health Centre (formerly York County Hospital), they built the first children’s ward, and continue to support the children’s cancer ward.

Both Lions clubs have been fixtures in the community, organizing and supporting various events and programs over the years, including:

• The Santa Claus Fund, which provides food during the holidays for local families in need.
• The Coats for Kids program, providing winter clothing to families in need.
• The Vision Screening Program: The Lions have been attending elementary schools for the past eight years, testing students (in senior kindergarten) for lazy eye. This program has helped identify vision issues in three out of 10 children, allowing for early intervention.
• Their eyeglass recycling program.
• The Effective Speaking contest for students to promote self-expression and independent thinking among students.
• The Peace Poster and Peace Essay project.
• The Reading Action program, which promotes community literacy.
• Supporting Southlake Regional Health Centre, including building the first children’s ward and supporting the children’s cancer ward.
• Building parks, a school for children with learning disabilities, wading pools, and contributing to community centre/Lions Hall refurbishments. (Donated $400,000 toward renovations.)
• Annual fundraisers like the Fairy Lake Artisans Festival, Canada Day celebrations, and fall dinner and dance.
• Supporting organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters (annual Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl for Kids’ Sake event, Newmarket Baseball Association, Navy League, Sea, and Air Cadets of Newmarket, the 3rd Newmarket Scout Troop, the Xtreme Drummers group at Bogart Public School, and Community Living.
• The creation of Lions Park at Church and D’Arcy streets.
• Providing bursaries to deserving high school students to help them continue their education.
• Facilitating high school students to earn their community service hours by volunteering at Lions events, thus encouraging local youth involvement through volunteering opportunities.
• Providing funding for school programs like breakfast clubs and end-of-year trips for students in need.
• Bursaries and scholarships: The Lions club awards bursaries to deserving high school students to help them continue their education, supporting the educational aspirations of youth in the community.

The Lions’ involvement in the area of vision is said to stem from 1925, when, at its international convention, Helen Keller challenged the Lions to become “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness,” leading to a focus on vision programs.

My memories of the Lions revolve around their involvement in the Newmarket Lions Music Festival established in 1960. My research has highlighted the strong connection between the Lions clubs and music festivals in various communities. I wrote a column on the Newmarket Lions Club’s annual music festival, which I recommend.

The Newmarket Lions Club used to organize an annual music festival, giving local participants the opportunity to perform and be adjudicated. It offered professionally adjudicated classes for students of all ages and levels in various musical disciplines like piano, voice, strings and choral.

This festival ran for decades and aligned with the Lions’ mission of community service and supporting artistic development. I participated in the choral reading section twice under the direction of Evelyn Denne.

Along with bringing together performers, teachers, adjudicators and spectators, and creating a sense of community around the shared love for music, the festival also served as a fundraising event for the Lions clubs.

I have endeavoured to list some of the names of the founding members of the two Newmarket Lions clubs and some of their more prominent members. One will most certainly recognize many of these individuals as in addition to being Lions, they were prominent members of our community.

• Tom Gordon, a past international director from 2017 to 2019.
• Ellerby Farr, 1982, the charter president of the North Newmarket Lions.
• John McCaffrey was the first president of the original Newmarket Lions in 1931.
• Eugene McCaffrey, John’s son, was the president of the Newmarket Lions Club in 1961 and 1962 and had a significant involvement with the Newmarket Lions Club. The McCaffrey family had a multi-generational connection to the Newmarket Lions Club.
• Charter members (1931) Archie Cousins, W.E. Cane, Dr. Dales, Andrew Davis, Doctor Boyd, William Bosworth, W.A. Ball, William Eves, Alex Georgas, Herb Gladman, David Ripson, Fred Lundy, Ken Miles, W.W. Lundy, Ralph Cane, Bernard McCale, W.E. Nash, E. Nesbit, W. Osborne, Robert Pritchard, Ken Robertson, William Reilly, Lyman Rose, and Dr. Vander Voort.
• Lion Ernie Crossland helped the Lions club raise money, prompting a new pedestrian bridge at Fairy Lake to be built and named in his honour. Crossland received the honorary citizen award for his dedicated good works.
• Mike Springford is a past president of the North Newmarket Lions Club and was instrumental in organizing major events and initiatives including the successful winter coat campaign.

Like most organizations of the past, the Lions Clubs reflected the prevailing attitudes of the period. Lions clubs have a problematic history of organizing and hosting minstrel shows, which were performances involving offensive racial stereotypes and depictions of Black people. We in Newmarket and area were not exempt from this form of entertainment, and neither was our local club.

Minstrel shows originated in the 19th century and involved non-Black performers donning blackface makeup and caricaturing Black stereotypes through song, dance, and comedic skits. While minstrel shows were once a popular form of entertainment, they are now widely condemned for their blatant racism and promotion of racist tropes. The fact some Lions clubs continued hosting these offensive performances well into the 21st century is highly problematic and goes against modern values of racial equality and respect.

In an interview dating back to the early 1970s, I addressed this issue with my uncle, Jack Luesby, who participated in local shows. I asked him how the Lions got involved in minstrel shows. He explained the minstrel shows were considered a form of community entertainment and fundraising in the early to mid-20th century. The shows were very popular back then — one could argue one of the most popular forms of entertainment locally at the time — with tickets sold out months ahead of the performances.

Newmarket Lions have been involved in the establishment of nine local clubs in Barrie, North Newmarket, Holland Landing, Bradford, Port Perry, Beeton, Richmond Hill and Mount Albert as their sponsorship entity.

Sources: Club History – Newmarket Lions Club; Stories and history | Lions Clubs International; northnewmarketlionsclub; Newmarket Lion celebrates 30 years – York Region News; Newmarket Lions Club: Home; Lions Clubs International Multiple District A, Ontario, Canada; Lions clubs reach milestones – York Region News; Newmarket Lions Club Music Festival – A History of 20 Years by Eugene McCaffrey.

Newmarket resident Richard MacLeod, the History Hound, has been a local historian for more than 40 years. He writes a weekly feature about our town’s history in partnership with NewmarketToday, conducts heritage lectures and walking tours of local interest, and leads local oral history interviews.