This blog is dedicated to my dad - Part one

From the writer's collection - Baby Russ c. 1923

Tomorrow is Father's Day and I've been thinking about my Dad - Gordon Russell Brooks. When I was a kid I seem to remember him talking about writing a column under the title Babbling Brooks. So I'm using that name for my blog. There are a few other blogs under that name out there but the name means something to me so I'm using it anyway. So there.

From the writer's collection - my Dad the musician c. 1966

So where did my dad write his column? He attended the University of Toronto and completed a Mus Bac (bachelor of music) degree in 1950. He was lucky enough to study under Sir Ernest MacMillan and had talented classmates like Elmer Iseler (Mendelssohn Choir) According to the Torontonensis (U of T year book)he wrote a column for the Varsity, the university's newspaper.

Ancestry.ca - Canada, Selected School Yearbooks, 1908-2010, Torontonensis, 1950, page 179

Two weeks ago I attended the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference: Genealogy on the Cutting Edge. I sat in on an excellent session on how to use Evernote by Thomas MacEntee. I used my new skills to find the Varsity on line and clip and save my dad's columns. I found two from 1949:

The Varsity, September 22, 1949 - March 24, 1950 - November 7th 1949, page 4 Archive.org

SaveSave

This blog is dedicated to my dad - Part two

And here's the second article (please read the post below first):

The Varsity, November 18 1949, page 5

The Arts - Music - Drama column was buried at the back of the paper after the sports, clearly the most important topic in the paper. Much like how music was prioritized at high school! The paper was printed in blue ink when there was a Varsity Blues football game in the works.

It was interesting to see that there was also a writer by the name of Gordon G.L. Brooks, quite the coincidence. The Varsity had famous columnist such as Northrop Frye.

And great ads!

Archive.org has a great selection of periodicals. The Varsity papers are a great slice of university life though not indexed. 
Never did find "Babbling Brooks" but enjoyed finding the A-M-D columns.