Citizens of the year

Dear Friends,

Your kind and generous remarks, Tom Godber, are very appreciated. But in life, any endeavor is dependent on the support one receives – nothing really valuable is accomplished alone. All of us rely on family, friends and those who have gone before.

This evening I would particularly like to thank two great sources of support that I have received – the Mount-Royal Municipal Association (MRMA) and Rosslyn Tetley my wife for the past 53 years.

I became secretary of the MRMA, known then as the Mount-Royal Property Owners Association, in 1961 when Aubrey Shackell, a neighbor on Cornwall Avenue, knocked on the door and handed me, to my surprise, the minute books, Association’s seal, and other paraphernalia. He was moving from his home and said that he would make sure that I was elected Secretary (elections were very controlled in those days).

I was indeed elected Secretary, but the Association was in bad shape and had a list of about two hundred members who were not very active. Rosslyn and I went door-to-door selling two-dollar memberships across the Town and increased the membership to over twelve hundred. I eventually became President and then was elected Alderman to the Town Council in 1965.

The Mayor was Reg Dawson and the Town Council consisted of five remarkable self-made businessmen, all millionaires, all drivers of Cadillacs and none had been to university. On the other hand, I was not a millionaire, I drove a Volkswagen, but had been to university and worse still was a lawyer.

Mayor Dawson was very wary of me as someone who might present himself for Mayor in the next election. I therefore wrote Reg a letter, saying that I was not interested in being Mayor and he could use the letter against me, should I do so. Thereafter, Reg cooperated fully. He had named me “Commissioner of the Library”, but the only library we had was the small room above the police station. With Reg’s support the Town bought the lot behind the United Church on Graham Boulevard, hired superb architects – Messers, Donaldson, Drummond and Sanky, and I also employed the library consultant who had advised on Yale University’s famous multi-storied, windowless library. The consultant was retired, lived in Vermont, drove many times North to the Town of Mount-Royal and advised on the plans and construction for a total fee of one thousand dollars, including disbursements! I also had occasion in my legal practice to travel across Canada which allowed me to visit and inspect municipal libraries in many provinces and to learn from their mistakes.

As you know, we put the Children’s library in the basement, and there is a bridge and walkway straight through the library and out the other side by another bridge which walkway/bridges took the place of the path students had taken to school in the past. There was considerable debate in Town Council over this very original style of library, but in Expo year 1967 we won three prizes for the best public building built that year in all of Canada, the best library built that year in Canada and the best furniture that year.

All the while the Mount-Royal Municipal Association supported me and the remarkable and completely different architecture of the library, which at first was difficult for some citizens and councillors to appreciate. Thank you MRMA – the Town and its residents are indeed indebted to you.

I had promised Mayor Dawson that the library would be named after him and this also helped to get his support, but I did not expect it would be named in his lifetime or while he was in office. In 1970, however, when I was in Bourassa’s cabinet as a Minister, I was invited by Mayor Dawson to “open the library”. When the sheet covering the name inscribed on the library was pulled off, that name for all to see was “The Reginald J.P. Dawson Library.” This to no one’s complete surprise!!!

But Reg deserved the recognition. He was a superb Mayor who watched expenses like a hawk and had the Town’s well-being as his first consideration. (Another person in that mold incidentally is our present Mayor Vera Danyluk).

At this point I wish to thank my wife Rosslyn for her 53 years of devotion and love – mother of our four children and nine grand-children - for her support and her just plain hard work. She has also had a very public life of her own in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the McGill Book Fair, guided tours of Montreal for many years and was chosen as the sole English-speaking guide to instruct all future Quebec guides at the Quebec École de Tourisme et Hôtellerie on Saint-Denis Street. She has worked in our church, St. Peter’s, and in innumerable fund raising campaigns for cancer, Red Feather, UNCITRAL etc. etc. She is a familiar figure seen knocking on doors, collecting for some good cause across the Town and City of Montreal, but somehow she remains popular and welcome. How does she do it?

And she has always been that quiet voice behind me in politics and in life (a second conscience) who has always asked that important question “Is this the right course to take?”

Thank you Rosslyn. Thank you sweetheart.



William Tetley, Town of Mount Royal resident