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FETE J.H. CROW ON REACHING 87
[Welland Tribune November 22, 1943]
Welland’s First World War mayor, John H. Crow, is today in his 88th year, having observed his 87th birthday yesterday. He is in splendid health for his age, his mental faculties are unimpaired, and his joy of life is still keen. He is as genial and as full of outstanding fellowship as he was 30 years ago. Today many of his friends are congratulating him at his home on Niagara street, and he and his sister Mrs B.J. Cooper have received many messages of felicitation.
Born on his father’s homestead in 1856, Welland’s grand old man has experienced a full life. Educated in Pelham township and Fonthill Grammar school he was a school teacher at 17 and later was one of Welland’s best known baseball and hockey players. He opened a successful hardware business in 1886 in partnership with the late J.B. Taylor, which he maintained as a sound business enterprise for over half a century. He was mayor of Welland in 1907 and in 1908 and again in 1915 and 1916. He was worshipful master of Merrit Masonic Lodge in1887, and is a P.D.D.G.M.of the Masonic fraternity in the Niagaras.
He was a member of Welland High school board for some years and for a while was a member of Welland County General hospital board of governors.
Of all these tokens of a long and honorable life few have given Mr Crow such joy as his reminiscences of the days of baseball and hockey, of earlier Masonic honors and of his years as Welland’s was mayor. They form the centrepiece of a pattern filled to the brim with life’s joys and sorrows, and war and matters military have not passed him by.
When he was 10 years of age his homestead in Pelham township was a stir with word of the coming of a great band of Fenians, who, happily never materialized. In his earliest years he was a lieutenant with the old 44th Lincoln and Welland Regiment, and was at camp two summers. Later, while he was mayor of Welland, his son, Lieutenant Gordon W. Crow was killed in action of the Battle of Courcelette, late in the summer of 1916. He resides with his sister Mrs B.J. Cooper, Niagara street, who is now in her 94th year.
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