Disasters at the Plant
Snow Stranded
Only two major events occurred during GECO’s operation that strained medical and management staff.1 Ironically, neither was an explosion or workshop accident.
The first event — the heaviest snowfall in seventy-five years to hit Toronto — began after midnight on Monday, December 12, 1944, and continued well into Tuesday.2 “Traffic is at a complete standstill,” reported the Toronto Daily Star, “as one of the greatest snowstorms of Toronto district’s history left a blanket of one to two feet on level roads and piled drifts as deeply as seven feet.”3 Twenty-two inches of snow fell in less than twenty-four hours.4 War plants shut down, including GECO, whose Monday overnight shift became stormbound, with all roads impassable between the plant and the city.5 Upwards of 1,300 workers — the vast majority of them women — were unable to go home.6 While a snowfall might have been a good way to stir up some good old-fashioned Christmas spirit, the snowstorm was more than Toronto could handle. Gale-force winds buried cars entirely.7
Carol LeCappelain was one of the weary workers who were more than ready for a hot meal and rest. She remembered having to sleep overnight at GECO.8 It was GECO’s first real widespread emergency and everyone in a service or support position — from management to supervisors, from engineers to nursing staff — pitched in. Lines of position and responsibility blurred, with staff and fuse-fillers helping wherever there was a need. Security guards and maintenance workers helped with cooking and serving coffee. Engineers and carpenters shovelled snow. Two men manned the P.A. system and kept workers up to date on war and storm news, and relayed personal messages. Even weary operators helped out. Mrs. Ignatieff, who lived in a pre-war house at the northwest corner of the plant, walked through drifts up to her chin to get to the plant.9 Along with her tired staff (they had worked all night too) she stepped into the fray and fed the masses.10 Anyone and everyone cooked, washed dishes, and cleared tables. With their stomachs satisfied, hundreds of tired “soldiers” bunkered down in the cafeteria or in change rooms.11 Others played cards, sang, and otherwise entertained themselves.12 The Medical Department, under the leadership of Dr. Jeffery, helped those who had “succumbed to fatigue or worry.”13 Switchboard operators stayed on the job for seventeen hours straight.14
Meanwhile, others attempted to get to the plant. Fire chief Tom Benson trekked three hours through the raging storm from his home at O’Connor and Broadview … on foot.15 The Hollinger Bus Line struggled to keep their buses moving in the early stages of the storm, but had to give up as the weather intensified.16 Molly Danniels recalled she waited for the GECO bus Tuesday morning, but only three other women made it to the bus stop.17 When the women finally were picked up and delivered to the plant, Molly found just six other women in her workshop.
Only three buses made it to the plant that day.18 One bus became stuck in a snowdrift at Woodbine Avenue and O’Connor Drive.19 Carol, when she heard about the women trapped inside the bus, worried they would freeze to death if they weren’t rescued soon.20 They waited for four hours in the bitter cold before help arrived.21
Greg Simerson, teenaged son of GECOite Zaida Simerson, recalled that with roads and sidewalks impassable, and a temperature of minus 23 degrees Celsius, he and his dad outfitted a toboggan with a big cardboard box.22 They filled it with blankets and trudged through deep snowdrifts to GECO from their home on Rosemount Drive off Eglinton Avenue East, east of Birchmount Road.23 While Zaida was a modern-day worker doing men’s work for the Allied forces, she still wore dresses and stockings to work; the bitterly cold weather that frosty morning caused her toes to freeze, and the little rescue troupe had to stop at the first house on Rosemount Drive to ask for help.24 The family graciously helped warm up Zaida’s feet with warm water.25 The determined trio set out again, but by the time they reached home at “the top of the hill,” Zaida’s toes weren’t the only casualty of the war against the storm.26 Greg had collected his own battle scars — the bitter cold temperatures had frostbitten the tips of his ears and are still waxy today.27
By noon on Tuesday, breakfast in the cafeteria had morphed into a full-course free dinner. At one point the bread supply ran low.28 GECOnian Gord Garrity walked south to Danforth Avenue and hauled 150 loaves of bread back on a toboggan.29 Garage mechanics equipped a bulldozer with a snowplow.30 Between the Good Roads Commission and the Provincial Highways Department, along with the tireless work from behind GECO’s eight-foot fence, they won the battle against the snow late Tuesday afternoon.31
GECO’s snowplow led the way and broke through heavy drifting snow while the company’s fleet of heavy-duty ammunitions trucks, filled with exhausted employees, formed a convoy.32 Carol, along with several other women desperate to get home, huddled in the back of one of the trucks. “We felt like a herd of animals,” Carol recalled.33 An hour later, the truck dropped them off at Dawes Road and Danforth Avenue, and from there she still had to walk about three miles home in the raging storm.34
Bob Hamilton was forced to cancel four shifts at GECO, suspending fuse-filling for thirty-two hours.35 Production started up again Wednesday in time for the afternoon shift.36 Bob wrote a letter of thanks to all GECO employees once the snow had settled a few days later:
The qualities of mind and character that make good will were genuinely demonstrated by the employees of Scarboro on December the 11th and 12th.
Twelve hundred and fifty finished their night shift to find themselves storm bound for 10 hours. Cheerfully they helped each other to “carry on.” Many trudged miles through the storm to look after their special responsibilities and worked long hours — up to 36 — to keep the services going.
Every responsibility was met.
Hundreds of others struggled for hours to get to work and their failure was no fault of their own.
For all these evidences of loyalty and devotion to duty your Management is grateful and more than that — proud.
May you all at Christmas enjoy that good cheer your good will has earned and on behalf of the Management I thank you for what you have done. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
— R.M.P. Hamilton37
Death at the Plant
On January 26, 1945, a Hollinger bus carrying employees back to the city at midnight collided with a heavy truck owned by Toronto-Peterboro Transport. The accident occurred at the eastern junction of GECO’s parking area and Eglinton Avenue.38 The bus spun around from the impact and its side was torn out, while the truck careened into the ditch.39 The truck’s driver was uninjured, but the crash demolished his vehicle.40
According to newspaper coverage, eighteen workers were injured in the accident, the most seriously being Mrs. M. Parkes, who suffered a fractured skull and a number of other injuries.41 Others like Mrs. G. Sinclair, Mrs. R. Wolffers, and Ms. Jean Box suffered serious fractures and shock.42 Hollinger bus driver Mr. Stan York lost consciousness and sustained serious chest injuries.43 Frightened women jumped through shattered bus windows to escape.44
“Drivers of other buses parked at the plant did valuable work in quelling what might have been a panic,” said Mr. John Hollinger, head of Hollinger Bus Lines.45 “There was a rush to the front of the bus where a number of passengers had already been standing beside the driver. Those who jumped through the windows ran the risk of being cut by glass left around the edges.”46
The compassionate staff of GECO’s medical centre worked diligently to render first aid, and prepared and stabilized ten seriously injured victims for transport to hospital.47 In the minutes of GECO’s staff meeting, dated January 30, 1945, Major Flexman, plant manager, openly thanked Dr. Jeffrey and his staff for “the speedy and accurate diagnosis of injuries received by the passengers and the quiet efficient handling of all cases.”48
Management made only a terse mention of the accident in GECO’s chronological record: “Collision of bus with other vehicle at junction of parking lot exit and highway results in injury to employee passengers, ten requiring hospitalization. One of these (Mrs. Parkes) died four days later.”49