Lois May Bennett

Other Events:

• Interesting: crime, misfortune, scandal
• Name: Lois May Hughes
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-126496
• Misfortune: 1933, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died as a result of illegal abortion

Notes:

Kitchener's reputable Mayfair Hotel had a scandalous secret

KITCHENER - It was just past noon when William Ter Marsch heard a knock at his hotel room door. It was the police. They'd heard about the strange operations he'd been performing, and now there would be questions.

Officers pushed their way inside and found an assortment of tools needed for Ter Marsh's secret work - bottles of glycerin, mysterious vials, droppers, syringes and needles. It was Nov. 1, 1933. More than three and a half decades before abortions were legal in Ontario, Kitchener's now-demolished Mayfair Hotel was known as a place where women "in trouble" could find a solution to their "problem."

And Ter Marsch was the unlikely man to offer his help, for a fee.

An accountant with no formal medical training, he'd stumbled on a lucrative, and illegal, side business in the middle of the Great Depression. As a former book keeper to A. E. Dunlop, Ontario's provincial treasurer, he was well-connected, impeccably dressed, and trusted by the women who came to him.

Then it all fell apart.

A young woman, Lois Hughes, had died at St. Mary's General Hospital. She was victim of what the coroner called septicemia, or blood poisoning, from a botched abortion. The evidence pointed straight at Ter Marsh.

On her death bed, Hughes told her story, and detectives were dispatched to the Mayfair Hotel looking for Ter Marsh. The details of Hughes' tragic end would be repeated in court and in the pages of The Record over the following months...

Waterloo Region Record 22 Aug 2015

Lois married Clifford Davis Hughes 28 Apr 1920, Westmeath, Renfrew Co., Ontario. Clifford was born 1899, Westmeath, Renfrew Co., Ontario; died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]