Franklin Wellington Wegenast

1876 - 1942  (65 years)

• Name	Franklin Wellington Wegenast
  Born	17 Jun 1876	New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  Gender	Male
  Interesting	story, law
  Residence	1881	New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  	Evangelical Association
  Occupation	1891	Waterloo City, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Apprentice Printer
  Occupation	1901	, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [5]
  	teacher
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-149304
  Died	2 Jun 1942	Preston (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3, 4]
  Buried	Oakwood Cemetery, Simcoe, Norfolk Co. , Ontario, Canada   [4]
  Person ID	I149304	Generations
  Last Modified	25 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	Martin Smith Wegenast,   b. 4 Mar 1836, Black Creek, , Ontario ,   d. 22 Sep 1914, Waterloo City, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 78 years)
  Mother	Dinah Sauer,   b. 26 May 1842, Lyons, Wayne, New York, United States ,   d. 27 Dec 1913, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 71 years)
  Married	24 Mar 1874	Hamilton, Wentworth Co., Ontario, Canada   [6]
  Family ID	F37385	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos		Franklin Wellington Wegenast Wegenast. Image courtesy of the family of F.W. Wegenast. Source:
  		Franklin Wellington Wegenast Wegenast. Image courtesy of the family of F.W. Wegenast.

  
  

• Notes

  WEGENAST, FRANKLIN WELLINGTON, teacher, musician, lawyer, politician, and author; b. 17 June 1876 in Waterloo, Ont., son of Martin Smith Wegenast and his second wife, Dinah Sauer; m. 14 Aug. 1901 Margaret Mary Bell (1878\endash 1950) in Oxley, Ont., and they had three daughters and two sons, of whom only one daughter, Elsinor Louise, survived infancy; d. 2 June 1942 in Preston (Cambridge), Ont., and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Simcoe, Ont., beside the four children who had predeceased him. Franklin Wellington Wegenast grew up in a German Canadian household with ties to the Evangelical Association, a Methodist group formed in the United States by members of the Pennsylvania Dutch community in 1800. (In later life he would become an Anglican.) At one point he boarded with an Amish family and this experience, in conjunction with his own evangelical background, encouraged a lifelong interest in the Mennonite faith. From his early years, he was involved with music. Said to have begun supporting himself at the age of 12, he nevertheless managed to graduate from high school in Berlin (Kitchener). In 1898, having obtained a teacher's certificate, Wegenast began his pedagogical career in Colchester South, Essex County. He also studied music and organized concerts at Harrow and Kingsville. In 1900, now living in Simcoe, he taught music in the public schools, gave private singing lessons, continued to put on concerts, and acted as choirmaster at St Paul's Presbyterian Church. He also prepared for an associate diploma in singing at the Toronto Conservatory of Music [see Edward Fisher*], from which he graduated with honours in 1902. By that time he was residing in Woodstock and conducting the choir of Central Methodist Church there. An interest in law had developed over the years, and Wegenast became articled to attorney John Soper McKay while in Woodstock. In 1905 he moved to Brampton and commuted to Toronto for courses in law at Osgoode Hall. In order to support himself and his wife, he became choirmaster of the Brampton Presbyterian Church, serving there until his resignation in 1915. For two years, in 1906\endash 7, he conducted the Brampton Choral Society, and he also wrote music. He graduated from law school in 1909 and won Osgoode's Christopher Robinson Memorial Prize. The following year he took the exams for an llb at the University of Toronto and passed with first-class honours. In 1908, while still a law student, Wegenast had asked the Board of Railway Commissioners to compel the Grand Trunk Railway to include Brampton among the towns eligible for cheap commuters' tickets to Toronto; the matter would eventually be taken, unsuccessfully, to the Supreme Court of Canada, where he helped present the case on behalf of the City of Toronto. After his graduation Wegenast joined the Brampton law office of Benjamin Franklin Justin, where he spent four months, practised alone for a similar length of time, and then became counsel to the Canadian Manufacturers' Association (CMA), whose first legal department he organized. He remained with the association for seven years. During his career he appeared in a series of actions involving constitutional law and the respective rights of the dominion and provincial governments. For example, he represented the CMA in the insurance reference case of 1912, which the Supreme Court of Canada decided the following year by ruling ultra vires the attempt by Sir Wilfrid Laurier*'s government to require federal licences for insurance companies operating in more than one province. He also argued before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England, his first case being John Deere Plow Company v. Wharton in 1914, in which he was opposed by Edmund Leslie Newcombe*, who argued the federal side. War broke out while he was in England, and he stayed on for a time in the hope that his ability to speak German might help the British cause. Wegenast had also represented the CMA during a three-year investigation into the liability of employers for workplace injuries, begun in 1910 by Commissioner Sir William Ralph Meredith*, and he subsequently prepared a draft of a workmen's compensation bill for Ontario. The draft was rejected by Meredith, but the CMA was able to win some concessions as the commissioner's own bill proceeded through the legislature. Wegenast drew up possible legislation in the same field for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well, and the compensation acts of these and other provinces were largely based on the bills he had formulated. In 1911 he brought out a pamphlet, Workmen's compensation for injuries … (Toronto), and also a book, Extra-provincial corporations … (Toronto). Under the auspices of the CMA he later became involved in organizing safety groups in factories, and he would be for a time secretary to the Federation of Safety Associations \endash the precursor of Industrial Accident Prevention Associations, formed in 1917. His interest in workmen's compensation gave his career a nationwide dimension, as did his involvement in insurance matters. According to the Bench and Bar in 1936, "He has had a hand in framing insurance legislation in all of the provinces." In 1917 he was called to the Manitoba bar. In the early 1920s Wegenast acted as secretary and legal adviser to the commission investigating the operations of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario [see Sir Adam Beck*]. He focused as well in this decade on the writing of a book on company law. Margaret Paton Hyndman*, who had joined his firm in 1920, worked closely with him on this project. Wegenast's support of a young woman practitioner was unusual at the time. The book, The law of Canadian companies, was published in Toronto in 1931. Two years later Wegenast was made a kc. A long-time member of the Peel Liberal Association, Wegenast sat on the Brampton town council for many years from 1909, was reeve in 1923 and 1924, and served as mayor from 1925 until 1928 and again in 1930. He beautified the southern entrance to the commercial district by straightening the creek that ran through the area and building retaining walls for it. From 1914 to 1917 he was president of the local Board of Trade. A member of the Brampton Horticultural Society, he enjoyed landscape gardening, and he kept sheep, ducks, and horses on his property, which consisted of 25 acres on Highway 10 (Main Street). While he had less time for music, he still managed to sing at concerts; as late as 1940 he would be a soloist at the Brampton Presbyterian Church. A linguist who was fluent in French as well as English and German, Wegenast studied Italian and then Chinese. Since he was able to speak Gaelic, having picked it up in J. S. McKay's law office, many people in Brampton thought him a Highlander. One of Wegenast's clients was Alvin Ratz Kaufman*, owner of the Kaufman Rubber Company in Kitchener [see Jacob Kaufman*]. Philanthropically inclined, Kaufman gave to local charities and in 1931 founded the Parents' Information Bureau. This organization sent out agents who offered advice on birth control as well as contraceptive devices at cost. The bureau's service spread outside Kitchener, and in September 1936 one agent, Dorothea Palmer*, was arrested in Eastview (Ottawa) and charged under the Criminal Code with "offences against morality." Kaufman was prepared to fight the case with all his resources. His interest in birth control stemmed from his concern with over-reproduction among the poor, his alarm at the power of the Roman Catholic Church, and his bias against French Canadians. Some scholars have concluded that it was because Wegenast shared Kaufman's eugenic views that he took the case. Evidence does not support this theory. Wegenast did not want to be involved in the trial: he had no interest in contraceptive campaigns or in related sterilization movements. Kaufman later claimed that he had had to persuade Wegenast, said to be in poor health, to appear in the action. Having agreed, Wegenast focused on the legal questions surrounding birth control as well as on the rights of women. He organized his arguments to prove that birth control was pro bono publico. "No one," he stated bluntly, "is entitled to get up in this court and argue that the chief end of man is to bring into the world as many souls as possible to become baptized and to praise the Lord for ever and ever." In March 1937 he won the case, thereby setting a legal precedent in the area of birth control. The trial apparently prompted an involvement in eugenics, for at some point he joined the Eugenics Society of Canada. In the spring of 1938, after Wegenast had suffered a heart attack, Kaufman funded a four-month rest trip for him in Europe, during which he kept a journal of his impressions. After World War II broke out the following year, he became head of the enrolment section of the Brampton win-the-war committee; according to his daughter, also a lawyer, his professional practice nevertheless suffered because of his German background. In May 1942 he went to stay at the Preston Springs Hotel, a favourite haunt. Several days after his arrival he died there of kidney failure. His wife survived him for eight years and was buried beside him in Oakwood Cemetery. Margaret E. Derry Selections from Franklin Wellington Wegenast's diary of his trip to Europe in 1938 have been published as Liberty is dead: a Canadian in Germany, 1938, ed. M. E. Derry (Waterloo, Ont., 2012). The essay for which he won the Christopher Robinson Memorial Prize, "The federal system," was published in shortened form in the Canadian Law Times (Toronto), 30 (1910): 11\endash 38, 121\endash 27. His book The law of Canadian companies was reprinted in 1979 (Toronto) with a foreword by M. P. Hyndman. He is also the author of A brief on workmen's compensation ([Toronto, 1912?]), which the Canadian Manufacturers' Assoc. reprinted from Sir W. R. Meredith, Interim report on laws relating to the liability of employers to make compensation to their employees for injuries received in the course of their employment which are in force in other countries (Toronto, 1912). Some of his musical compositions are indexed at Library and Arch. Can., "Aurora: LAC's library catalogue": bac-lac.on.worldcat.org/discovery (consulted 23 Jan. 2019). Arch. of Ont. (Toronto), C 81-1-0-29 (interviews with Margaret Hyndman); RG 80-5-0-289, no.5597. Private arch., Margaret [E.] Derry (Caledon, Ont.), Wegenast family papers. Univ. of Toronto Arch. and Records Management Services, A1973-0026/502 (89) (Wegenast, F. W.). Univ. of Waterloo Library, Special Coll. & Arch. (Ont.), GA 58 (Parents' Information Bureau fonds), GA 138 (Augustine, Ham, Kaufman family fonds); GA 172 (Parents' Information Bureau Ltd fonds: accrual 2005); WA 17 (Palmer, Dorothea coll.). Bench and Bar: the National Legal Newspaper (Montreal), May 1936: 3, 7. Evening Telegram (Toronto), 3 June 1942: 24. Globe and Mail, 1908\endash 42, esp. 3 June 1942: 4. Peel Gazette (Brampton, Ont.), 4 June 1942: 1, 4. Toronto Daily Star, 1908\endash 42, esp. 3 June 1942: 8. Angus McLaren, Our own master race: eugenics in Canada, 1885\endash 1945 (Toronto, 1990). McKenzie Porter, "The legal lady," Maclean's, 15 July 1949: 15, 22\endash 24. General Bibliography © 2019\endash 2020 University of Toronto/Université Laval Biography \endash WEGENAST, FRANKLIN WELLINGTON \endash Volume XVII (1941-1950) \endash Dictionary of Canadian Biography. (2020). Retrieved 29 May 2020, from https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wegenast_franklin_wellington_17E.html ______________________ Funeral For F.W. Wegenast K.C. At Brampton Today A prominent Brampton and Toronto barrister, and well known in the Twin City, Franklin W. Wegenast, K.C.. died Tuesday night at Preston Springs, Preston. He was in his 66th year. A resident of Brampton, Mr. Wegenast was a member of the law firm of Wegenast and Hyndman. Deceased suffered a stroke while working in Timmins. He succumbed after several weeks' illness. Mr. Wegenast once taught school in Wellesley, and for a time about 50 years ago, was employed by The Waterloo Chronicle. He was the author of several well known law books. Besides his wife, the former Margaret Bell, he is survived by one daughter, Mrs. W. E. R. DeRoche. Toronto, and four sisters, Mrs. W. H. Grenzeboch, Woodstock; Miss Sarah, Waterloo; Miss Ida, Toronto and Mrs. O. I. Groh, Preston. One brother, Edward, of Winnipeg, also survives. Funeral services are being held this (Friday) afternoon at 2 p.m., in Brampton. Waterloo Chronicle 5 Jun 1942

  
  

• Sources

  [S251] Census - ON, Waterloo, New Hamburg - 1881, New Hamburg 1881 Page 11. [S1573] Census - ON, Waterloo, Waterloo City - 1891, Section 3 Page 27. [S116] Vit - ON - Death Registration. Name:Franklin Wellington Wegenast Gender:Male Age:65 Birth Date:17 Jun 1876 Birth Place:Waterloo Ontario Death Date:2 Jun 1942 Death Place:Preston, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Father:Martin Wegenast b. Ont. Mother:Dinah Sauer b. New York State Spouse:Margaret Bell Buried Simcoe?, Ont. [S3231] Find A Grave, Cemetery, O., America, N., County, N., & Cemetery, O. (1876). Franklin Wellington Wegenast (1876-1942) - Find A... Retrieved 29 May 2020, from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70050007. [S4] Vit - ON - Marriage Registration. Name: Franklin W Wegenast Event Type: Marriage Event Date: 14 Aug 1901 Event Place: Oxley, Essex, Ontario, Canada Gender: Male Age: 25 Birth Year (Estimated): 1876 Waterloo Occ: teacher of Waterloo Father's Name: Martin S Wegenast Mother's Name: Dinah Sauer Spouse's Name: Margaret M Bell Spouse's Gender: Female Spouse's Age: 23 Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated): 1878 b. Onley Res: Onley Spouse's Father's Name: Charles Bell Spouse's Mother's Name: Adelaide Shay [S7] News - ON, Waterloo, Kitchener - Berliner Journal (1859-1917), 2 Apr 1874. 24 Mar 1874 By Rev. F. Herlan in Hamilton, M.S. Wegenast of Waterloo was married to Dinah Sauer of Willoughby, Welland County.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 17 Jun 1876 - New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Evangelical Association - 1881 - New Hamburg, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - Apprentice Printer - 1891 - Waterloo City, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - teacher - 1901 - , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 2 Jun 1942 - Preston (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Oakwood Cemetery, Simcoe, Norfolk Co. , Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth