Albert Clarke Quickfall

Other Events:

• Business: Ice dealer, sand, brick, sill, lintel
• Name: A. C. Quickfall
• Residence: 101 David St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Eby ID Number: 00088-5134
• Residence: 1881, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Methodist
• Occupation: 1901, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Manufacturer of Bricks
• Occupation: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Evangelical
• Occupation: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Ice Dealer

Notes:

Albert Clarke Quickfall, "was born January 17th, 1878. He is home working on the farm."

Eby, Ezra E. (1895). A biographical history of Waterloo township and other townships of the county: being a history of the early settlers and their descendants, mostly all of Pennsylvania Dutch origin: as also much other unpublished historical information chiefly of a local character. Berlin [Kitchener, Ont.]: [s.n.].

_________________

"Ice-Harvesting in Victoria Park" by rych mills:

"Born in 1878 in Bridgeport, A.C. Quickfall was still a young man in 1904 but a most experienced entrepreneur. While attending business college in Berlin, he had taken over his father Richard's Waterloo Township brickyard, made a success of that, tired of it, then met Collard. (Note: previously in article covers Collard) Two men, each weary of his current occupation.What better solution than to swap? Collard took the brickyard: Quickfall, the ice-harvesting. Collard later became Berlin's Inspector of Pavements. Quickfall, for the next two decades was one of Berlin's best-known businessmen.

At a Park Board meeting on April 1, 1905, the transfer of the remainder of Collard's 10-year lease to Quickfall was approved; he was on his way to leaving a mark on Victoria Park and vicinity. the years 1905-10 were building ones for A. C. Quickfall. In the 1906 Semi-Centennial Number of the Chronicle-Telegraph, he was listed among Berlin's prominent men:'...Victoria Ice: 2 words that stand out in large letters on the huge delivery wagons of A.C. Quickfall who does his share in keeping down temperatures on hot sultry days...besides his ice-business, Quickfall makes a specialty of cement bricks, window and door sills, etc...also being the owner of a splendid sand pit within the corporation limits...he has also found time to build several homes since taking up residence on David Street.'

As winters came and went, Collard's 10-year lease drew to a close. The Berlin Park Board did a quick two-step with the ice-contract. In April 1909, they advertised for tenders for a five or 10-year term. Quickfall had his application ready, but the Park Board decided to take no action until the original term expired in 1910. A week later they rescinded that motion, accepted Quickfall's new application, but did nothing until a year later, April 15, 1910. Then, finally, Quickfall had his own 5-year deal to harvest the ice at a cost of $150 per year. He also acquired a lot of problems.

Health Hazard Revealed

Victoria Park lake is an artificial one. The two streams which feed it were never strong-flowing, never full of fresh sparkling water. From the earliest days, all kinds of refuse ended up settling in the park lake. Some homes and industries had illegal hook-ups, venting their sewers directly into storm drains which had a habit of overflowing, dumping almost anything into the lake. Upstream butcher shops were fined numerous times for throwing offal into the streams. Nearby was the Berlin Glue Factory and the imagination boggles at what type of refuse came out of that plant!

In 1911, Victoria Park lake was 17 years old and the 'piper had to be paid.'

The Provincial Laboratory analysed samples of lake water and immediately condemned it. The Berlin Board of Health went further and said the lake itself was hazardous. In Dec. 1911, it declared the health of Berlin's citizens was more important than $150 in ice income. By late Jan. 1912, Dr. McCullough, the Provincial Health Officer, absolutely forbad the sale of Victoria Park ice for any purpose. Quickfall's solicitors argued, to no avail, that ice frozen for weeks is nearly pure. By a series of miscommunications with the Park Board, Quickfall had already cut and stored hundreds of tons of ice. It all had to be scrapped. The same sad tale held in 1913, 1914 and 1915.

Quickfall did get his $150 fee back each year, but one wonders at his enthusiasm for requesting another five-year deal in late 1916. He agreed to pay $200 a year for two years, then $250, as well as build a new ice storage house farther away from David Street. The original ice-house which Collard had built in 1900 was an ugly building and residents often complained about it. Back in 1913, Quickfall had removed the front portion of that building and constructed a lovely large home overlooking the park; 101 David still stands and it's interesting to note that A.C.'s wife Edith (nee Shoemaker) designed and planned this unique home, incorporating many imaginative features. This house is still a focal point of David Street; it was also the focal point for the next 12 years of the Quickfall business empire.

Following Collard's tower-and-slide problems across David Street, several methods were used to get ice from the lake to the storage house. People would buy their ice in winter from Quickfall's shoreline cutting operation and haul it away in their own wagons. Teams of Quickfall horses were busy day after day hauling the cut blocks of ice across the parklawns, over David Street and into the ice storage house behind 101 David Street. There people could buy ice at any time of the year and Quickfall horses and drays would deliver. For a couple of winters in the early 20s,Quickfall tried floating the ice-blocks over the floodgate, under David Street, then hauling them out near the storage house.

Following his 1916 renewal, ice-pollution problems eased but others cropped up. The Park Board and Quickfall never really got in sync. One or the other often had a complaint about costs or protection or late payments or repairing damage. In Feb. 1916, a young girl ventured too close to the cutting area and almost drowned. Walter A. Bean, who grew upon Roland Street, recalls his father's daily path across the ice on his way to work as editor of the Daily Telegraph. One evening David apparently forgot exactly where the cutters had been working, and in the darkness, took a chilly dip in seven feet of water.

In Feb. 1918, trouble of another kind threatened the ice-harvesting and other Quickfall enterprises. One of the worst-ever winter rainstorms put the entire park under water. David Street was two feet deep and rising.Quickfall's stables were in danger and the horses had to be moved quickly. By the time the water had receded much of the winter's ice-harvest was ruined.

Pressures Herald the End

The criticism about ice-cutting from skaters hadn't abated in all the years. Many felt the public would be better served by having the entire surface reserved for skating. By this time the Park Board regularly cleared the snow, had change-rooms and lights available, and called in the fire department from time-to-time to flood the surface. Local theatre-owner A.P. Berberich had an interesting idea in 1919. He proposed flooding the baseball field in the athletic grounds and using that area for skating while the entire lake was harvested for ice. Nothing came of that suggestion. Later that same year Quickfall was cutting 24-inch thick crystal-clear ice from the lake, some of the best ever.

In 1921, Quickfall's latest five-year term expired and it looked as if there would be no renewal. Park Board member W.O. Knechtel declared ice-cutting wrecked the use of Victoria Park for winter sports. He felt the damage to lawns and drives exceeded the $250 paid by Quickfall. In the end, the Park Board did renew the ice-cutting rights, increasing the cost to $350, but forbidding Quickfall from selling in the park, thus reducing wear and tear on the lawns.

Through the 1920s, Quickfall's other business expanded, though ice stillmade his name. Each year the Park Board pondered eliminating theice-harvest but ended up giving Quickfall one more season. Other forces,however, were at work.

In the prosperous post-war 20s, electricity crept more and more into peoples' lives. Electricity not only provided much simpler home refrigeration, it also meant absolutely pure block-ice could be made artificially at such plants as Silverwoods on Courtland Avenue. Even those who wanted to continue using their ice-boxes were hard-pressed to decide on taking possibly polluted natural ice when pure was so easilyobtained.

Just as ice meant Quickfall, so too, Quickfall meant ice. When Albert Charles Quickfall died prematurely at age 50 in 1927, ice-harvesting in Victoria Park did not long outlast him.

Today there is little evidence of the ice-harvesting business in Victoria Park. The 1916 ice storage house was torn down in the 1930s. A later brick storage building built by Quickfall nearby lasted until the Schneider Creek realignment in 1984. That same development saw two Quickfall houses, numbers 113 and 117, torn down on David Street. Number 101, built in 1913, continues to overlook Victoria Park. To many are aresidents it's still known as The Quickfall House 35 years after the family sold it, and nearly 70 years after one of Berlin/Kitchener's early, and most interesting, businessmen died.

Eileen Dahms of Guelph, one of several surviving children of A.C. Quickfall recalls her childhood years at 101. There are many good memories but she especially remembers summertime when the place was a hive of business ctivity with horses hauling heavy drays in and out of the driveway. Her girlhood summers were spent answering the phone, taking orders for home delivery of Victoria ice. Dorothy Russell, a resident of Schneider Avenue since 1901, recalls the old tower-slide set-up stretching across David Street and the steady flow of ice blocks. J. Edward Snyder of Kitchener still savors thoughts of those hot summer days when he and his pals would slip into the ice-house for a cooling off.

So, ice-harvesting in Victoria Park is long gone, and definitely not on the way back! Memories, though, do remain. It's always good to remind oneself, when the modern fridge door is opened and a cool one beckons, how much effort it took just 80 years ago for the same pleasure. In someways, today is the Good Old Days."

Waterloo Historical Society 1994 pg. 31-43 "Ice-Harvesting in Victoria Park" by rych mills
______________




Residence:
House built in 1913

Albert — Edith Shoemaker. Edith (daughter of Alexander Shoemaker and Susannah Weber) was born 20 Mar 1882, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died 16 Sep 1958, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , First Mennonite Cemetery, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-177144
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Evangelical

Clark — Myrtle Irene Legge. Myrtle was born 12 Mar 1905, Holstein, Egremont Twp., Grey Co., Ontario; died 1992; was buried , Mount Forest Cemetery, Mount Forest, Wellington Co., Ontario. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-177145
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Evangelical

Other Events:

• Name: Edith Pearl "Pearl" Simms
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-177146
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Evangelical

Edith — Wallace Robert Simms. Wallace was born 17 Oct 1910, Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada; died 1996; was buried , Parkview Cemetery, Waterloo City, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Eileen Adele Dahms
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-127269
• Residence: 1983, 184 Forsyth Dr., Waterloo, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada

Notes:

DAHMS, Eileen Adele - Passed away peacefully, at her suite in the Nottingham/Elliott Home, Guelph, in her 95th year, on Tuesday, February 13, 2007. Eileen (nee Quickfall) Dahms was the beloved wife of Arthur Dahms (1983). She was the dear mother of Fred (Ruth), Ronald (Ruth-Marie) and Mary (George) Hougham. Eileen is lovingly remembered by four grandchildren, John (Tammy), Tanya, Anne (Sean), Brian (Stephanie) and by four great-grandchildren, Sarah, Evan, Sophie and Max. She is survived by her sister, Ellen Berlet and her niece, Peggy Kraemer and by her foster son, Dr. Nookaraju Challa. She was predeceased by her siblings, Clark, Evelyn, and Richard Quickfall and Pearl Simms. Eileen was a long-time member of Zion United Church, Kitchener and Dublin St. United Church, Guelph. She wrote her 545 page Memoirs on a computer at age 85. The family will receive friends at the Gilbert MacIntyre & Son Funeral Home, 252 Dublin St. N., Guelph, on Thursday, February 16, 2007 from 7-9 p.m. The Funeral Service and Committal will be held at the Dublin Chapel on Friday, February 16, 2007 at 3 p.m. Interment, Parkview Cemetery, Waterloo. As expressions of sympathy, donations to World Vision would be appreciated by the family (cards available at the funeral home 519-822-4731 or send condolences at www.gilbertmacintryeandson.com).


The Record - Feb. 15, 2007

Eileen — Arthur Franklin Dahms. Arthur was born 26 Dec 1906, Carrick Twp., Bruce Co., Ontario, Canada; died 1983, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; was buried , Parkview Cemetery, Waterloo City, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-200840
• Residence: 1943, 181 Frederick St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada

Notes:

"Richard Quickfall passed away at his home, 181 Frederick St. this morning. He was born Aug. 21,1916, in this city and was 26 years old.

A member of Zion Evangelical Church, he is survived by his mother, four sisters, the Misses Evelyn and Pearl Quickfall and Mrs. Harold Dakins,all of this city, and Mrs. Arthur Dakins of St. Catharines, and one brother, Clark, of Kitchener, and by three aunts, Mrs. Elias Snider, and the Misses Susan and Angela Shoemaker.".....

KW Record obit. of Mon., Apr. 26, 1943

_________________

"In the account of the death of Richard Quickfall appearing inyesterday's edition, the names of his parents were incorrectly given. He is a s/o Mrs. Quickfall and the late A. C. Quickfall. He is survived by his mother, one brother, Clark of this city, four sisters, the Misses Evelyn and Pearl Quickfall and Mrs. Harold Berlet (Ellen) of this cityand Mrs. Arthur Dahms (Eileen) of St. Catharines."

and correction KW Record Tues., Apr.27, 1943:

____________________

Richard Quickfall

Richard Quickfall passed away at his home, 181 Frederick Street, Kitchener, Monday morning. He was born Aug. 21, 1916, in Kitchener, and was 26 years old.

A member of Zion Evangelical hurch, he is survived by his mother, four sisters, the Misses Evelyn and Pearl Quick fall and Mrs. Harold Dakins, all of Kitchener, and Mrs. Arthur Dakins of St. Catharines, by one brother, Clark, of Kitchener, and by three aunts, Mrs. Elias Snider, and the Misses Susan ind Angela Shoemaker.

Waterloo Chronicle 30 Apr 1943, p. 3

Other Events:

• Name: Ellen Marguerite Berlet
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-155830

Ellen married Harold Andrew Berlet 29 Aug 1942. Harold (son of Edward Andrew Berlet and Jane Elizabeth "Jennie" Williamson) was born 26 Jun 1919, Tavistock, East Zorra Twp., Oxford County, Ontario, Canada; died 26 Oct 1983, Brighton, , Ontario. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-107089