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Wednesday, April 12,2006 Orono Weekly Times - 9 Newcastle's Crusader, Joseph Atkinson by Ann-Marie Harley In the 1900's poor people died in the City of Toronto, especially children and especially especially in the summer's heat. In impoverished households both parents worked while the older children were left to manage at home. There were no screens for the windows, no ice to prevent prevent the food from spoiling and no money to buy replacements for all that was wilted and rotten. rotten. Joseph Atkinson knew the challenges those families faced. They were a part of his story-- the problems his family had shared--but with a difference, his family at least had the fresh air of the country. Joseph Atkinson, was one of Canada's leading publishers. He was bom in Brownsville (just east of Newcastle) and, at eighteen, eighteen, began his journalistic career with the Port Hope Times. He subsequently moved to Toronto where he was employed first with the World and later the Globe. Following a period with the Montreal Herald, Atkinson in 1899 became editor and manager of the Toronto Evening Star. He changed the name to the Toronto Daily Star in 1900 and published it until his death. His father, John, was killed by a train as he walked along the tracks on his way home from work. John had worked in a flour mill. Had the noise of that Workplace cause his hearing hearing loss? The associations of workplace safety may not have begun with his untimely death, but life for the remaining eight Atkinson children and their mother became a financial nightmare. Moving her young into Newcastle, Hannah Atkinson Atkinson opened a boarding house. One of thé few ways a respectable woman could earn an income in those restrictive times. \ As with so many women carrying such a burden it took a mere 13 years before Hannah herself died leaving her eldest daughter with the job of supporting supporting the family with the boarding house. Young Joe Atkinson went to work at age 14 in the Newcastle Woollen Manufacturing Company. Less than one year later the factory burned to the ground and Joe was unemployed. • Was it the poverty of the unemployed that carved Joseph Atkinson into a crusading crusading social conscience? Was it the mire he found in back alleys in Toronto that convinced convinced him of the need to help the children? Was it the summer summer deaths in the fetid heat that made him think of the countiy? The Star Fresh Air Fund so stridently advertised by his paper, the Toronto Evening Star, in 1901 helped more than just children. There were.picnics for the mothers and their offspring who, for work reasons could not leave the city. There were camps run by three different organizations who took chil- .dren .for two weeks. It cost $3.25 for a child to spend two weeks in the country in 1902. and that included the train fare to get them there. The Star published published the names of the donors to the fund and proudly announced that it had reached* $548,00 in one of those earlier years. One of the camps, Copper Beach, established in 1924, was located on Park Street, Bond Head (now. Newcastle Harbour). There are wonderful legends about Joseph Atkinson that supposedly supposedly account for his philanthropy. philanthropy. There is the one about the lady who saw young Joe standing at the side of the mill pond in January one year, watching all the other kids skating. skating. Joe had no skates. A moth er running a boarding house does not spare change for skates. This stranger lady bought Joe some skates. They say she is the one who taught him about giving. Could the reality bé that it was his mother's mother's dedication to her family, his sister's perseverance in that dedication that made Joe Atkinson the kind of man who initiated the Star Fresh Air Fund; the Fund that gave so many children a dream that perhaps led them out of poverty. poverty. Atkinson, Publisher of the Star is the subject of a documentary documentary to be shown on VisionTV April 19 at 10:00 p.m. and April 20 at 11:00 p.m. It is titled Fighting Words: The Social Crusades of Joseph E. Atkinson. Watch the documentary documentary to learn more about this man who would have been our neighbour if we had lived in Joseph Atkinson, one of Canada's the 1880's. leading publishers. White Plastic Farm Balewrap Recycling Program Japanned ,V 'if Areafarmersarestronglyencouragedtoparticipateinthis enviro: 11 K.f 1. Shakingandrolling whiteonly plasticfarmbalewrapintosmall untiedrollsapproximatelyteninchesindiameterandlessthan tenpoundsinweight. Noblackor gr eenplastic. 2. 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