Albert Frederick Tigerstedt, 1906-1989, was born in Finland of Swedish ancestry, and in 1907 emigrated with his family to a Finnish-speaking community near Eckville, Alberta. In 1918 his family settled in Calgary. He left school at a young age, worked at odd jobs, and learned the trade of photography through independent study and an informal apprenticeship with Calgary Herald photographer W.J. Oliver. In 1932 he established his own studio on Centre Street North. He married E. Jean Tigerstedt, 1917-1997, in 1941 and she became a partner in the business. Born in Calgary, Jean graduated from normal school in 1937, and taught briefly at Oyen, Alberta. . The Tigerstedts specialized in portraiture and industrial photography. Albert described himself as a “bread and butter photographer, not an artist”. The Tigerstedts sold the business to Pearson Royce in 1987. During World War II, Albert served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1943 – 1945 as head of a naval photography unit. Albert Tigerstedt died in Calgary in the fall of 1989.
John Henry Harding was likely born in Alberta ca. 1920. During WWII Harding served, likely domestically only, with the Infantry Corps. Post war he lived on a farm near Lougheed Alberta and worked as a geophysicist. Harding died July 2, 2002.
This institution has little biographical information about Gertrud Lessman. During WWII she lived in Bonn, Germany and had two sons. One son was in the Luftwaffe and was wounded at some point during the war. The other son was in the infantry and evidence indicates that he was part of the Blitzkrieg to France and was later sent to the Russian front and was likely involved in the Battle of Smolensk.
Joan Ryan (1932-2005) was a professor of anthropology at the University of Calgary from 1967-1987. She was born in Montreal to traditional Irish-Canadian parents. Ryan completed a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Carleton University in 1957 and a Master of Education in Psychology in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1959. Upon her graduation Ryan went to work in the Canadian North, as a Northern Service Officer and teacher with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada in George River and Ungava Bay, Quebec, and Lac La Martre, Northwest Territories. Ryan developed a career-long interest in aboriginal peoples, the need for social justice, and it found expression in research and training to help local communities in the realms of land claims, local economic development, preservation and use of aboriginal languages, and promotion of the use of traditional knowledge in the local delivery of medicine, education, and justice. Learning Inuktitut, Ryan worked for the devolution of authority from Ottawa and Yellowknife to the local level. She saw her work as preparing Inuit and Dene communities for self-government, after settled comprehensive land claims had been achieved. In 1964, Ryan left to take up PhD studies at the newly formed Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia under Professor Harry B. Hawthorn, founding head of the department. Under his guidance, she became one of the main authors of Part 2 of A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies—The Hawthorn Report, published by the federal government in 1967. During her studies at UBC, she adopted two young aboriginal daughters. In 1967, she accepted a professorship in anthropology at the University of Calgary which she held until her retirement in 1987. She was the first female head of the Department of Anthropology (1978 – 83). From 1987 onwards, Ryan was a senior research associate at the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA), located on the campus of UofC. During this time, she worked in northern participatory action research (PAR) projects in Fort McPherson and Lac La Martre, and on numerous consulting assignments with provincial mid-North and urban aboriginal communities and organizations, working with Joanne Barnaby, the executive director of the Dene Cultural Institute, and Allice Legat and Martha Johnson of the Arctic Institute. In addition, Ryan worked on PAR projects in Nicaragua. She maintained a long-term career relationship with the Lubicon Cree in Alberta and in 1995 published 'Doing Things the Right Way: Dene Traditional Justice in Lac La Martre, N.W.T., published jointly by the Arctic Institute and the University of Calgary Press. In recognition of her lifelong efforts, Joan received the Prix Weaver-Tremblay Prize for exceptional contributions to Canadian Applied Anthropology, as well as the Chief David Crowchild Memorial Award of the City of Calgary. A nomination for the Order of Canada was circulating at the time of her death.
Ronald Stanley Holcroft was born in Wolverhampton, UK on November 15, 1916. Prior to enlistment in WWII, Holcroft studied economics at Cambridge University and also studied acting. During WWII he served as a member of the military police for the British Army. He was captured in 1940 during the evacuation of Dunkirk and spent the rest of the war at various German prisoner of war camps, including Stalag VIIIB. After the war Holcroft studied agriculture and emigrated to Canada in 1953. After a brief career working in agriculture in Brampton, Ontario he worked as a teacher in various locations in southern Ontario. Ronald Holcroft died on August 4, 2015 in Saltspring Island, B.C..
Sherman Edwin was born in Goderich, Ontario in 1934. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy at the age of 17. He received his basic training as a seaman in Cornwallis. He served on the HMCS Cayuga during the Korean War. After his service in the Korean War, he became an RCN pilot and flew Banshees off of Canada’s last aircraft carrier, the Bonaventure. Later he served as an instructor at HMCS Shearwater. Following his military service, he settled in Calgary where he worked in the construction industry. He died in Calgary on August 9, 2016.
Donald Munro Bell (Canadian bass-baritone) was born June 19, 1934 in South Burnaby, British Columbia. He studied under Nancy Paisley Benn in Vancouver before attending the Royal Conservatory of Music on scholarship in 1953-1955. Bell won the Harriet Cohen Award (the 1955 Arnold Bax Memorial Medal) as the outstanding student in the Commonwealth.
Following graduation, Bell studied with Hermann Weissenborn (Berlin, 1955-1957), Judith Boroschek (Dusseldorf 1967-1976) and later with Richard Miller (Ohio, 1985-1990). He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1959 and eventually performed in 23 countries including England, Germany, Israel, Russia, Canada, and Australia. He has worked with several leading conductors including Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir John Pritchard, Leonard Bernstein and George Szell.
Bell taught voice at the University of Calgary’s Department of Music from 1982 to 1994 with research interests in the field of vocal pedagogy. Bell was a founding member of the Vocal Arts Acoustical Research Group.
Canadian playwright and novelist. Born in Deep Creek in the Athabasca region of Alberta on July 27, 1932. Died in Summerland, British Columbia, on November 18, 1987. Biographical information available in The Oxford companion to Canadian literature, 2nd ed., p. 1027-1028; The Oxford companion to Canadian theatre, p. 479-481; and in The ecstasy of resistance: a biography of George Ryga, by James F. Hoffman (Toronto: ECW Press, 1995).
Agricultural specialist and cattle buyer William Donald Gentleman attended West of Scotland Agricultural College in Glasgow, Scotland, from 1920-1922. Married Dorothy Gentleman in 1928 with whom he had four children. Settled in Lethbridge, Alberta, in 1943 when he accepted a position at the Lethbridge Research Station. Manager of Burns & Co. in 1946. Died suddenly on December 22, 1950.
John Whitney Pickersgill, Canadian politician, public servant and historian, was born in Wycombe, Ontario, in June 1905. Died November 15, 1997. Biographical information available in The Canadian who's who, 1992, p. 845, and The Canadian encyclopedia, v. 3, p. 1415.