In an article prepared for the Chapleau Post, Mr. Payette begins with a joking reference to his business partner "Art Grout has the first dime Smith and Chapple took in that memorable morning of January 29, 1930, when we took over from V.T. Chapple."
In an article prepared for the Chapleau Post, Mr. Payette begins with a joking reference to his business partner "Art Grout has the first dime Smith and Chapple took in that memorable morning of January 29, 1930, when we took over from V.T. Chapple."
 |
| Mr Grout |
Apparently that first dime was set on a card bearing an appropriate description and kept by Mr. Grout. I wonder where it is today, some 88 years later!
Mr. Payette became president and Mr. Grout vice president.
 |
| Mr Payette |
He relates that when they first took over the store business was "good" but as the "grim hand" Great Depression took hold in Canada, Chapleau did not escape.
Railroad workers with 25 years experience lost their jobs, and the "lumbering industry practically ceased to exist".
The partners needed to find new customers quickly. At about this time, gold claims started to open, and "considerable propserity" was being achieved. They decided to do their best to get business from this source.
Aircraft were landing at Chapleau on their sway to and from claims.
Mr. Payette relates that one morning when a plane landed on the Kebsquasheshing River at Chapleau, Mr. Grout raced to the waterfront and assisted with the landing, then brought all the passengers to the store. He told them "If we haven't got what you want, we'll get it."
In due course several flight services operated out of Chapleau, and their store started taking deliveries by canoe and delivering byplane to the mining camps filling orders from prospectors.
Let me digress for a moment. In 1930 my father Jim Morris was attending Chapleau High School, and would go and help the pilots load and unload planes. My grandfather Harry Morris told me that he was also learning to fly planes, but did not tell my grandmother Lil (Mulligan) Morris. Nonethelesss she knew he was taking flying lessons from the bush pilots. Mothers always know!
Mr. Payette said that despite adversity ''sweating blood, hiding our fears" by 1937 business started to improve.
By the start of World War II in 1939, they were adding a two story building to the east side of the men's wear department to include a meat and grocery department, two apartments, and snack bar.
Mr. Payette wrote that business was good during the war years, and by 1945 they had paid off Mr. Chapple.
In 1949. he told Mr. Grout that he wanted to retire. Mr. Grout at started at the store at age 14, and noiw would become the owner.
A period of "real expansion" started after Mr. Grout took over as president.
Mr. Payette explained that up until then main street had been essentially one-sided with most businesses on the north side with only the Algoma Dairy at Birch and Young street and the Regent Theatre at Birch and Lorne. In between was a high board fence and behind it were CPR cottages facing the shops.
The new building housed various departments of Smith and Chapple over the years.
In conclusion Mr. Payette pays a trubute to Arthur Grout as "a man of inestimable ability and energy. Our partnership traversed the years with harmony and good fellowship."
Mr. Payette was not only involved with Smith and Chapple over the years, but was very active in community activities. By 1906, he appears in a photo of a Chapleau hockey team and he later managed teams. He also played in the Town Band and was bandmaster. In the 1930s, he was referred to as "the catalyst" behind the founding of Chapleau winter carnivals.
He also served as fire chief, member and chairman of the high school board, manager of the Chapleau Memorial Arena, member of the Knights of Columbus, choirmaster at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church member of the Chapleau Rotary Club, and he also golfed and curled..
I am an alumnus of Smith and Chapple Ltd. having worked in various departments while attending Chapleau High School and Waterloo Lutheran University now Wilfrid Laurier University. It was a great place to work. My mail is mj.morris@live.ca