“Philip” Neville Mainguy was born on Oct. 27 th , 1881 in Ottawa. His father was William McLeod Mainguy who we covered in part one of "Mainguy's who settled in Eastern Canada". Click here to go back
The first thing I recall was he was very good at making things with his hands - not only in wood but I remember visiting his workshop in his home in Montreal where he had machines like lathes which he could even make parts out of steel. My Dad told me that when he was a boy he wanted a electric model railroad but they didn’t have any electricity, so his father made a small electric generator by himself and ran it from the water pressure from a hose connected to the kitchen tap. I was given the generator as a boy in grade six and took it to school to demonstrate how electricity was made.
Granddad married Phyllis Checkley from Ottawa in 1903 and Dad was born two years later. Phyllis died giving birth to her second son “Neville”in 1911. Granddad remarried Jessie Mai Spalding in 1913 and had two more boys; Bob and Pete.
I remember Granddad was a champion canoe racer and won theCanadian championship for doubles in 1898, 99 and 1900. His love of water, islands and boats didn’t stop here. At their summer island cottage in the Georgian Bay, Ontario they had a wonderful big inboard speedboat which was first called the Lucia. It had a Ford car engine in it and was used to demonstrate how good the engine was as Granddad worked for Ford. A second more powerful boat was bought called theWerealone which caught fire and sank but the silver bell with the boats name onit was saved and I have it now.
At some time in his early life he was a salesman for lightning rods. There are lots of lightning storms in Canada which from time to time hit farmers barns and sometimes caught fire. He had this big box which made a huge spark of lightning several inches long and made a big bang. He would show this to farmers and I think scared them enough to buy some rods.
Granddad joined the Ford Motor Company in 1915 and later became Export Sales Manager. He had a fancy car and I believe at one time even had a chauffeur. Anyway, to finish my story about boats, he bought a 52 foot yacht called the Wyndora which was moored in Lachine (a suburb of Montreal). I used to love to visit it and stay on board for days when my parents went off on trips. I have a wonderful working model of it complete with steam engine
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He would have been at the peak of his career in the late thirties and living the good life with a yacht and a summer home when things unfortunately went down hill. He always wanted to have his own business and started Mainguys Ltd. in Montreal as an importer of machinery including Mercury outboard engines which were just becoming popular. Then the war started and all these companies turned to making war goods and his company started to go down and taking almost all his wealth with it. His youngest son Pete joined the Navy and later died from Hodgkin's disease while in training. His second youngest son,Bob, carried on working for the company for years until his death from cancer.
Granddad had to sell his lovely boat which also had a sad end. It was sold to a man with little boating experience, who after owning it for only a very short time, decided to take a trip with a number of friends.Unfortunately, he only got to the end of Montreal island where he crashed it into the large steel locks at Saint Anne de Belview where it sank within a couple of minutes. All on board escaped but I remember it blocked all the traffic for I believe days until it could be brought up from the bottom of the lock. It was later rebuilt but it had lost all it’s charm.My Granddad died in Montreal in 1958 after having his leg amputated.
I believe this unpleasant experience taught my fatherto be very cautious with money as he learned it is much easier to loose it than make it.
I remember my Granddad as always being kind to me and he even built for me a hand crafted model sail boat for Christmas which must have taken him months to complete.
One last point, he was an avid photographer and took many very artistic pictures which I have. He also took many movies in 16mm and must havebeen one of the early pioneers using movie film. I wish I knew where all thefilms are today as I remember many of them - including great pictures of the complete wedding of my Mom and Dad in 1929.
