Fred Schaeffer - 11 Jul. 1980

Use Restrictions: Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the archives to obtain permission prior to use.

Biography: Fred Schaeffer's wife, Beverley, grew up in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Beverley's grandfather, Hyman Kaplan, emigrated from Vilna, Lithuania in 1907, and after a few years in New York, moved to Toronto. Shortly afterwards, he became the first Jew to settle in Kirkland Lake in 1914.; In the 1920s, the Jewish community in Kirkland Lake built a permanent synagogue and acquired an aron kodesh of eastern European design, its lamps, railings, pews and reader’s desk, from the disbanded Ukrainishe Shul in Montreal. In the 1970s, the Kirkland Lake Synagogue disbanded and Fred and Beverly Schaeffer acquired the aron kodesh, all of its furnishings, the ner tamid, and the parochet. They generously donated these Jewish artifacts to Beth Tikvah Synagogue, Toronto, in 1988, in memory of Isadore Kaplan, father of Beverly Schaeffer and Erich Schaeffer, father of Fred Schaeffer.; Fred married Beverley in Toronto. Like many children from Kirkland Lake, Beverley had moved to the city to attend university. Fred and Beverley are keen collectors of Canadian art. He is a retired civil engineer and a former chair of the Canadian Art Historical Committee at the AGO.

Name Access: Atkins (family); Bucavetsky (family); Cochrane (Ont.); Etkins (family); Mallins (family); Purkiss (family); Schaeffer, Fred

Geographic Access: Ansonville (Ont.); Engelhart (Ont.); Kirkland Lake (Ont.); Krugerdorf (Ont.); Ontario, Northern; Timmins (Ont.)

Transcript: G:\Description\Oral Histories\OH 24 - Schaeffer\OH24_001_Log.docx; G:\Description\Oral Histories\OH 24 - Schaeffer\OH24_002_Log.docx

In this clip, Fred Schaeffer and Stephen Speisman discuss some of the earliest synagogues established in Northern Ontario.

In this clip, Fred Schaeffer relates colourful anecdotes about the first Jewish settler in the Swastika-Kirkland area, Roza Brown.