This photo at right shows the groundbreaking ceremony for Leaside High School. The much-anticipated event took place on May 30, 1946. Leasiders had long desired their own high school. For years, local teenagers had been forced to attend high schools outside the community – such as North Toronto Collegiate and Northern Vocational School (now Northern Secondary). More recently, they were housed in a temporary building on the grounds of Rolph Road School. Now, finally, they were getting their own facility.
Visible in the photo are various dignitaries, including principal Norman McLeod (far right). The photo’s focal point, however, is the young man holding the dirt-laden shovel. His name was Donald Johnston. Among all the notables present that day, he had been chosen to turn the first sod for the new school – a high honour for a mere student, but a well-deserved one.
Born in 1930, Don Johnston lived with his parents at 19 McRae Dr. – the eldest of four children. By all accounts, he was a popular and outstanding student and athlete. Active in track and field, he had just been elected by his fellow classmates as Leaside High School’s first “school captain.” Virtually everyone saw him as a young man of exceptional promise.
Sadly, that promise would never be realized. On July 18, 1946, while swimming alone at a campsite on Lake St. Peter, near Bancroft, Ont., Don Johnston drowned. His father tried to save him but failed. Don’s body wasn’t recovered until 45 minutes later. Two local doctors spent nearly three hours performing artificial respiration on the young man – without success. He was just 16 years old.
His death shocked the Leaside community, triggering a wave of sorrow and sympathy. Determined to honour Don’s memory, the school held a posthumous award ceremony in November. There, his mother was presented with her son’s school captain’s pin commemorating his “outstanding achievements.” More than 400 parents, teachers and students attended.
In May 1949, the school again honoured Don by dedicating a new flag and flagpole to his memory. The Leaside Board of Education donated the flagpole, while the flag itself was donated by Leaside town solicitor Stanley Schatz, who would later become an Ontario Supreme Court Justice. In addition, the student council said it would place a plaque at the base of the flagpole highlighting Don’s accomplishments. Later that year, the first issue of the school’s yearbook, Clan Call, contained a photo of Don and an essay by Don’s classmate, Fred Caloren, praising him as “a person who lived his life for his friends, his King and his country.”
A quarter century later, they still remembered him. When Leaside High held its 25th anniversary banquet at the Royal York Hotel in 1970, some 750 alumni and teachers stood and observed a moment of silence as Johnston’s name was read aloud by school principal James Kerr.
Today, the name “Don Johnston” evokes few memories. The original flagpole erected outside the school’s main entrance made way long ago to a newer model. The flag is not the same flag. The plaque is gone.
Still, there must have been something very special about this young man to have prompted – and sustained – such gestures of respect, admiration and grief.
Leaside – and Leaside High School – should be proud to call him one of their own.
Don Johnston is buried with his parents in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.
