| Notes |
- Basil Dean was born in Newbury, England and graduated from the University of London in Journalism where he received an award for “Best Student of The Year” in 1936. He came to Canada on a work experience or internship and spent several months at each of several Southam Publishing newspapers including the Montreal Gazette, Hamilton Spectator, Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald. It was while working at Hamilton Spectator that he met his future wife, Florence Jean Brown, who was a reporter. While at the Edmonton Journal he spent some time covering the “police beat”. When the old police station was torn down in the ’70s, they discovered a desk with “Basil Dean, the only gentleman in Alberta” scribed inside one of the drawers.
Basil fell in love with Canada and Florence Jean Brown and decided to emigrate. He was the only male Dean to ever leave Newbury and was the oldest of five children followed by John, Betty, Josie and Tony. John took over the family grocery store when their father died in the mid-‘1950s; John died circa 1965. Betty died a few years ago and Josie a number of years ago. Tony died just before Christmas 1995. Basil died just before Christmas, 1967.
After he decided to make Canada home, he covered King George VI’s Canadian tour among other things and returned to Hamilton - no doubt largely due to his future wife. His future father-in-law, Hamilton Police Chief, Tom Brown, was in charge of security for the same royal visit.
Basil joined the RCAF and received orders to report for duty on Boxing Day, 1941. A hasty marriage was in order. Jean’s father, Tom Brown, arranged the wedding, apparently using his connections to circumvent waiting periods, etc. and managed to scrounge a minister on Christmas Day. Basil married Jean in the Brown family home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on Christmas Day, 1941.
During the war Basil was posted to several locations in Canada including Edmonton so Jean went with him. He was a media liaison officer and while in Edmonton covered the construction of the Alaska Highway. He eventually rose to rank of Squadron Leader and spent several years overseas attached to the RCAF’s Overseas HQ in England. Jean remained in Hamilton when he was oversease and continued working as a reporter. At the end of the war he was stationed in England. Jean travelled there in 1945 after VE Day, where they remained for a time.
While in England, in 1946, Jean gave birth to her first child.
Basil covered the Winter Olympics in Switzerland in 1948. When he & Jean were invited to some sort of gala she didn’t have anything suitable to wear; Barbara Ann Scott, the Canadian Gold Medalist, loaned her a gown.
Basil, and his young family, moved back to Canada in the late spring of 1949 and Basil became a reporter at the Calgary Herald and in 1955 became its publisher. He was made Publisher of the Edmonton Journal in January, 1962.
Basil was made an Honourary Chief at Hobbema, AB (now Maskawacis First Nation) around 1959-60 for the stance that the Calgary Herald took against the federal government’s planned changes to the Indian Act and which they were forced to abandon.
|
1915 - Aft 1962 (> 48 years)
