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HARRY VAN WYCK LAUGHTON (1884 - 1955)
See also the story of the "Boys
of Parkhill", here on the website.
Harry Van Wyck Laughton was the second surviving son of John Hugh and Louise
Estelle Laughton. He was born in Parkhill, Ontario on September 20, 1884
and passed away on June 10, 1955. Harry is not buried in the family plot
in Parkhill, rather he is entombed in the Bellville Mausoleum with his wife Mary
and son Barent.
| There are not a lot of pictures
of Harry, however I did find this one with his brother Fred and his wife
Myra (Harry is in the middle).
I never met Great Uncle Harry but I did have the chance as a wee lad to meet his
wife Mary Buckley Laughton at their home in Toronto. Both Harry and Mary
were lawyers and as you will note below, the career of Mary was quite
well recognized. In fact, it was the newspaper reports of Mary
that started the interest in this family tree project!
We were going to name our "first son" Barrett Van Wyck
Laughton and when we mentioned that plan "all hell broke
loose". It was only then that we were told the story of
"Barent", as confirmed in the note from Uncle Paul that
follows.
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There were a few mentions of Harry in the Toronto Star, it appears often
reporting on the exploits of his younger brother George Van Wyck Laughton (my
grandfather) during his service overseas in WWI.
 | Toronto
Star - May 15, 1917: Harry Van Wyck Laughton, as a senior member
of the team at the National Trust Company reports on the exploits of his
younger brother George Van Wyck, who has been hospitalized as a result of
activities during the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 (for details see
our Great War web
site).
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| Toronto
Star - September 29,1929: There may be many issues facing the
world in 1929, but we note the paper reports to return of Harry and Mary of
Glengrove Avenue from their summer home on the Island (I suspect this is the
family home of that era, somewhere near or on Fairy Lake in the
Huntsville/Muskoka area). |
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Also in this era we have the exploits of the brothers and sisters of George,
some of which have recently come to the attention of the press. In
particular, the wife of Harry Van Wyck Laughton (Mary Elizabeth Buckley) is told
by the "Women's Law
Association of Ontario" as a founder of the association.
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Uncle Paul referred to both Harry and Mary in his letter of April 6, 2004,
taking us back one even one step further to Mary's mother. I have quoted
these comments, shown along side the only picture I have found with Harry Van
Wyck and his wife Mary Buckley:
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"I knew Mary's mother, the large Mrs
Buckley, completely dominated by her tiny but redoubtable mother, Mrs Powell.
I was at Mrs P's 90th birthday, where she debated the male Laughton siblings
into the ground, announced she was going to see them again for her 100th &
die, same result, did. Mary was a very sharp cookie, but brittle with everyone
except Mary Frances.
Harry was as easy-going as she was brittle, a strangely
disparate pair. She & Harry joked that she stood first in their law
studies, he came second. Their son, Barent Van Wyck [Cornelius Barentse VW was
the one who emigrated from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam in 1660 &
established the family farm in Flatbush, later home of the Brooklyn Dodgers]
was a brilliant student & musician, but very sensitive & somewhat
effeminate. He joined the RCAF in WW II, stripped naked in a hotel, left the
windows open in the winter time & froze to death. Earlier attempts to
commit suicide failed. Harry developed a doctor-induced deadly phenobarbital
addiction. I visited them on my way to a summer RCAF posting to find Harry had
just died & waited with Mary for the police & a coroner because their
GP was out of town & therefore unable to sign the death certificate. |
When we received the Paul Laughton package in February 2009 there were a few
additional memoirs in the file for Harry Van Wyck Laughton. The first was
a newspaper announcement of February 8, 1947 where Harry was named as a Director
of the Canada Life Assurance Company and the second was his letter to his sister
Louise "Tot" on December 12, 1920. At one time, Tot worked as
Harry's legal secretary, as described in Paul's family history documents and as
mentioned herein. He refers briefly to the christening of Charles Laughton
1919.
Click on image to see original notice
in the 1947 newspaper. |
Click on letter image to see the complete 4 page
document from Harry to Tot on December 12, 1920 after the Christening of
Charles Van Wyck Laughton. |
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