Three generations of the Smythe Family: Their story their place

I visited the graves of three generations of the Smythe family, each buried in a different cemetery across Toronto and Muskoka. They were a family of achievers, but like many families, they were divided by conflict and discord, and their story has slowly faded from memory.

Generation One: Albert Ernest Stafford Smythe

Toronto Necropolis

Albert was born in Gracehill, Ireland, the son of Stafford Smythe and Leonora Cary. He was largely self-taught and won school prizes in geology, botany and physics.

In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, meeting the Irish theosophist William Quan Judge on the voyage. That meeting would later shape his life spiritually. From there, he came to Canada in 1889, marrying Mary Adelaide Constantine en route, and settled in Toronto, where he found work at the Portland Cement Company. Cement, however, was not his calling.

Albert turned to journalism, writing for the Toronto Globe and the Toronto Star and later editing the Hamilton Herald. In 1891 he published his first poetry collection, Poems Grave and Gay, and founded the Toronto Theosophical Society, a movement that blends Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism with Western mystical traditions.

Contemporaries considered him one of the best-known newspapermen in Canada, and some critics ranked him among the country’s finest poets. His writing was shaped by the Celtic Revival style of W.B. Yeats.

His home life, however, carried real sorrow. He and Mary Adelaide had two children, Mary and Conn, but the marriage was strained. Albert was a teetotaller and spiritual seeker, while Mary Adelaide’s drinking left him with most of the child-rearing and led to her early death in 1906. Mary, the couple’s daughter, died of a thyroid condition at the age of twelve.

Generation Two: Constantine (Conn) Falkland Cary Smythe

Park Lawn Cemetery, Toronto

Conn was the opposite of his father: combative where Albert was contemplative. A very good hockey player, he set his playing days aside to enlist in 1915. He later served with the Royal Flying Corps and was shot down in combat, and spent fourteen months as a prisoner of war.

When he returned home with the Military Cross for gallantry, Conn completed his engineering degree and coached the University of Toronto varsity team from 1923-26.

In 1927, he and a group of partners bought the financially troubled Toronto St. Patricks and renamed them the Maple Leafs. With his gravel business and contacts in the building trade, Smythe ambitiously built Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931 in 5 months.

Under his ownership the Leafs won the Stanley Cup seven times (1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951). The Conn Smythe Trophy is awarded annually to the most valuable player of the playoffs and was created in his honour.

In November 1961, Major Conn Smythe sold control of the Maple Leafs to his son Stafford and partners Harold Ballard and John Bassett for roughly $2.3 million. He later professed public surprise that Ballard had helped finance the deal, though it is unlikely Stafford could have raised the sum alone.

1895–1980

Generation Three: Conn “Stafford” Smythe

Christ Church Anglican, Gregory, Minett, Muskoka

Stafford grew up in the shadow of a famous and frequently combative father. He played hockey at Upper Canada College and Runnymede Collegiate and spent one season with the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, and played briefly for the Toronto Marlboros in 1940–41 under Harold Ballard, whom he had known since boyhood.

Like his father, he enlisted in the war, this time the Second World War in the RC Navy. On his return, he became a partner in his father’s sand and gravel business. Soon after, his friend Harold Ballard hired him as coach, and later managing director of the Toronto Marlboros junior hockey club.

In 1968, following an RCMP raid on Maple Leaf Gardens, Stafford and Ballard were charged with theft and fraud relating to Gardens funds. They were jointly accused of stealing roughly $146,000 in funds and securities, and Stafford was separately charged with defrauding the company of a further $249,000. Ballard went to prison, but Stafford never stood trial.

On October 13, 1971, just as the case was moving toward court, he died of complications from a bleeding ulcer, reportedly aggravated by alcohol use and the strain of the looming prosecution. He was only 50.

1921–1971