As Canadians mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Sudbury.com invited readers to share their memories of Royal visits to Sudbury.
The late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the city in 1959 and again in 1984.
King Charles, the former Prince of Wales, and his first wife, Diana, began their October 1991 tour of Canada in Sudbury.
Toronto media played up the city's "moonscape" image and wondered if a mining town was pretty enough to welcome the Royals.
Liberal MPP Hugh O'Neil took the recently elected New Democrat government to task for not following tradition by holding the official welcome in the provincial capital.
The first Royal visit in 1919 was brief. The future King Edward VIII, on his way to Western Canada, stepped off the train when it stopped at the CPR station on Elgin Street. Across the street, students from Central Public School were waiting to meet Prince Edward, who was Prince of Wales at the time.
The good-looking and popular Royal was in Canada for a 60-day "victory" tour following the end of the First World War.
On Sept, 3, 1919, wearing a tweed suit and a grey fedora, the Prince greeted the students and then inspected the Copper Cliff Cadets and war veterans.
Edward's younger brother, known as Bertie and crowned King George VI in 1936, visited the city with his wife, Elizabeth, during a cross-Canada tour in 1939.
The visit to the city took place in the early evening of June 5. A tour at Frood Mine was not on the official itinerary but added at the request of the King.
Jamey Burr shared, "In 1939, my mother was 17 years old and a student at Gore Bay High School on Manitoulin Island. She was among a group of elementary and high school students chosen to travel from the Island to Sudbury for the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
"The students were transported by car to McKerrow, where they caught the train to Sudbury. Next, they participated in a parade through downtown and then on to the Athletic Field, (renamed Queen's Athletic Field) for the arrival of the King and Queen.
"The group was then taken back to the train station for the return journey – there and back and met the King and Queen in one special day."
Royal appearances are planned down to the minute and a rigid itinerary is given to officials, security officers and the media.
Former Sudbury resident Bruno Zaoral, who is the administrator of the Facebook site Sudbury, Ontario, Yesterday and Today has researched details of the 1939 visit.
He takes issue with an urban myth that the Windsors stayed overnight at the Nickel Range Hotel. It is possible a comfort stop at the hotel was arranged given the Royals' visit was extended to include a mine tour.
"If there was a stop at the Nickel Range, it must have been after Queen's Athletic Field and before the visit to Frood Mine. Once the visit to Frood was over, it was back to the Royal train (waiting near Garson) and on to Toronto, arriving the morning of June 6. I cannot find any evidence to support a stop at the Nickel Range," he wrote.
He also corrects another detail regarding an unscheduled walkabout at the Capreol train station.
"On my search for documentation about the Nickel Range, I found an error in another article on the Sudbury Heritage Museum site that says there was a stop in Capreol after the Sudbury visit. This is incorrect. The Royal train was eastbound and stopped in Capreol before arriving in Sudbury."
Zaoral shared a link to a video of the 1939 Sudbury visit. You can watch it here.
Heather Jessup-Falcioni wrote about peonies in her garden believed to have a connection to Royalty.
"In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth completed a tour of Canada in a blue and silver Royal train from May 17 to June 15 – excluding four days from June 8 to 11 that were spent in the United States. The train included stops in places such as Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Banff, and Vancouver as well as several small towns and villages along the railway line.
"Supposedly, one of the small towns was Cache Bay around June 5 or 6. My grandfather, John Edward Jessup, was mayor of Cache Bay. According to family folklore, one of the gifts bestowed by the Royals to the mayor of each community visited was a white peony and a red peony.
"A piece of those peonies ended up in the garden of my parents who lived on a farm a few miles from Cache Bay.
"I visited my parents' farm and dug up a piece of the only peony left that had been gifted to my grandfather. It is the most fragrant and the sturdiest of the peonies in my garden. This white peony is one of my most cherished possessions."
You can watch a National Film Board film about the 1939 Royal visit here.
Vicki Gilhula is a freelance writer. Memory Lane is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
