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Hastings (John E. F.) Family fonds Series
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The records in this series underscore the impact of an upbringing where the tenets of Christianity, public service, and duty were emphasized. They begin with thirty years (1937 – 1969) of files on Camp Kagawong, a privately owned boy’s camp on Balsam Lake, where Dr. Hastings spent his summers as a young boy enjoying the outdoors. The leadership qualities he displayed led to his becoming a camp counsellor (1944 – 1945) and, from 1946 – 1950, director of the Bantam Section and instructor in nature, first aid, swimming and games. During those years he dramatized three folk tales for presentation. At the weekly chapel services, he often delivered homilies or ‘sermonettes’, a practice he continued throughout his association with the camp until a few years before it closed in 1975. He served as camp doctor for a number of his vacations between 1952 and 1967. Dr. Hastings’ activities at Camp Kagawong are well documented through notes, certificates, correspondence (much of which is in Series 3) scripts for theatrical presentations, chapel service programs and sermonettes, and some of the annual camp catalogues, photographs and artifacts. The arrangement of the files in this section is largely chronological.

The material on Camp Kagawong is followed by files on Canadian Council of Churches and its Vellore/Ludhiana Committee, of which Dr. Hastings was a member from 1962 – 1975 and to which he was an advisor from 1975 to 1981. These are followed by files on the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, including extensive ones documenting the work of the International Review Team, of which he was a member, that visited Vellore in 1979 and produced a report on its findings the following year. His wife and daughter accompanied him on this trip.

Next are files on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953; the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, of which Dr. Hastings was a member of the board; Emmanuel College, where he was a University representative on its council and a member of its curriculum committee; the King’s College Fund which in 1985 organized a Canadian study tour of health services in Britain and, in the same period reciprocal study tours in Canada, based on the Department of Health Administration at the University of Toronto. (Dr. Hastings and his family lived at the King’s Fund College during several visits in London.) He was active in the youth clubs of the Progressive Conservative Party in the 1940s, attended the 1948 convention at which George Drew was selected leader, and took part in the federal election the following year.

Dr. Hastings’ place of worship for many years has been St. Andrew’s United Church at 117 Bloor Street East in Toronto. He played a very active role in its affairs, serving on its Session and Official Board since 1956, many of its committees, was a member of its Men’s Club and, on occasion, delivered the sermon of the week. The files cover the years from 1952 to 1973, when St. Andrew’s and the Yonge Street United Church amalgamated, and include correspondence, notices of services, minutes of meetings, reports, and drafts of three sermons.

This series ends with a number of files on Dr. Hastings’ involvement in several activities of the United Church of Canada, centering around his being a member of its task force on health services (1985 – 1987) and its Division of Mission in Canada’s health task group (1991 – 1994). Included are correspondence, minutes, memoranda, notes, drafts of reports, and a video, “Taking the pulse of Canadian health care” that grew out of the work of the health task group.

Addresses and interviews

Dr. Hastings was much in demand as a public speaker throughout his career. In the early 1960s, for example, he often gave more than one speech a week and by the late 1990s he himself estimated that he had given well over 1,000 addresses. While the majority were delivered at academic and professional gatherings, he also made time to speak at numerous community events, including graduation exercises. In 1989, as a recipient of the Alumni Faculty Award, he gave the convocation address for the Faculty of Medicine.

This series contains lists of addresses, correspondence, notes, drafts of addresses, and, often, press coverage. The arrangement is chronological, with correspondence for which accompanying addresses have not survived being arranged in separate files. There is a substantial file of this type for 1963. Interviews are filed at the end of the addresses.

The earliest extant address, other than those given while a student (see Series 2), is his first professional foray on the international scene, at the American Public Health Association conference in October 1954. The theme was administrative practice in relation to the quality of medical care provided under the Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Board. This address and subsequent ones follow the major themes laid out in the earlier series, especially Series 7. Those that were published are filed, for the most part, in Series 7. Some of the addresses are indicated in Appendix 2, which includes entries up to 1994.

After his retirement, Dr. Hastings’ addresses continued to focus primarily on public and community health issues. One, in 1994, was given on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Charles Hastings Co-operative, named after his great-uncle, Toronto’s innovative and pioneering medical officer of health. On another occasion, he spoke about the future of community health centres to the International Conference on Community Health Centres in Montreal (December 1995).

While President of the Canadian Public Health Association in 1996 – 1997, he travelled widely and was much in demand as a speaker. Four venues included a reception in his honour in Winnipeg, the second National Conference on Communicable Disease Control in Toronto, the World Health Organization’s Intersectional Action for Health conference in Halifax, and the annual general meeting of the Northwest Territories branch of the CPHA in Yellowknife. In 1999, after many years of long-distance communication, he flew to Manitoba to address the Hamiota District Health Centre Foundation, and in November was a keynote speaker at the 50th annual conference of the Ontario Public Health Association.

In June 2000, at the annual meeting of the Association of Ontario Health Centres, Dr. Hastings reflected on a turning point in his career in his address, “The Hastings Report – then and now”. This is followed by an address delivered at the opening in October 2001 of the Institute of Population and Health, one of four Toronto-based Institutes of Health Research.

The series concludes with three interviews, one on CBC’s radio and television “Citizen’s Forum” in 1960, a ‘telepole’ on CFTO TV in 1962, and an interview with Jan Brown in February 1997.