Whenever the news is filled with the tragedy of high school basketball or minor league hockey team nearly wiped out by a highway accident, I remember Listowel. Thanks to The Globe and Mail and Brent Davis for honouring the seven boys and one adult who perished under the collapsed walls and roof of the Listowel arena Saturday, February 28, 1959. I grew up not far from Listowel, it was not a town we visited every week but it was still very familiar to me even if the only people I knew there were shopkeepers who sold my parents most of the clothes I wore, or my father the cars we drove. Every winter Saturday at that point in my life, i was driven from the farm to nearby Palmerston (15 km from Listowel) for my weekly piano lesson, after which I was dragged to the arena and forced to embarrass myself on skates. That day, i was spared as word spread to all the towns around Listowel to empty the arenas until the roofs had been cleared of snow and the building structures checked for safety. In my memory, the seven boys who were killed were older. I guess to my nine year-old mind, 12 year-olds were older boys, and so they have remained.
The disaster was the result of unsafe construction techniques; the weight of snow and ice on the roof pushed out the walls on which the roof trusses were positioned and, as the walls crumbled, the wooden trusses and steel and ice and snow came down in the boys and man. Life was simpler in rural Ontario then. I recall people talking about the miracle that most of the boys in the arena that mooring were still in the dressing room that was undamaged, not about lawsuits against the builders (who probably had been local contractors assisted by volunteers). As noted in the Globe’s memorial story, we didn’t have fleets of air and land ambulances to rush victims to trauma centres in London and Toronto, not that it would have made any difference. Townspeople and their rural neighbours mourned and then got on with life as we did after any disaster - fire, tornado, flood.
In the years that followed, almost all the small towns in southwestern Ontario demolished their arenas as it was determined the construction techniques were unreliable. A few years ago, Palmerston discovered that the walls of the town-owned cinema were crumbling and the building had to be closed lest another disaster occur and a roof collapse on kids watching a Saturday matinee. Many towns went without a local indoor place to skate and play hockey while the communities struggled to raise the money to build a new sportsplex. In Listowel and all the surrounding towns, the new arena is larger and a lot more comfortable for athletes and spectators. The Norgan cinema in Palmerston has been repaired and restored following several years of local fund-raising.
Out of the Listowel tragedy, and numerous other disasters averted, stronger communities were built as well. Residents who may never use the spaces help because they understand that their towns need these facilities if they are to survive and prosper. That such community spirit still exists may be the enduring legacy of Listowel’s tragedy.
