(23 April 1870-8 Feb. 1957), druggist. Born at Fergus, Ont. Parents: Michael McLeister, who was a drover, and his wife Catherine Sweeney. He attended public school (at Fergus), high school and the Ontario College of Pharmacy. In 1896 he opened a drugstore in Alexandria. He was married on 3 Oct. 1899 in Alexandria to Elizabeth Isobel (Isabel) Kerr (12 Jan. 1876-2 Aug. 1954). (ten children) A lifelong resident of Alexandria, she was the daughter of Cosmos Kerr and his second wife Julia Ann McGillis, the daughter of Donald McGillis of the Tonquin voyage. From 1936 to 1944 Mrs McLeister was the organist at St. Finnan’s Cathedral. One of the long-term merchants of Alexandria, John McLeister operated a stationery store and bookstore as departments in his pharmacy. He was also a qualified optician. His obituary described him as “dean of Alexandria’s Irish community.” (In truth, probably few people, at least among countryfolk who shopped in Alexandria, thought of the McLeisters as anything but another of the local Scottish families.)
In the 1940s his son Francis (Frank) Joseph McLeister (1 July 1914-31 July 1992), who had graduated from the Ontario College of Pharmacy in 1938, returned to Alexandria to take over his father’s drugstore business. Another son, Wilfred (Bill) McLeister, operated the stationery and bookstore parts of the business. In 1955 Frank bought the Ostrom drugstore business and in 1959 he bought the Ostrom drugstore building. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1956, Wilfred and Frank had divided up their businesses, with Wilfred operating the book and stationery side in the old McLeister store, and Frank operating the drugstore in the former Ostrom premises. Wilfred died in hospital, Alexandria, 16 Nov. 1968. In 1973, Frank sold his drugstore (both business and building) to S. A. Sultan. Thus after three-quarters of a century the McLeisters ceased to be business proprietors in Alexandria, though Frank continued to work for S. A. Sultan; even after his formal retirement at 65 he worked “on an occasional basis almost up until his death.” The three McLeister men were Roman Catholics. Frank McLeister was married in 1950 to Mary Baker. (six children)
The McLeister bookstore was never a large operation, being always subordinated to their other enterprises, but if we exclude a number of other businesses, such as Ostrom’s, which sold school textbooks, it may over many years have been the sole bookstore in GC. In the 1950s, it was one of the places where local people could buy copies of Dorothy Dumbrille’s Up and Down the Glens and Braggart in My Step.
The last to die of the large family of John McLeister and Isobel Kerr were Mrs Marie Julien, who died in Alexandria, 12 Feb. 2006, aged 105, and Miss Catherine (Kay) McLeister, a WWII nurse, who died aged 93 on 25 Aug. of the same year, also in Alexandria. (GN 15 Feb 2006: two notices, & 30 Aug. 2006, with portraits)
Glengarry News 14 Feb. 1957 * private information, personal knowledge * entries for Ostrom family * obituary of his wife, GN 5 Aug. 1954 * obituaries of Wilfred and Frank McLeister, GN 21 Nov. 1968, 5 Aug. 1992 (QF) * business dates: GN 31 Jan. 1896, 27 May & 3 June 1938, 4 April 1952, 14 & 21 April 1955, 19 Jan. 1956, 22 Jan. 1959, 3 May 1973, 16 Oct. 1985 * adverts for auction sale, “Contents of circa 1864 Alexandria Home,” of his daughter Miss Catherine McLeister, GN 4 & 11 Aug. 1999; see also Sue Harrington column, GN 18 Aug. 1999 * daughter Mrs Marie Julien now aged 104, GN 20 0ct. 2004