(10 June 1898-4 May 1965), radio announcer. (Norman Brokenshire) Born in Murchison, Ont. Parents: William Henry Brokenshire and his wife Georgina Jones. During the 1920s, Norman Brokenshire was well known throughout North America as a broadcaster and as a personality in the new medium of radio, being, in fact, one of the earliest celebrities of the electronic media. He was not a Glengarrian, but he was of Glengarry connection through his father, who was minister of Zion Church, Apple Hill, 1923-1926. The Glengarry News, 6 March 1925, noted that Norman Brokenshire, son of Rev. W. H. Brokenshire, Apple Hill, was the broadcaster of President Coolidge’s inauguration. In fact, Brokenshire was to be a broadcaster for presidential inaugurations over the next three decades. Not surprisingly, Norman Brokenshire became on one celebrated GC occasion the star attraction when he appeared at a social at Apple Hill.

     Norman Brokenshire wrote an autobiography, This Is Norman Brokenshire (1954), but it has no GC refs. Norman Brokenshire is mentioned in many of the numerous works on the history of American radio. He has his entry in the DAB (the Dictionary of American Biography), but he is omitted from its successor, the American National Biography.

     The DAB firmly describes the Rev. William Henry Brokenshire as having served churches “in remote areas of Canada” as well as the eastern U. S., but he is remembered otherwise (Zion, MacMillan) to have been a linguist of unusual attainments. At the time of the Church Union controversy, his “Church Union Song,” dated at The Manse, Apple Hill, was published in the Montreal Gazette and reprinted in the Cornwall Standard, 12 July 1923.

DAB Supplement 7: 1961-1965 * Zion United Church Apple Hill, Ontario 1889-1989 (1989) *MacMillan, Kirk, 346 * Bill Reany (Beamsville newspaper man), “The Glengarry Connection,” Glengarry News 20 Jan. 1982, recalls the social