G9: Mel Shiels 1932-2014 & Greta Mary Martin

Mel Shiels was born March 1, 1932 near Stoughton, Saskatchewan. He was the youngest child of John and Pearl (Gerry) Shiels. He was only 10 months old when his mother died and he was raised by his father and older sisters. The family moved to Manitoba in 1937.

Mel moved along with his father from farm to farm around Napinka, Manitoba. When his dad moved to town in 1947, Mel stayed on the farm with his brother Ken. Their other brother George came to live with them after returning from World War II with his wife Betty. In the fall of 1947 they moved to the old House farm.

In the fall of 1949, Mel drove to Ontario with his friend Orville McInnes. Orville went to join the Mounties and Mel went to see his brother Cliff. Mel was only 16 and got a job with the Canada Packers. He stayed there for a year and then moved to Bowmanville, Ontario where he met his wife, Greta Mary Martin. Greta was born in Bowmanville January 22, 1935.

Mel & Greta were married on December 6, 1952. While in Bowmanville, Mel drove a bread truck and a taxi. He also worked for McGregor’s Hardware for eight years. They had a daughter Deborah Pearl born July 24, 1953. She died on November 16, 1953 and is buried at Bowmanville. The family moved to Oshawa in 1960, which is nine miles from Bowmanville. Mel worked for Whites and remained there for eight years. Then he started with J & H Feed Stores in Schomberg where he sold silos. He sold these silos all over Canada. While working there, Mel recalled having breakfast in Halifax one morning and having supper in Vancouver the same night.

During the time in Oshawa, they had six children; Gary on December 22, 1954; Gayle on September 2, 1956; Tim on April 9, 1958; Paul on November 3, 1959; Terry on April 24, 1964; and Kevin on May 22, 1967. All of the children were born in Bowmanville.

Mel has been a salesman for most of his married life. After selling silos, he started his own family business known as “Mel Shiels and Sons Farm Automation” in 1975. This was really a family business, Mel was the salesman and overall boss and Greta & Gayle work in the office. All the sons have worked in the business at one time or another. Their business was located three miles west of Newmarket. Mel had an accident in 1984, while working on a piece of farm machinery. He broke his pelvis and was in hospital for a long time but did make a complete recovery.

Mel & Greta went on to work together in a new venture delivering the Royal Mail while they still owned his own business. When you are in your own business, you depend on the mail to get the cheques in. After not getting any mail for over a week, Mel went to the post office to find out what was wrong and he found out that the delivery person had quit. He also found out that the previous three had also quit. The postmaster asked Mel if he wanted to try so he agreed to do Holland Landing so that he could get his own mail. This was followed by Barrie and Newmarket. Paul took over the family business and the mail expanded to include Bradford, Aurora and Kettlebe. They had a total of ten different routes at one time and Mel, Greta, Gayle, Paul, Terry, Brenda, Cindy and Audrey all helped out. There are many families in the Bradford/Newmarket area that get their mail using a Rural Route (RR) type address. Mel & Greta would go in to the post office around 4AM to sort the mail and then start delivering so they were done about 2PM. They continued with the mail for 15 years and retired in July 2000 and moved to Carlton Place, Ontario, just a few miles from Ottawa.

Mel also likes to play the guitar and sing. Mel is a very kind and gentle person and is always there to offer help to anyone in need.

Mel passed away on Sunday, February 16, 2014.