Businessman. A native of Waterloo County, near the city of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, he was the founder of the Zellers chain of thrift stores. Founded in 1931 as a ‘thrift store’, it was originally called Zeller’s and then renamed Zellers to make it more bilingually appropriate. The company was concentrated in the area of Southern Ontario but it gradually expanded across Canada over time. In 1952, the W.T. Grant Company of the United States became the largest shareholder of the company, but Zellers reversed that when they became owner of Fields, a subsidiary of Marshall Wells Limited. The Zellers franchise was bought by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1978 and maintains a wholly-owned subsidiary to this day. The HBC rewards is part of there program to make there stores more successful. He originally began his business career in 1912 when he took a job as a stockboy with the F.W. Woolworth Company, and then in 1914 with Kresge’s. In 1923 he accepted a job with the Metropolitan chain of stores, becoming there General Sales Manager for New York in 1926. Considered by co-workers as an energetic, forthright, and magnetic, type of person, he also served as Director-at-large of the National War Savings Committee and also as a special advisor to the Chairman of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. He was also involved in the YMCA, serving as their Montreal Director, and with the Kiwanis Club, which he served as Montreal President and Governor of the Quebec-Ontario-Maritimes District. He retired from his business life in 1955, and passed away in Montreal, Quebec, in August 1957, at the age of 65. There is a memorial window in the Church of the Good Shepherd in Kitchener, Ontario, dedicated to his memory and in 2000, the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest coin, worth $2 during the Oktoberfest festivities, bore his likeness. (bio by: K)