Maryboro Lodge Personality: Garnet Graham

Garnet Graham with Yip Stick

Garnet Graham grew up in Kinmount and entered adulthood just before the Great Depression began. His father became the general manager of the Gull River Lumber Company’s sawmill in Coboconk and arranged for young Garnet to work in the mill. It was dangerous and deafening work that Garnet did not enjoy, so he became a truck driver. He married Helena Burgoyne, who was from a Fenelon Falls merchant family—much to her family’s chagrin. Instead of a delivery driver, they had hoped that she would marry an insurance agent.

One day, Garnet had a chance encounter with a Confederation Life executive, who instantly liked the young delivery driver and signed him up to be an insurance salesman. Garnet was a restless soul—always on the go, always doing something productive, and became a tremendously successful representative for Confederation Life, winning many awards for his sales. So, it turned out in the end that Helena did marry a very successful insurance salesman, just her mother did not live to see it happen.

Garnet loved magic tricks, and he would walk into customers’ homes or bars with his tricks in hand. He particularly liked the Yip Stick that Dick Bulmer showed him one day. Before long, his customers remembered him for his antics, as much as the life insurance policies he sold. He would entertain families, as he checked in to see if they had thought to take out a policy on their latest child. Even when he was an insurance agent, he was deeply interested in supporting his community and donated to local causes.

Garnet Graham Demonstrating Yip Stick, June 1987

When Garnet retired from selling insurance at age 65, he continued to work just as hard as he had during his career. He turned his attention to improving his community and entertaining friends. Garnet became known as Mr. Yip, and by the 1980s, he had turned the Yip Stick into the most popular souvenir of a visit to Fenelon Falls. One year, he sold more than 1000 yip sticks, donating all proceeds to local charities—supporting practically every good cause in town. He spent many days at the beach park and his garage next door, which he called “Ye Olde Curio Shope.”

His other favourite tricks included a snapper that he called a “Goes-Into,” a 3-piece chicken dinner for $1 (consisting of 3 pieces of corn to feed a chicken) and antique water (a bottle said to contain the actual water that Champlain paddled on, nearly four centuries before). His sidekick Bobby Beau (pronounced “Boo”) was a black terrier-poodle that could climb trees and add. Garnet would ask what’s two plus two and Bobby would bark four times. In honour of all his charitable work, the beach park, where he had spent so much time entertaining families, was named in his honour.

Town Crier Garnet Graham at Fenelon Falls Homecoming, 1975