7 : Barbara Ann Mackenzie marries Irving Earle Robertson
It is not known for how long Irving courted Barbara but they planned their wedding to occur on 27 October 1927. A description of the rather unusual wedding ceremony appeared in the Toronto Daily Star the following day.1
IN NEW, UNFINISHED CHURCH IRVING E. ROBERTSON WEDS
But Flowers Make Scene a Mass of Color as Son of Telegram Founder Takes Bride - Had Planned Quiet Service at Sutton, But Plans Went 'Agley' (askew, awry)
There is a little stone church on Lake Simcoe not yet completed.
The sturdy red stone was gathered from
nearby fields by the pastor and his Presbyterian ßock. The framework was brought across the lake from a
historic church erected in 1862 on the Penetang road and fairly breathes the spirit of Presbyterianism.
It was here, at five o'clock yesterday afternoon, that Miss Barbara Mackenzie and Mr. Irving E. Robertson of
this city chose to become man and wife. The bride is a daughter of Mrs. James Mackenzie of Featherstone,
New Zealand, and the groom a son of the late John Ross Robertson, founder of the Toronto Telegram.
Half an hour before the ceremony began, a large crowd had gathered outside the church and many others within.
The wedding was to be quiet and the time and place had not been announced. But somehow, yesterday, the news
got abroad, and many motored from Toronto to join the people of Sutton and Jackson's Point as witnesses of
the ceremony.
By chance the time of the ceremony had been wrongly given out and so it was an anxious half hour that the
friends of the bride and groom experienced as they waited from 4.30 to 5 o'clock, watching the road down
which the bride and groom would come.
The whole roadside in front was filled with cars. Packards nudged mud-bespattered country Fords. City folk
in morning coats and luxurious furs stood side by side with modestly dressed country folk.
At the side of
the church, seated on the grass, were the workmen who had laid down their tools for the afternoon to leave
the church free for the ceremony. They were among the few who had received a special invitation to the
wedding. With them were the workmen from the country home they are building for the groom at Jackson's Point.
They too were in their working clothes. Across the road, and viewing from a distance, were three Indian
women who came over and looked on the church after the bride and groom had arrived. They too were friends.
A baby carriage had been pushed to the spot and there were several infants in arms. On the verandah of the
house next door, a little family had a special vantage point and lent extra chairs, when they were needed,
to eke out the chairs within the church.
Rough plaster and pieces of building stone filled the churchyard across which the bride and groom had to pass.
On a knoll of sand and plaster, cameramen from all of the Toronto dailies had taken their stand to be in
readiness. Idle tools of the builders reposed at the side of the church door. And behind everything rose the
little church itself, dignified and beautiful with its tiny gothic door and arched windows of many panes.
Built of red stone, native to the spot, it is an exquisite little bit of architecture. The framework, brought
across the lake from a small Presbyterian church built near Churchill in 1862, has an historic signiÞcance
and has already sanctified the edifice.
Within, the walls are of rough, gray plaster. There are as yet no pews and no furnishings. When the workmen
learned two days ago that the wedding was to take place, there was no glass in the windows. But they put
themselves wholeheartedly into the task of getting the church ready. And yesterday the frames and glass were
in place temporarily, and the floor well swept out.
Great branches of autumn leaves filled the entire front of the church and were banked up against the
improvised altar, where, on a white altar cloth, two Grecian vases filled with white asters, cosmos and
tall grasses, had been placed.
In front at the altar a rug covered a small portion at the bare, unpolished floor. Here just before the
ceremony, friends of the bridal pair had brought and placed two seat cushions from their car, to create a
simple prie dieu.
A few minutes alter five the car bearing the groom and Mr. James Parker, his best man, arrived in front of
the church. Immediately after came a second car with the bride and her escort, Mr. Harold Mara.
They entered the little church just at sunset, the sky a mass of flame color and white clouds and the trees
all about, scarlet and gold and bronze in their autumn tints. Their arrival was the signal for the crowd to
enter the church, perhaps one hundred and Þfty in all.
The pointed windows looked out on the setting sun as the Rev. Stuart Parker of this city repeated the simple,
but beautiful wedding service of the Presbyterian Church and the Rev. J. D. Campbell of Sutton, offered the
wedding prayer.
The cameramen had managed to climb up into the little choir gallery at the rear of the church, almost
inaccessible because the stairways have not yet been put in the church. And at the close of the ceremony,
they were ready for pictures again.
The bride wore her traveling costume of deep blue, the gown of Canton crepe and the coat of needlepoint,
trimmed with gray fox. Her hat of gray felt was enriched with appliques of deep red and violet and she wore
gray shoes and gloves. She carried no flowers, but immediately after the ceremony, she was presented with a
bouquet of heather, fresh from Scotland, from friends who said it was "for good luck."
Practically the entire staff of the Toronto Telegram was present at the wedding and when the bride and groom
left the church, they broke out into cheers for "Robertson" and pelted the pair with rose leaves and confetti.
The drive from the church to the scene of the reception, a cottage at Jackson's Point, owned by
Mr. M. A. Howie, was for two miles through brilliant autumn scenery. Here as near as possible to the large
country residence of stone, which the groom is erecting on the point, the bridal pair welcomed their
friends. The groom has frequently summered on the shores of Lake Simcoe and it was when he saw the little
stone church at Sutton in the process of erection that he conceived the idea of building a similar structure
near there as his home.
Forthwith he sent a generous contribution to the church building fund and began to erect his own home.
And when the date of his marriage was Þxed, he and his bride chose to be married there, in the little
church.
The bridal pair stood on the wide veranda of the cottage to receive their guests, looking out through the
trees onto the lake, fading into the twilight.
Inside, autumn foliage gave a festive air to the living room in the centre of which the wedding cake appeared
on a large table. Small buffet tables about the room, offering refreshments, were decked with golden, pink
and bronze chrysanthemums and autumn fruit. About forty were present including the workmen from the church.
Mr. and Mrs. Robertson have left on a motor trip to the United States and on their return will reside at
119 St. George Street.
Among those noticed at the wedding were Mrs. Irving Cameron, stepmother of the groom, Major and Mrs. John
Gillespie, Mrs. Mackelcan, Miss Agnes Dunlop, Mr. John R. Robinson, Miss Joy Robinson, Miss Brad Robinson,
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Robertson and Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Knowles.
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As far as can be determined none of Barbara's family were present at the wedding. Her escort, Harold Mara was a prominent Toronto stockbroker, presumably a friend of Irving.
Anne Russell relates:
According to Kate Miles an earlier wedding had been arranged
but Tot changed her mind. Irve then told her to send flowers, for which she must pay, together with a letter
of apology to her hostess for the trouble she had caused. He finally got her to the church.