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5
Work

Early Career:
Atlas Sheet Metal and
McEwen Sheet Metal

Chris began his new career on September 6, 1954, one day after moving to Toronto. He joined Erik at Atlas Sheet Metal Company in mid-town Toronto.

Atlas was a busy place in the 1950s. The company installed new oil furnaces at a time when many homes in Toronto were converting from coal to oil. Chris took to his new job as a sheet-metal worker enthusiastically, working long hours during the day and taking night courses to gain accreditation.

Listen to an interview in which Chris talks about learning a new trade, and Hurricane Hazel in 1954.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection)

Some of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Hazel on October 15, 1954. Chris and Erik were working in the west end of the city at the time and narrowly made it home before the worst of the storm hit.
(City of Toronto Archives, Series 1057, Item 1997)

Early Career:
Atlas Sheet Metal and
McEwen Sheet Metal

Listen to an interview in which Chris talks about being covered in coal dust.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection)

Display of coal in Toronto, 1910.
(City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 1369)

Chris and Erik’s supervisor was a man named Gordon McEwen, an experienced sheet-metal worker. In early 1955, McEwen left Atlas Sheet Metal to open his own business in a laneway shop near Palmerston Avenue and Bloor Street. He contracted to do much of Atlas’s sheet-metal work, and Chris and Erik went to work for him.

Business card for McEwen Sheet Metal, Chris's second employer in Toronto.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection, P45-3.3)

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