Alice Margaret Kilgour
Plot H, Section 3, Lot 3
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
Alice Kilgour, about whom little is known of her early life, was, at her death, widow of Joseph Kilgour. Joseph and his older brother, Robert, had established Kilgour Bros., paper bag and cardboard box manufacturers, in Toronto in 1874. Over the ensuing years, their company grew to become the largest business of its kind in the country.
Joseph Kilgour purchased a large tract of land on north Bayview Avenue which he called Sunnybrook Farm. In 1926, Kilgour died and in May, two years later, his widow, the former Alice Margaret Grand, announced that she was giving to the citizens of Toronto, 172 acres of land in memory of her husband. Sunnybrook Park was officially opened by Mayor Sam McBride (Plot D, Section 20, Lot 8) the following September.
In 1944, a portion of the park was transferred to the federal government and a new veterans’ hospital was built. Sunnybrook Hospital opened on June 12, 1948. Some years later, the remaining City of Toronto park-land was transferred to the Corporation of Metropolitan Toronto and is still un use, though now as a Metro park. Alice Kilgour, who gave Torontonians the beautiful Sunnybrook Park, died on March 8, 1938.
Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded