Leonard Allan
Plot 9, Lot 3253
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
On September 1, 1919, five-month-old Leonard Allan died at Sick Children’s Hospital on College Street. After a brief funeral service at the youngster’s residence at 105 Trinity Street, friends and family went by motor hearse to Mount Pleasant Cemetery while the youngster’s casket was taken to the foot of Bathurst Street where it was strapped in front of the pilot of a Curtis biplane and flown to a field just east of the cemetery. From here, the casket was taken by hearse to the gravesite.
When asked why this procedure was followed, funeral director Robert Stone stated that the day would come when aerial funerals would be commonplace. So it was that the funeral of little Leonard Allan was the first aerial funeral conducted anywhere in the world.
Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded