Memorable Manitobans: Charles Morley Vanstone (1870-1953)

Physician, insurance executive.

Born at Kincardine, Ontario on 18 August 1870, son of Josiah Vanstone and Anne Sturgeon, he was educated at Kincardine Public School, Winnipeg Collegiate, and the University of Manitoba. His father was born in Devonshire, England, emigrating to Canada and settling in Bruce county, Ontario where he established himself as a furniture manufacturer, before moving to Manitoba in 1882, where he was employed by the Manitoba Government for forty years, at Winnipeg. Dr. Vanstone graduated in 1894, then went to Wawanesa and practised there until 1912 when he moved to North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

In 1901, he married Lily J. Clarke. They had a son and five daughters (the youngest of whom was Kathleen J. Vanstone), and they adopted two nephews on the death of their parents. He was a member of the Masonic Fraternity (Past Worshipful Master of the Wawanesa Lodge) and the IOOF (Past Noble Grand, Wawanesa Lodge, No. 31). He took a keen interest in sports, playing hockey and football, and bred purebred horses.

In 1922, he was invited to return to Wawanesa to head the troubled Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company, which had been founded in the town in 1896, during Vanstone’s tenure as local doctor. Despite having no insurance experience, he led the company to recovery and to new sources of insurance business, especially in automobile insurance.

He retired in 1943, moved to Burnaby, Britsh Columbia, and eventually returned to Winnipeg, where he died on 27 March 1953 after a lingering illness.

More information:

Pioneers of Manitoba by Robert Harvey (1970).

Old Pathways, New Horizons: A History of the Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company 1896-1996 by Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company (1996).

Source:

Pioneers and Prominent People of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Canadian Publicity Company, 1925.

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 28 December 2010

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