Flora Eaton

Sarah Evelyn Florence "Flora", Lady Eaton, (''née'' McCrea; November 26, 1879 – July 9, 1970) was a Canadian socialite, philanthropist and nurse. As the wife of Sir John Craig Eaton, who inherited the Eaton's department store business, she was a member and later matriarch of the prominent Eaton family.

Early life and family

She was born in 1879 in the village of Omemee, Ontario, a small community in Victoria County (today part of the City of Kawartha Lakes), approximately 23 km (14 mi) west of Peterborough. She was the youngest of eight children born to Irish Protestant immigrants – John McCrea, a cabinetmaker, and Jane McNeely.

She moved to Toronto and became a nurse, first at Toronto General Hospital then at Rotherham House, a private hospital on Sherbourne Street. While working at Rotherham House, she met John Craig Eaton, a patient who was a younger son of Eaton's department store founder Timothy Eaton. The two were married in Omemee on May 8, 1901.

They had five biological children – Timothy Craig Eaton (1903–1986), John David Eaton (1906–1973), Edgar Allison Eaton (1912–1988), Gilbert McCrea Eaton (1915–1985) and Florence Mary Eaton (1919–2012) – and adopted one daughter, Evlyn Beatrice Eaton (1920–1989).

The Eatons built a massive Georgian Revival style mansion on Spadina Road around 1910. Named Ardwold, the Gaelic word for "high, green hill", the house was designed by Frank Wickson and was one of the most lavish ever constructed in Toronto. The couple also built a vacation home named Kawandag at the northern end of Lake Rosseau in Muskoka, and that site is now the location of Rosseau Lake College.

In 1915, during World War I, her husband was knighted in recognition of his contributions to the war effort; he became Sir John Craig Eaton, and she was henceforth known as Lady Eaton. She was active in charity work during the war, hosting fundraisers at Ardwold and serving as patroness of the 109th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force based at Lindsay, Ontario, near her hometown.

Widowhood

Lady Eaton was widowed in 1922 when her husband died of influenza at the age of 45. In 1919, prior to his death, Sir John and Lady Eaton had purchased a plot of land in King City, Ontario, near the Marylake estate of their friends, Sir Henry and Lady Pellatt. By the mid-1930s, Lady Eaton grew tired of Ardwold and found it too grand, so she built a Norman Revival château known as Eaton Hall on the King City property. The contents of Ardwold were auctioned off and the mansion was demolished with dynamite, as its walls were too thick for conventional demolition.

In her widowhood, Lady Eaton often spent the winters travelling through Europe. In the late 1920s, she purchased ''Villa Natalia'', a villa in Fiesole outside Florence, which was built for Queen Elisabeth of Romania. In 1933, Lady Eaton was presented at court, and later that same year, she presented her future daughter-in-law, Signy Stefansson. In 1937, she attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and she presented her daughters Florence and Evlyn at court.

During her son's minority, Eaton's was run by Robert Young Eaton, a cousin of her husband. Lady Eaton disliked him and looked down on his branch of the family, whom she called the "worker Eatons", compared to her branch of the family, who were the "owner Eatons". She sat on the board of directors and took an active role in the company, overseeing the development of restaurants, most notably the Georgian Room at the Queen Street store, Eaton's Seventh Floor Restaurant at the College Street store and Eaton's Ninth Floor Restaurant in Montreal. The latter two were built in the Art Deco style by French architect Jacques Carlu.

On her many visits to Britain, Lady Eaton became fascinated by the liturgical pageantry of the Church of England. She incorporated some elements of the Anglican church (such as clerical vestments, kneelers and candelabra) into services at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. These changes were met with objection by the minister and other congregants, who argued that this pomp was not part of the United Church of Canada, with its roots in Methodism. However, due to the influence that Lady Eaton held, the changes went ahead. In 1938, she funded a renovation of the chancel in memory of her late husband, which made the floorplan closer to an Anglican church than that of a Methodist one.

During World War II, Lady Eaton housed evacuated British children at Eaton Hall, and they referred to her as "Auntie Flora". After the war, the house became a convalescent home for the Royal Canadian Navy for a time before becoming Lady Eaton's private residence again. She hosted a banquet for Eaton's employees returning from the front in September 1946. She also hosted an annual soirée for Eaton's managers and their wives. She was vice-president of the Canadian Red Cross

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