Reta Larmour

The People

Reta Larmour

← People of the Society · on record 1950–1974

Possibly the same person: Dr. or Mrs. Larmour →
The 1963–64 Executive Council prints “Dr. or Mrs. Larmour”: the Society’s papers credit this seat to a couple, Dr. Ralph K. Larmour and his wife, Reta Larmour, and do not say which of them held it.

The Society’s records

Everything the Society’s own records say of Reta Larmour: the offices held, the standings conferred, and the awards won. Where the records are silent, so is this part of the page.

Also recorded as Reta Lamour, Rita Larmour

Branch

Toronto · recorded in the papers in 1952

Certification

Fellow of the CSCL 1953
Honorary Fellow of the CSCL 1965
Printed as an Honorary Life Fellow Membership. The c. 1985 roll marks her “HL”.

An early Charter Member of the Society who started its lending library and helped draft its constitution; the Society's library of leathercraft books bore her name. One piece of hers was chosen for “Ontario Crafts – Leather Today”, the Society’s Centennial travelling exhibition: a carved framed purse. The Canadian Guild of Crafts (Ontario) selected the articles; the exhibition opened at the Guild Shop on 2 October 1967 and was to travel across Canada during 1968. The Society's “Who's Who in Canadian Leathercraft” column introduced her in the summer of 1952. Formerly of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she came to leathercraft through the Leathercraft Group of the Kingsway Women's Club of Toronto, and studied under Edith Roscoe, Jack McDougall, Robert Muma and Tiva Limberg of Toronto and Nila Joel of California. In the four years to 1952 she competed in major exhibitions in Toronto, Vancouver, London and Ottawa, having work accepted for the 1951 Canadian Crafts Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto.

From Fall 1967, page 9; The History of the Canadian Society for Creative Leathercraft: its own short account, page 1; 40th Annual Meeting 1990: programme, Elmhurst Inn, Ingersoll, page 8; Annual Meeting 1975: programme, Geneva Park, Lake Couchiching, page 9; Annual Meeting 1976: programme, West Plains United Church, Burlington, page 12; and Summer 1952, page 7.

Served the Society as

Secretary (assisting Robert Muma) / Advisory Council, Toronto 1950
Chairman Exhibitions Committee 1951–1954
Secretary 1951
Chairman Travelling Exhibition 1952
Chairman, Travelling Exhibition Committee 1952
Chairman, Exhibitions Committee 1954
2nd Assembly Demonstrator 1955
Publicity 1955
Canadian Handicrafts Guild Liaison 1956–1960
Canadian Handicrafts Liaison 1957–1958
Council 1961
Executive Council 1965
Honorary President 1973–1974

Honours

Honorary Life Fellow Membership 1965
Presented by Jean Newton at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, held at WoodGreen Centre, Toronto, with 104 members registered. The newsletter records that Jean Newton "stressed the work that was put into the founding of our Society, and the tireless efforts, well beyond the call of duty, by Reta Larmour", and closes the notice "Congratulations Reta!" She was the Society's first Secretary. The page reads Reta, not the Rita that one later newsletter prints.
Honorary President 1971
Made an Honorary President at the 21st Annual Meeting, Old St. Paul's Church, Woodstock, 17 April 1971, by Mrs. Anne Hook, “for her contribution to C.S.C.L.”; accepted for her by Fred Brown. The page prints her given name Rita; the archive spells her Reta, on her husband's 1970 obituary.

Awards

1st Canadian International Hobby Show Popular Vote 1953
Canadian Handicrafts Guild Competition Second Prize 1958
Canadian Handicrafts Guild Golden Anniversary Exhibition Second Prize 1956
International Assembly Salon Exhibit Honor Award 1957
International Assembly Salon Ribbon 1962
M'Lady Fair Popular Vote 1952
Pacific National Exhibition 1st Prize, Carved Leather Class 1951
Pacific National Exhibition Bedford Cup Trophy 1951, 1964
Second CNE Hobby and Homecraft Show Public Preference Poll, Large Articles, 4th place 1954

Demonstrations given

Assembling framed handbags 1956
Peterboro group meeting, 1956
From Autumn 1956, page 11.
Purse framing (with Sadie Roebuck) 1956
CSCL Exhibition, Ryerson Institute of Technology, Toronto, October 1956
From Autumn 1956, page 12.

Where this comes from

Life and work

From her husband's death notice, October 1970. Other lines come from the sources named under each.

Family: Born Reta Garnett, she was the wife of Dr. Ralph Kenneth Larmour, a fellow member, who died in 1970.
From Larmour, Ralph Kenneth, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. (death notice).
In the press: In December 1952, as chairman of the travelling exhibition committee, she was in Montreal with the Society's exhibition at M'Lady Fair, the educational exposition sponsored by the Montreal Women's Club.
From the Toronto Star, 3 December 1952, p. 32.; A Star Weekly feature of January 1953 named her as the Society's exhibition chairman and said that the travelling exhibition “Canadian Handmades in Leather” had by then toured centres in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan for almost a year.
From Stasia Evasuk, “Creative Arts Body Widens Its Influence”, Star Weekly, 10 January 1953, p. 22.; Saturday Night of 24 January 1953 described her taking a travelling exhibit around the country for the Society.
From Saturday Night, 24 January 1953, Vol. 68 No. 16, https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-night_1953-01-24_68_16.; The Peterborough Examiner of 28 March 1953 announced the Society's travelling exhibition, Canadian Handmades in Leather, at the Peterborough Public Library on 1 April, sponsored by the city's Recreation Commission; the paper's photograph of the exhibition names Mrs. Rita Larmour of Toronto, its chairman.
From “Leathercraft To Go On Show At Library”, Peterborough Examiner, 28 March 1953, and photograph caption, https://archive.org/details/1953-03-18-1953-04-10.

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