I was really surprised that there was very little coverage or even mention of Fred Eaton's passing, especially in Toronto media.  At one point Eaton's was the biggest employer in Canada other than the CN and CP railroads, and had over 75,000 employees across the country.  With their head office in Toronto they were likely the cities largest employer  for years and they also had various manufacturing plants in the city. 

Eaton's were even involved with broadcasting and owned the biggest chunk of Baton Broadcasting for years.  However the Eaton family let the Bassett's manage Baton and to a certain extent CTV and never really got into the day to day operation of the network or radio and TV stations that they owned through Baton.   They did try around 1996 to buy the remaining shares of CTV that they didn't own but were unsuccessful.  And it was only a few years later that the department store filed for bankruptcy protection in 1999. 
Living in Toronto as a youngster, always had good memories of Eaton's.

 

Last edited by paterson1 (March 4, 2021 11:54 pm)