by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer

(2003) She was in town for only 90 minutes, but her visit created memories that would last a lifetime. The date was July 3, 1959 and Queen Elizabeth was in the city as part of a tour to celebrate the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

To say the young monarch took the city by storm would be no exaggeration. “A luminous Queen and a beaming Prince captured the hearts of more than 100,000 persons Friday night as they drove 11 miles through the heart of Sarnia,” The Observer reported the next day. “Virtually every person in the city turned out, from the elderly woman who sat in her rocking chair on the side of the street to the three-week old baby that went to sleep in its mother’s arms even before the Queen appeared. They came from as far away as Owen Sound and Cleveland, Ohio.

The couple arrived on the Royal Yacht Britannia, with Prince Philip, a former naval officer, “steering the vessel into the approaching shoreline.” According to legend, Prince Philip came down the gangplank, got a whiff of the Chemical Valley and asked, “What is that smell?” If he did notice an odour, it’s likely the massive crowds made him soon forget it. People climbed telephone poles, hung from trees, perched on rooftops and stood five deep along the motorcade route. The crowds were so huge that it took half an hour longer than expected for the Queen to get to a reception in Canatara Park. At Norm Perry Park, a giant portrait of the Queen was on display.

However, even a visit by the head of the Commonwealth couldn’t pry a fanatical golfer from her game. As the motorcade made its way past Sarnia Golf and Curling Club, The Observer noted, “a lone woman golfer halted to watch the cars go by.” Then she went back to her game.

The rest of the city, however, was almost beside itself with excitement. “Even the most optimistic observers couldn’t have expected the welcome that greeted the Royal Couple as they drove through the flag-bedecked streets,” the newspaper said.

Ninety minutes after it began it was all over. The Queen and Prince were back on the St. Clair River. “The long awaited moment had come and gone but the memories of it will linger for years,” The Observer said.

{Sarnia Historical Society Editor-in-Chief Phil Egan has a story to add about the “giant portrait of the Queen” on display at Norm Perry Park: “The portrait was commissioned by my father, Joe Egan. In addition to his electrical contracting company, Power Installations, Dad owned a company called Ham Leong Signs. Ham was an artist and drew the massive portrait from a postage stamp image. Observers say that the Queen noticed the sign. It was later disassembled and lay in the company yard for weeks. Some of Dad’s workers were later digging a trench in front of the National Pool Hall downtown. Unfortunately, they used the Queen’s portrait parts to block off the trench to traffic. The next time we saw it was on the front page of The Observer. The Queen’s features were still noticeable. It was very embarrassing for Dad, who wasn’t happy with the workers’ choice of scaffolding.”