Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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HARRY M. BEER II9 I 3- I 9875 Student I927- I 93 I Master I93 I- I 953 Headmaster Pickering College I 9 5 3 - I 978

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Harry M. Beer Harry Beer planned for life. He pursued the Good, the True and the Beautiful in classical fashion. The pursuit of the Good led him to discover for himself and, therefore, for others, the living potential for improve- ment in all with whom he came into con- tact. He was the first to realize that worthwhile challenges, translated into ac- tive goals for young people, would help build their character and help to make them good human beings. Harry could make extremely strong demands upon students, colleagues, friends and loved ones, and simultaneously communicate an ovenvhelming and abiding affection that made people incapable of refusing his requests. This ability to inspire the good potential within never failed to lift the spirits to new endeavours. Pursuit of Truth, although at first glimpse idealistic and utopian, Harry rendered as everyday and practical. In Harry's terms, Truth was seen as the quality of the relationships he shared on an individual basis. Truth was the recognition that fallible human beings were struggling for survival on the same lifeboat planet and necessarily needed to co-operate for mutual benefit. To him, the quality of a relationship was a sacred trust. A sleepless night might be spent because a relationship had gone awry. During his later years, he spent many peaceful nights because he knew in his heart that his relationships honoured the same sacred trust reciprocally. Harry went into great detail to assure that his living relationships were express- ed by compassion and understanding and, when called upon to honour the memories of deceased friends, would ap- ply the same attention to details so that all could enjoy and celebrate the lives of the people he chose to honour in a special way - Don Stewart, Rick Veale, GR. Blackstock, Joe McCulley. Harry's pursuit of Truth led him to direct his energies in three specific direc- tions: to his family, and especially his wife, Betty: to Pickering Colleges and, to the Religious Society of Friends. He knew that family and friends, school and even religious orthodoxy, can sometimes fall short of meeting any of life's demands. He infused a spirit of forgiveness that dif- fused anger and permitted everyone to recover their composure and once again walk confidently into the future. ln the pursuit of Beauty, Harry simply loved the elegant, the uplifting, the im- aginative twists that ceremoniously per- mitted Grace to infuse time and place. Harry felt tremendous empathy with parents, particularly mothers. He found great beauty in the role of motherhood. He enjoyed a very strong relationship with his own mother and recognized from his formative years the need to support other mothers as they watched their sons go through the adolescent years. Very often ladies would identify quite quickly this empathetic quality and com- municate with Harry about their sons in a way that enabled him to help those children grow up and learn to respect the sacrifices that had been made for them. Dinner parties or just quiet times with friends or school functions carried the stamp of Harry's attention to the details and as a result, the aesthetic sense that he developed would emerge through careful planning. The academic year l986!l987 car- ried with it, for the students, staff and faculty of Pickering, all of the changing elements that any year encompasses. This particular year was marked by Harry's death on March 23 and it is in honouring his life that we celebrate the values he strove so hard to exemplify by convince- ment and conviction at our school. It is, therefore, fitting that on this occa- sion A Personal Word from the Head- master be directed to the memory of Harry McWaters Beer. Sheldon H. Clark KXQLQ N

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A MEMORIAL MINUTE - HARRY MCWATERS BEER APRIL IS, I9l3 to MARCH 23, l987 I have so much yet to learn and understand in the realm of the spirit. With these words, Harry McWaters Beer submitted his letter of application for membership in Yonge Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends to Elmer Starr, Clerk, May 2 I, l956. Harry was forty-three years old and had been attending Yonge Street Meeting since l946. Harry's spirit reached out to friends for the next thirty years as he practised his religious convictions in his vocational life as Headmaster of Pickering College. Over the years, Harry's attendance and presence with the Yonge Street Meeting enabled him to listen and give caring support and guidance to those who came his way. He served the Monthly Meeting as Clerk and as an Elder, providing nurture and sen- sitive encouragement. Harry derived spiritual strength and serenity from the Meeting. Harry Beer was born in Brandon, Manitoba, then moved to the Beaches area of Toronto in I9 I 5. with his elder sisters, Eleanore and Marjorie, his brother Charles. and his parents. In l927, Dr. Edwin Charles Beer and his wife, Eleanore McWaters Beer, sent their son to Pickering College, where he came under the influence of the young Headmaster, Joe McCulley. Harry flourished under the guidance of the Pickering College faculty graduating with distinction and a love for History, English, French and German languages and literature. Harry returned to Pickering for a post-graduate year as a tutor before he completed his formal education at Vic- toria College at the University of Toronto in History and Modern Languages. When his father died during Harry's final year of university, Joe McCulley assumed the responsibility of an adult counsellor and friend to the impressionable and idealistic young man. After a sojourn in Europe as a private tutor and companion to one of the Eaton children, Harry Beer applied to his former Headmaster for a teaching post. The rest of the story is legend. Harry returned to his beloved Hilltop to work, to marry Elizabeth Holmes, to raise their three sons. David, Charles and Jim, and to direct the destiny of this Quaker-founded school for over a quarter of a century. He had the pleasure of seeing his grandson, John, enter and graduate, and to watch his wider family grow and develop through the myriad challenges of day-to-day living. Harry Beer truly strove to fulfil John Cairds definition of religion: Religion is the art of being, and of doing, good: to be an adept in it, is to become just, truthful, sincere, self-denied, gentle, forbearing, pure in word and deed and thought. And the school for learning this art is not the closet, but the world - not some hallowed spot where religion is taught, and proficients, when duly trained are sent forth into the world - but the world itself - the coarse, profane, common world with its cares and tempta- tions its rivalries and competitions, its hourly ever-recurring trials of temper and character. This is. therefore, an art which all can practise, and for which every profession and calling, the busiest and most absorbing, afford scope and discipline. At Yonge Street Monthly Meeting from the mid-5O's to the 7O's Harry and Elma and Elmer Starr often met together keeping the Meeting alive until other friends began to loin. Harry's willingness to reach out to others to be involved with all ages, and quite recently, to teach First Day School, revealed the blending of faith and practice in his life. Harry Beer leaves to his many friends around the world the wonderful memory of a firm, friendly companion and a profound legacy summarized in his own words: When our love of good survives the challenge of the world. then we reflect the spirit of God.