Taylor Statten and his grandson watch a horse show at Camp Ahmek. Courtesy of the Statten Family.
Taylor Statten II was a decorated war hero and one of Canada's first child psychiatrists, but a generation of campers will remember him as the inspirational figure who headed the renowned summer camps founded by his father.
The rugged wilderness of Ontario's Algonquin Park, and Taylor Statten Camps (TSC) within the park (Ahmek for boys, Wapomeo for girls), meant the world to Dr. Statten. They were so important to him that having the summer off was a condition of acceptance for every prestigious position he held.
Aside from time spent as a captain during the Second World War, and until the final year of his long life, Dr. Statten never missed three months on Canoe Lake, the place he called his real home. Dr. Statten attended Camp Ahmek as a child, moving through its ranks to become director of programs. In 1954, after the death of his father, hailed by all as "Chief," Dr. Statten assumed the role of TSC's director and president of its board.
Affectionately known to campers as "Dr. Tay," Dr. Statten dedicated himself to carrying forward the dream of his father, albeit with a slightly different philosophy. Activities such as music, theatre arts, horse riding, canoeing, portaging and sailing across halcyon summers occupied the children of prime ministers and scions of industry.
Surnames such as Eaton, Birks, Weston, Creed, Mulroney, Turner, Molson and Labatt filled the roster of attendees. Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who was a camper there in his teens, later enrolled his own three sons. After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's memoir Common Ground was published in 2014, he sent Dr. Statten a copy for Christmas. The book is inscribed, "Dearest Dr. Tay. Thank you for helping me become the person I am today." On learning of Dr. Statten's death, on July 19, at the age of 101, Mr. Trudeau tweeted "So sad to hear that Taylor Statten II – Dr. Tay – has passed away. He shaped the childhood summers of so many of us. #TSC forever."
Taylor Statten II was born on April 10, 1915, in Toronto to Ethel (née Page) and Taylor Statten. He was the second of their three children. A veteran of the Boer War, the elder Taylor Statten worked for the national YMCA, where he established a program that rewarded children for developing social, physical and intellectual skills. Parents were delighted. Mr. Statten saw the potential for a summer camp that stressed similar goals.
In 1912, while on a family vacation, the Stattens discovered the idyll of Canoe Lake. Mr. Statten obtained a lease for a portion of waterfront land and constructed his personal cabin, which remains there today. He mortgaged his Toronto house to build his dream and embarked upon promoting it with a show business panache that ran in the family.
Circus impresario P.T. Barnum was a distant cousin whom Mr. Statten greatly admired. An impressive speaker who played upon parental expectations and the adventurous imaginations of boys, Mr. Statten soon had parents queuing to sign up. Camp brochures listed addresses of influential parents, ostensibly so campers could stay in touch. Mr. Statten understood that an address for Lady Eaton, and other members of high society, would be an irresistible lure to the status conscious. As expected, word spread rapidly among the elite.
Camp Ahmek, on Canoe Lake, was the first Canadian-owned private camp in Algonquin Park. It opened in 1921, with 60 boys, ranging in age from 5 to 16, living in tents. While learning about woodcraft and natural lore, the boys would help clear the beach and brush, conveniently making way for subsequent buildings. Three years later, Camp Wapomeo for girls was added. It caused a minor scandal among members of the board of directors, since both sexes would be swimming in the same water at the same time. Reason prevailed.
Taylor Statten Camps became successful enough that young Taylor was educated at Toronto's Upper Canada College and Pickering College. He continued to the University of Toronto's medical school, graduating in 1940 with the intent of becoming a pediatrician, but war interrupted. While interning at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, two older doctors invited him to join their team and head to England to defend the British Empire. They shipped out on Nov. 13, 1941.
Dr. Statten, a member of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, volunteered to serve on the front lines in Tunisia. He subsequently received the African Star for bravery. Later in Sicily, in charge of an advance dressing station, he treated horrific wounds as best he could before the injured were transported to hospital. While assisting in the rescue of a soldier behind German lines, Dr. Statten took a bullet in the arm. Despite enormous pain, he persevered at his post, continuing to treat the severely wounded for three days until a replacement doctor arrived.
In 1944, Dr. Statten was awarded the Military Cross for gallant and distinguished service in action, but the experience of war shook him deeply. It made him question his civilian vocation. In a letter home to his sister, he wrote, "Lately I have been wondering if I am even cut out to be a doctor. I have been away from it for so long now I have lost a lot of confidence and interest."
The idea of returning to regular life in Canada presented another challenge. Just before leaving for war, Dr. Statten married Alice Turner, a dietician. During his deployment, she'd given birth to their daughter, Lyn, a child he'd never met. In a letter to the rotary club he wrote: "It will seem strange to get back and have a little girl, who is now two years old and whom I have only seen in pictures, call me 'Daddy.' The couple would later have two more children, Judy and Taylor.
Alice Statten died after 33 years of marriage. Dr. Statten then married homemaker Lola Ruth Hall, a marriage that lasted 23 years, until her death. Widowed for the second time, in October, 2001, he married Janet Boland (née Lang), a widow and Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario. Madam Boland-Statten remained with Dr. Statten to the end of his life. True to the advice he gave counsellors and campers, Dr. Statten never married a woman who hadn't shared a canoe trip with him. All three of his wives had attended Camp Wapomeo.
As the war ended, after Dr. Statten had been hospitalized in England for months with amoebic dysentery and hepatitis, he returned home in time to celebrate V-E Day and become reacquainted with his family. In the healing environment of Algonquin Park, where he relished fly-fishing and dabbled in painting, he contemplated becoming a trapper. Dr. Statten eventually decided to return to medicine and completed his pediatric residency at Sick Kids.
As a pediatrician, he understood childhood development and diseases but he wanted to specialize in child mental health, then in its infancy. Dr. Statten's interest was fuelled by a secret he shared with few. He suffered from dyslexia.
The condition resulted in what he once told his wife, Janet, was his greatest regret: He failed first grade. He wanted to understand his own reading disorder as well as some manifestations of mental disturbance that he had observed in young campers over the years, such as homesickness, bullying, anger and depression. So he decided to take a residency in child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, one of the only institutions that offered a residency of this kind at the time.
Despite his lifelong handicap, Dr. Statten completed the residency in 1949 and returned to Canada. In 1950, he became director of child psychiatry at the Montreal Children's Hospital, where he was given his own wing. There, he established the first program in Canada to train physicians and other professionals concerned with child mental health. His achieved goal was to make short-term psychiatric treatment available to children and their families.
During his time in Montreal, Dr. Statten served concurrently as an associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University.
In the mid-sixties, he moved his family back to Ontario to become chief of psychiatry with the University of Toronto Health Service, a position he held for almost 20 years. Throughout his distinguished career, the Canadian Medical Journal Association published many articles by Dr. Statten on topics such as depressive anxieties in childhood. In 1987, in recognition of his outstanding achievement in working with children, he was named to the Order of Canada.
Unlike his father, Dr. Statten was a quiet, reserved man, although he also exuded an athletic magnetism and maintained an adventurous spirit. He once paddled on the back of a moose swimming across Canoe Lake, a tale that became legendary among campers. Dr. Statten was instrumental in setting up a bursary fund among TSC alumni to assist less fortunate kids. He also invested his own money to maintain the low ratio of campers to staff.
In an interview with Globe and Mail journalist Roy MacGregor, Dr. Statten said a financial adviser told him he must have had holes in his head to make such a move. Dr. Statten responded, "I guess I've got a right. I'm a psychiatrist after all." He also told Mr. MacGregor, "I knew I could never be like my dad. I like to think that I run the camps as a type of preventive mental-health experience. We're looking after a lot of people who have money or access to money, but I'm as concerned for them as for others. Wealth doesn't mean that people are having good experiences in life. Often they have quite the opposite."
Given his background and training, Dr. Statten was ideally suited to direct the camps and dispense wisdom. His cabin door was always open. Businessman Pierre Panet-Raymond recalled being an upset seven-year-old seeking out Dr. Tay after he was the target of harassment because he was adopted. "For the rest of my life the words he said stayed with me," Mr. Panet-Raymond said. "He listened then said, 'Ah yes, Pierre, but you were chosen.'"
Dr. Statten leaves his wife, Madam Justice Janet Boland-Statten; children, Lyn, Judy and Taylor; five grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. A celebration of his life will take place at the University of Toronto's Hart House on Oct. 2 at 1:30 p.m.
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