(16 Sept. 1907-25 July 1995), clergyman. (Charles Dawes, Charlie Dawes, C.H. Dawes) Born Southampton, Eng. Parents: Charles James Dawes and his wife Annette Elizabeth Spurgeon, who was a first cousin once removed of the evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Young Charles Dawes, the subject of the present entry, came to Canada with his family, 1913. Education: McGill University and United Theological College. Degrees: M.A., B.D. He was ordained in 1930 as a United Church minister. Thereafter, he served over many years in rural and small town charges. He was the minister of the Protestant church in Alexandria from 1953 to 1962, in this role being a popular and successful minister in a charge which had a reputation of being “difficult.” During his pastorate the church was renamed the Church on the Hill. He acted also as one of the local music teachers during his years in Alexandria. In 1975 he retired from the full-time ministry, but he was a part-time minister in Kingston in his retirement years. He was the author of three volumes of autobiography, Answering the Call: a United Church Minister in the Making during the 1920’s (1987), Just Being Around: Reminiscences of a Small Town United Church Minister (1988) and Still Carrying on: Memoirs of a United Church Minister in Retirement (1989). His years in Alexandria are described in Just Being Around, pp. 123-172. Presumably no other GC clergyman (not even Ralph Connor) has his life recorded in more minute detail in print or in other readily accessible records. Indeed, on a wider scale than one county, this valuable autobiography is likely to attract increasing attention as the years slip by and the lives of 20th-century clergymen recede from “living memory” into the “archival past.” He was married to Kathleen Boulton in 1932. (Cornwall Standard, 21 April 1932) (there were children)

Glengarry News 16 Aug. 1995 * autobiography as cited * Carol Graham Baxter, ed. Yesteryear Alexandria d’autrefois (1984) p 28 * Fraser (1959) 266: thanked for historical information on the Alexandria congregation * Glengarry News 10 Sept. 1953, accepts call to United Church, Alexandria