(18 Oct. 1885-12 May 1986), lawyer. (Fred McDermid) (date of birth 1884 also found) Born in Martintown area, probably on his parents’ farm in Cornwall Township, on the “Island” a few miles west of Martintown. Parents: Peter Hugh McDermid and his wife Anne Elizabeth Ross. He attended high school at Williamstown, studied law at the University of Manitoba, and was enrolled in Saskatchewan as a lawyer on 28 Feb. 1908. In that year, also, he settled in Saskatoon, where he was to have a law practice extending over some 70 years. As a lawyer, he was associated from the first with a Glengarrrian, J. D. Ferguson. Later, his brother John Edgar McDermid also became a partner in the firm. John Diefenbaker, the future prime minister, was associated with the firm for a few months as a law student, but he and the firm “parted ways” because Diefenbaker spent too much of his time on his private interests of politics. All the same, it seems that John Diefenbaker remained a long-term friend of the McDermid brothers. Frederick Finlay McDermid was made a K. C. on 31 Dec. 1927. He retired in the mid-1970s. In 1920 he was married to Margaret Dunbar Vickers of Chicago, a descendant of the famous Susannah Moodie. (three children, none survived infancy) He died in Saskatoon, having passed his century mark. The McDermid brothers’ law firm was active in advancing and defending of the Saskatchewan potash industry.

Campbell (1986), 307-311 * Angus H. McDonell, “Glengarry Connection,” Glengarry News 1 Dec. 1982: 1/2 page biographical article on Frederick Finlay McDermid, with portrait * information from Law Society of Saskatchewan, Jan. 1999 * G. Wilson and K. Wilson, Diefenbaker for the Defence (1988) 24 (QF)