{"id":23554,"date":"2019-04-18T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23554"},"modified":"2019-04-25T17:23:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T21:23:18","slug":"auroras-first-high-tech-business-still-going-strong-at-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-first-high-tech-business-still-going-strong-at-95\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s first \u201chigh tech\u201d business still going strong at 95"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Howard and Leta Oliver went into business in 1924,\nthey were at the cutting edge of technology, introducing automatic home heating\ninto the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were, according to their son, historian Dr. Leslie\nOliver, Aurora\u2019s first \u201chigh tech\u201d business before the phrase was even coined \u2013\nand 95 years later, they still pride themselves to be on the forefront of\nheating and cooling technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Oliver joined the current owners of the business,\nSteve and Elise Desjardins, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and a host of other dignitaries\nto celebrate T.H. Oliver Heating & Cooling\u2019s 95th<\/sup> anniversary at\nthe Aurora Home Show on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A milestone certainly for the business and its storied\nhistory in Aurora, but it also marked a milestone for the Desjardins who\npurchased the business a quarter-century ago this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really happy to be involved with this business and\nwe want to give thanks to the community and continue the legacy of what the\nOliver family started,\u201d said Steve. \u201cThat is part of what we wanted to do from\nthe beginning. Bringing modern technologies to local families is what it was\nfounded on and what we have continued to do over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a history of the company prepared for the 95th<\/sup>\nanniversary, Dr. Oliver says Howard was just a young man off the farm when he\nwas \u201ccaptivated by the newly-emerging, life-giving electro-mechanical and\nelectro-magnetic devices of his time; in much the same way as youth today\nenthusiastically embrace the promise of electro-digital devices that are\nchanging our lives in the early 21st<\/sup> century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a Grade 8 education, largely self-taught, his early\nwork in high voltage electrical devices, those devices and systems that provided\nthe spark required for internal combustion engines. The gasoline engine was the\nearly 20th<\/sup> century high-tech device that made possible the farm\ntractor that worked Canada\u2019s agricultural lands, as well as the life-altering\nautomobile, which would soon crowd our streets, highways and byways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe foundation stones of Oliver Heating & Cooling\nwere laid in the mid-1920s when Howard was instrumental in introducing\nautomatic home heating into the community. A landmark of the times was the\npioneering work of Howard Hughes, Toronto innovator and entrepreneur (Howard\nFurnace & Foundries). The Howard South Wind was an iconic streamlined,\nmodern-looking forced air oil fired furnace of the 1930s. In the ensuing years,\nit would replace many of Aurora\u2019s sprawling wood and coal-fired furnaces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around the same time, Howard Oliver introduced electric\nrefrigerators into Aurora homes and businesses, with air conditioning following\nafter the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Howard South Wind might be more of a museum piece\nnow, but T.H. Oliver has kept up with the times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe pride ourselves in our integrity, but mostly it is to\nbring technology and honesty to everything that we do, and to support it in the\nfield,\u201d said Steve. “We want to be a part of the community, not just to\nsell a piece of equipment and run away; we want to build long-term\nrelationships with our customers and word-of-mouth referrals are the most\nimportant lead for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir When Howard and Leta Oliver went into business in 1924, they were at the cutting edge of technology, introducing automatic home heating into the community. They were, according to their son, historian Dr. Leslie Oliver, Aurora\u2019s first \u201chigh tech\u201d business before the phrase was even coined \u2013 and 95 years later, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-18-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-67U","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 21:41:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}