Alfred Jackson Billes

Plot 3, Lot 32
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto

Alfred Jackson Billes, or “A.J.,” as he was better known, and his older brother John William Billes opened their Hamilton Tire and Garage Company on Hamilton Street just south of Gerrard Street on September 15, 1922. The following year they moved to a store at Yonge and Gould Streets in downtown Toronto followed quickly by another move uptown to the northeast corner of Yonge and Isabella Streets. In 1927, the boys moved across Isabella and opened a store at 637 Yonge while at the same time incorporating under a new name, Canadian Tire Corporation Limited. And the rest, as they say, is history.
   His wife, the former Muriel Moore, was the daughter of printer-turned-land developer Delford Moore. She married “ A.J.” on December 13, 1928. Muriel passed away on August 13, 1979 and was buried in this plot. When “ A.J.” died in 1995 (at the age of 92), he too was buried here.

Mike Filey
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide
Second Edition Revised and Expanded

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