Jack Garland: The West End's music composer / pharmacist

© 2023, Christian Cassidy

Portrait: May 25, 1944, The Jewish Post

Saul “Jack” Garland's first love was music, though his parents convinced him to have a more stable profession to fall back on. For nearly five years he was a West End pharmacist by day and a composer by night.

Born in Winnipeg in 1915, Garland grew up in the North End and attended Norquay, Luxton, and Machray schools before going on to St. John’s High School. He then enrolled at the U of M’s College of Pharmacy and earned a silver medal for the second-highest marks in second year before graduating in 1940.

In the 1941 street directory, the data for which would have been compiled in 1940, Garland is listed as a druggist living at 98 Inkster Boulevard with no place of work was identified. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a financial clerk with the federal treasury department from 1941 to 1947.

Garland was working at Modern Drugs at 731 Wellington Avenue by 1948. He took over the store in 1949 and renamed it Garland's Modern Drugs.

March 2, 1950, The Western Jewish News

During his time at university and with the RCAF, Garland also pursued his musical career.

Garland had been a chorister at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in his youth. After studying music under  F. C. Niermeder in Winnipeg, F. J. Horwood at the Toronto Conservatory, and at the Eastman School of Music at St. Paul, Minnesota, he became the synagogue's choir leader and eventually its musical director. He was also the musical director of the 1945 Winter Club Ice Carnival and a number of Jewish Musical Club productions as well as the head of the local B'nai B'rith Youth Choir.

By the time Garland was 30, which was in 1945, he had written 25 songs in both English and Hebrew, 50 choral compositions, a string quartet, and 300 choral arrangements.

Garland completed his Symphony in A Minor in 1949 which he submitted to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto as his thesis for his Associate Diploma. He told a Winnipeg Tribune reporter that it took him a year to write in his spare time. The Jewish Post described the symphony as a "decidedly Hebrew-influenced modern piece". Garland admitted the influence, as well as that of Bach and Beethoven.

February 21, 1953, Winnipeg Free Press

While running the drug store, Garland's musical workload increased as he is mentioned quite regularly in the entertainment section of the daily and Jewish newspapers for his work.

February 26, 1953 was likely the biggest night of Garland's musical career when the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, under director / conductor Walter Kaufman, played the fourth movement of his Symphony in A Minor, also called Rondo Gracioso, at one of their concerts.

Garland ran the pharmacy until 1953 around 1954 as it changed its name to Selby's Drug Store. In 1955, he took on the full-time job as the musical director of Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.

January 14, 1978, Winnipeg Free Press

As for his personal life, Garland married Bessie Fiterman in 1947 and the couple had three children, Adreinne (b. ca. 1949), Wayne (b. ca. 1953), and Philip (b. ca. 1960). Through the 1950s they lived at 537 Rupertsland and moved to 769 Niagara in 1960.

Rabbi Milton Aron, who had served at Shaarey Zedek since 1947, left Winnipeg in 1966 for New York. He persuaded Garland to also go to larger cities in the U.S. where he could expand his musical aspirations.

The family initially moved to Cleveland, Ohio where Garland was associated with the Park Synagogue. In the early 1970s, they relocated to New Haven, Connecticut where he continued to write and compose and commuted for work mainly to  particularly to New York City.

Garland later admitted to a Free Press reporter that given the opportunities and success he found in New York City, "I was sorry I hadn't moved here 15 years earlier".

In 1967, Garland was one of 500 Manitobans awarded a special centennial Order of the Crocus for his contributions to the province.

The following June, he and Bessie returned to Winnipeg for the wedding of their daughter, Adrienne, to Michael Kess, also of Cleveland, at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.

In 1972, he again returned to the city in his role as executive Vice President of Jewish Fund of America.

January 5, 1978, Winnipeg Free Press

On January 6 and 7, 1978, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra again performed the fourth moment of Garland's Symphony in A Minor as part of a "Music of the World" series. Garland returned to Winnipeg for the performances.

While in town, the Jewish Historical Society and Jewish Women's Club of Winnipeg co-sponsored "An Evening With Jack Garland" on January 6th at the Planetarium. His talk was entitled "100 years of Jewish music in Winnipeg" at which he donated copy of the score of his symphony to the JHS.

After 1978, Garland's life is a bit of a mystery. He is no longer mentioned in local papers, including The Jewish Post.

This geni.com entry indicates that Garland died in St. Louis, Missouri on April 16, 1998 at the age of 83 and is buried in B'Nai Amoona Cemetery, University City, Missouri. As of 2014, Bessie was still alive.

Other buildings on this block:
724 Wellington Avenue Tavistock Apartments
730 Wellington Avenue Verdin's Grocery R.I.P.
747 Wellington Avenue Former Huddle House R.I.P.