In 1944, Stella Yarrill was working as a nurse in a chemical plant in the small southern Ontario city of Welland. The factory had secretly been commissioned to produce explosives for Canada’s war effort, and injuries were common. One day, the supervisor of one of the explosives manufacturing divisions came in to have Stella bandage up a burn. As the Anthes family explains, their family tree started that very day with a smile and a tender joke. Lester Anthes and Stella were married two months later and continued their romance for an incredible 62 years.
Stella worked in hospitals, serving on the Board of Directors for the Niagara region and winning a prestigious award in the late 1960s. Les went on to become one of the top chemists in all of Canada, and many of his processes are still used. He was awarded patent rights for developing a method for using chemicals to separate ore in the mining industry – a process for which today’s Cytec corporation is almost solely based on. He helmed the building of a chemical plant in Norway, and worked in Westinghouse (Hamilton, ON), where he developed a new process for controlling uranium fuel rods in nuclear submarines.
Les accepted a position as principal of McKay Public School in Port Colborne, Ontario, at the age of only 18! The young principal was to have two star pupils, only a little younger than himself, in his five years of teaching. He closely followed the careers of Elmer Isler, one of Canadas greatest choirmasters and Ted (Teeder) Kennedy, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Les attended Queens University (Kingston, ON) by correspondence while teaching and used his summer vacation to fulfil his laboratory requirements in Kingston. After five years, he resigned his teaching post and completed his last two years at Queens, earning his degree in chemistry and physics in 1943. He took a position at Welland Chemical and managed a plant that was producing explosives for the war effort. While there he met the plant nurse, Stella Yarrill, and with their marriage in February 1944, commenced a loving partnership which stretched into its seventh decade.
After the war, Les worked with the Carborundum Company of Canada for 23 years. As manager of the plant in Niagara Falls (now Washington Mills), he developed many of the processes still used. He was awarded a patent for his development of shaped ferrosilicon and its use in the mining industry for heavy media separation. Its manufacture and use continue to-day. Moving into marketing in the later 1950s, Les spent three months in Norway and Europe helping to establish the processes and marketing of a new manufacturing plant in Arendal, Norway. His diverse interests included contributing to the early computerization of the Niagara Falls plant, the development of a solid fuel to boost the output of BOFs in steel making and the development of controlled consumption filters designed to provide linear output from the uranium fuel rods in nuclear submarines. Whew... that's a mouthful!
In 1967, Les started his own company and focused on supporting the ferrous metal industries. By 1970, working with R.F. Cole of the General Motors Foundry in St. Catharines, ON, he developed a process which allowed large cupola-based iron foundries to run using scrap steel instead of pig iron. This environmentally friendlier process is now employed world wide.
Les died in March of 2005, and like a romance out of a fairy tale, unwilling to let him go gently and alone into that good night, Stella passed away three days later. They left behind a strong family legacy in the Niagara region and a monstrous lakeside estate built upon 60 years of happiness and very successful careers.
