Toronto’s first black electrician, John Riley, dies at age 91

After cooking for his fellow troops during the Second World War, John Riley was supposed to become a cook – that’s what the elder Riley told his youngest son, Stephen.

Instead, Riley would come home from the war to become an electrician, Toronto’s first black electrician, something that never fazed him. He was the only student of colour at the three schools he attended – J.R. Wilcox Community School, D.B. Hood Public School and Vaughan Road Academy – and one of the first blacks to enlist in the army.

The long-time York-area resident, who worked all over the city and had strong ties to the Bloor West area, passed away on Monday, Feb. 4 after a long illness. He was 91. He is survived by four of his children, daughters Bev and Ollie and sons Stephen and Bobby. He is predeceased by son Herbert.

“We were the first Negroes in York, really,” said Riley, about three years ago during a ceremony to recognize his role as a community pioneer at Fairbank Middle School. “There were a few other families who moved in around the same time as us, but I was the only black student all the way through school. My father was a blacksmith with the TTC and the only black worker at the time.”

At D.B. Hood, Riley was the only one on the football team who was black.

“We won the championships in the ‘30s and I was the only coloured kid on the team at the time. I got along with everybody and didn’t pay too much attention to it,” he said.

For 57 years, Riley operated an electrical contract company, which his son Stephen said wired the entire neighbourhood where he grew up as well as the former Runnymede Theatre at the corner of Runnymede Road and Bloor Street West.

Riley met his first wife in Nova Scotia during the war. She played piano and sang for the troops. Riley drove a motorcycle with a sidecar at the time, said Stephen.

“When we were kids, he wanted the family to always stick together. My mother and father always said, ‘United we stand, divided we fall,’” recalled Stephen.

Riley’s first wife died in her early 50s. Riley remarried, but his second wife has passed now too.

Riley had a large circle of friends, said his son, who followed in his father’s footsteps to become an electrician.

“He coached my baseball team when I was little,” he said.

Stephen lives by his father’s philosophy: “If you’re going to do a job, do it right.”

Funeral arrangements are currently being made.

– with files from Fannie Sunshine