Beautiful certificate from the Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc. issued in 1934. This historic document was printed by the Hamilton Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a greek goddess. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and founder, Frank Patrick O'Connor and Treasurer, C. H. Ellston and is over 80 years old.
Certificate Fanny Farmer was an American candy manufacturer and retailer. Fanny Farmer was started in Rochester, New York by Frank O'Connor in 1919. The company was named in honor of culinary expert Fannie Farmer, who had died four years earlier. In 1992 the Archibald Candy Company acquired the brand (and its 200 retail stores in the northeastern United States) as a sister brand to its own Fannie May candies (sold primarily in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic United States). Alpine Confections purchased both brands in 2004 after Archibald filed for bankruptcy, and merged Fanny Farmer into Fannie May. An errant path of merger and acquisitions, whereby the company became the largest chain of candy retailers in the country but without adequate financing and a viable corporate strategy, was blamed for the bankruptcy. Frank Patrick O'Connor (April 9, 1885 August 21, 1939) was a Canadian politician, businessman, philanthropist. He was the founder of Laura Secord Chocolates and Fanny Farmer, and the namesake behind O'Connor Drive in Toronto. Early Years Born in Deseronto, Ontario, the son of Mary Eleanor McKeown and Patrick O'Connor, O'Connor quit school at the age of 14 and started working at Canadian General Electric in Peterborough. He married Mary Ellen Hayes and moved with her to Toronto in 1912. Laura Secord Stores In 1913, he opened the Laura Secord Candy Store on Yonge Street. He expanded the store across Canada and into the United States where it was known as Fanny Farmer Candy Stores. Philanthropy A Roman Catholic, he gave $500,000 in the 1930s to the Archdiocese of Toronto under the trusteeship of Cardinal James Charles McGuigan. Later life In 1935, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. He represented the senatorial division of Scarborough Junction, Ontario until his death in 1939.[2] O'Connor survived his wife, who died in 1931, and died at this estate at age 54. Legacy Senator O'Connor College School, a Toronto Catholic District School Board high school, was named in his honour. His estate was later acquired by the Toronto Catholic School Board (located next to the high school named after him) and sold. It was being restored and has been damaged by a fire in 2012. The remaining lands of the 240 hectares estate was developed for residential use. History from Wikipeida and OldCompanyResearch.com.