Former Dresden resident discovers diary outlining tragic death of six workers in 1957

Eric Philpott’s father Keith was working at the site of one of the worst workplace fatalities in Ontario’s history.

He’s now embarked on an ambitious plan to discover the truth and document the pain of the victims’ families more than 60 years later in a new documentary called ‘Dresden 1957’.

“What if I hadn't found my father's diary? I would never know about this. What if nobody ever thought to just tell the story?” Philpott told CTV News Thursday in an interview from his home in Toronto.

“I now feel very obligated to make sure that this story is told,” Philpott said.

Keith Philpott (L) on the night of the cave in (Source: Eric Philpott)

In 1957, according to Philpott, the province was helping municipalities build water treatment plants.

In Dresden, a crew of workers from the Netherlands was digging a 35-foot pit for the pump station along the banks of the Sydenham River.

“They were pouring the last load of concrete and that's when it collapsed,” Philpott said that’s what claimed the lives of five workers in the blink of an eye.

“And the foreman, who was talking to the contractor on the edges of the pit, the foreman fell in or was thrown in by the force of the cave in, and he too died,” said Philpott.

It would take nearly two days for crews to recover the bodies of the six victims.

Despite extensive newspaper and radio coverage at the time, Philpott said once the inquest was concluded just a month later, the story died down.

“This was an incredibly dramatic and traumatic experience also for the town of Dresden,” said Philpott.

The last photograph of the men alive, working in the pit at 5:00 p.m., on August 14, 1957 (Source: Eric Philpott)

Despite the importance of the event, Philpott said that it largely flies under the radar, “there are many who had never heard about it. I think one of the great mysteries, and in a way, the second tragedy, if you will, is the fact that the story just completely disappeared.”

“People just wanted to get on with life and didn’t want to hear anything bad in the 50’s,” one of Philpotts’ interviewees says in the documentary trailer.

Philpott has spent the last few months interviewing the victims’ surviving family members, most of whom were children when their fathers were killed.

“But they're in their 70s and 80s and even 90s,” said Philpott. “This is our last possible moment to actually tell this story from the people who experienced it.”

 

(Source: Eric Philpott)

Alongside the tragedy and its causes, and the lack of local knowledge about it, Philpott believes there is a third theme to his work; the plight of migrant or immigrants who come to Canada for work.

“Immigrant workers are more vulnerable,” said Philpott. “They're not likely to complain. Their bosses could report them even to border services if they didn't like them. So, they kind of have to go along with things in a way, [as compared to] a local who has a bit more domestic security, if you will.” An issue Philpott believes is as relevant today as it was back in 1957.

Thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign earlier this year, Philpott and his Editor/Producer Joseph Crawford were able to secure the money they need to shoot the film.

Editing the footage and making it into a finished product will require more time and resources.

For now, though Philpott is organizing a community memorial ceremony for Wednesday, August 14, at 6:00 p.m. on the 67th anniversary of the tragedy.

It will be at the Olde Czech Hall, 116 St John Street East in Dresden.

The event will be livestreamed here.