Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Emanuel Jaques, Toronto Shoeshine Boy Murders and Kicking the Sky by Anthony De Sa

Just over half-way through Kicking the Sky and I wanted to check out what the local Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives has on the case.
I find it remarkable there isn't another picture of Emanuel, called Manuel on the first newspaper stories about him. 
When you speak to any gay man in Toronto about the case, the first thing they say is the boy was no saint. This to me is a knee-jerk reaction to surviving through that period and the attack on gays that followed. Lost in this seems to be the fact that the boy didn't deserve to be murdered.
I'm glad to read this book and learn more about that period of Toronto's history. I enclose some articles I found in the Archives on the case, there is very little around on the internet.
Will post a full review when book is finished.








6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why title? "Occupation Gay"
I do not understand why you have "Gay occupation".
Are you (author)describing yourself?
Emanuel did not deserve what happened to him.
Reason why there is little about him online is people want to bury his story and sadly even portray Emanuel story as fiction or write a novel.
Emanuel Jaques TRUE CRIME STORY does not go well with Novel or fiction.
I am a child victim survivor
I am very saddened by what happened to Emanuel Jaques.
Emanuel Jaques true crime story what Emanuel endured and was victim to, need be acknowledged.
REMEMBER EMANUEL JAQUES CHILD VICTIM
Linda B

Unknown said...

I agree with Linda completely. I was a child at that time but my parents weren't and we hear more from the grapevine then was ever reported. IT WAS A CRIME AND IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH A 12 YEAR OLD BOY. It was the sick men who they were trying to protect.

Anonymous said...

this year marks the 40 th anniversary of the murder of the shoe shine. I will be posting a poster outsid on a lamp pole on August 1 on Yonge st where his body was found.

V.C.E. said...

It has always been curious to me that the infamous Gordon Stuckless was a friend of the Jaques family and was pictured in newspaper photos assisting Emanuel's mother at his funeral(See: Emanuel Jaques funeral via Google Images). Why has that fact not been brought out more in the media. V.C.E., Toronto.

V.C.E. said...

[Further to my communication at 4:17 p.m. January 30, 2018]:An article titled METRO OPENS HEARTS AND WALLETS TO BOY'S FAMILY by Wendy Herman which appeared on Page A3 of the Toronto Star on Thursday August 4, 1977 read in part: 'At the Ryan and Odette funeral home on Dundas St. W., mourners left $2.695 for the family. Gordon Stuckless, a friend of the Jaques family said fewer than 1 percent of visitors to the funeral home knew the family, "but a lot came with sympathy donations." One person, Mary Skiba of Dunn Ave., "signed over her $147 monthly Canada pension cheque, saying she didn't need it," Stuckless said.' V.C.E., Toronto.

Anonymous said...

I was in my mid teens when Emanuel was murdered. I used to go downtown every weekend and even saw him and another boy shining shoes for people. The Gay 'community' didn't help Police and kept silent. The murderers were well known in that 'community' and those who knew what happened and who did it, remained silent.
There is LGBT and there is POLITICAL LGBT and it is those behind the POLITICAL LGBT who are not nice people. They have been trying to bury that story for decades and it is SICKENING.
Emanuel Jacques must NEVER be forgotten.