http://www.calgaryheritage.org/CHIForum/vi ... ?p=736#736
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Dr. George F.G. Stanley residence
1111 7th Street S.W.
The house at 1111 7th St. S.W. in Connaught, most recently the Da Michelangelo Restaurant, is the former home of Dr. George F.G. Stanley, an esteemed historian, educator and public figure best remembered across Canada as the designer of the Canadian Flag.
George Stanley (1907-2002) was born in Calgary on July 6, 1907. His family moved into the house at 1111 7th St. in 1908. While living here he attended school, including Unity Hall at 917 14th Ave S.W. for kindergarten (the original building is part of today’s Full Gospel Church), and the new-at-the-time Connaught School starting in Grade 1. He attended the Central Collegiate Institute (later named Central High School then Carl Safran School) at 12th Ave and 8th St S.W. from 1920-1924. His memories of the Connaught district are documented in his article "School Days! School Days!" (in Citymakers, Calgarians After the Frontier, Max Foran and Sheilagh Jameson, eds.), found online at http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/loc_hist ... id=3602086. In a note to U of C professor Donald Smith, dated January 9, 2001, George's wife Ruth Stanley wrote that her husband, then in his 93rd year, had happy memories of being allowed to toboggan down the Lougheed's side-lawn: "Apparently they liked children and gave them permission to use the property. It was very close to the Stanley's house."
From 1925 to 1929 the young Calgarian went to the University of Alberta, then on to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Influenced by his upbringing in Calgary, his first published historical work was titled "The Birth of Western Canada". After Oxford, he returned to Canada and taught at Mount Allison University in Sackville NB., the University of British Columbia, and the Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston. Among his many publications are his biography of Louis Riel, still regarded as the most complete biography; his history of the final decades of the French Regime in Canada, "New France: The Last Phase"; and an important study of the War of 1812. It was while he was the Dean of Arts at RMC that he proposed a simple design, based on the college's own flag, which later became the basis for the Canadian Flag, adopted February 15th, 1965. A sketch of the flag (below) can be found at this link, which also includes a biography of Stanley: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/flagfor ... anley.html
Stanley was a veteran of World War II, a Companion of the Order of Canada, and Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. He died in 2002. His continued devotion to the West - apparent in his writings - was demonstrated in 2001 when his private library, known as the Dr. George F.G. Stanley Book Collection, was donated to the University of Calgary.
As Dr. Donald Smith writes at http://www.ucalgary.ca/lib-old/SpecColl/stanley.htm, "Professor Stanley, a Companion of the Order of Canada, the recipient of twelve honorary degrees from universities across Canada, a winner of the Royal Society of Canada's coveted Tyrrell Medal for Historical Writing, has had a long and distinguished academic, military and public career. For over half-a-century his writings on the Native Peoples, French Canada, and Canadian military history, have made an important contribution to our understanding of Canada. How fitting that his library has come to Calgary, the city in which he was born, in which he went to elementary and secondary school, and which he has continually revisited over a seventy year period."
More information, including a detailed biography and a list of publications can be found at: http://www.stfx.ca/people/lstanley/stanley/
The preceding summary (updated June 19, 2006) is by Dr. Donald Smith of the University of Calgary and members of the Calgary Heritage Initiative Society.