ST. CLAIR SHORES SENTINEL • APRIL 5, 2023
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Shores resident reflects on family’s roots in history backyard to the factory that day. “So, I was at the factory as a little kid and I virtually lived there probably three days out of the five when I was going to school because my elementary school was right across the street from the factory,” Deacon said. The company started off as a haberdashery owned by his grandfather and his grandfather’s brother, who is Deacon’s greatuncle, Fred S. Deacon, in the late 1800s, Deacon said. They made custom shirts for men who wanted a shirt they could do yard work and other activities in. “Back then, the men wore a dress shirt with a stiff attached collar,” Deacon said. “So, somebody came in one day and said, ‘I don’t like this shirt with the high collar. You got something that I can wear for cutting the grass on Saturday and, you know, working outside?’” Deacon’s history goes farther back with relative Thomas Deacon, who was born in 1756 and died in 1836. Thomas was a quartermaster sergeant major, Deacon said, which is one of the higher enlisted ranks in the military. The Americans drove the British out of New York State and Thomas’s regi-
BY ALYSSA OCHSS ochss@candgnews.com
ABOVE: David Deacon became a citizen of the United States in 2019. He said he came to the U.S. in 1970. LEFT: An advertisement shows the heated flight suits for Allied aircrews during World War II that Deacon said were invented and manufactured by the Deacon Brothers. Photos provided by David Deacon
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ST. CLAIR SHORES — During the Feb. 21 St. Clair Shores City Council meeting, Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Chris Vitale spoke about David Deacon during his comments. Vitale mentioned how Deacon came to meetings regularly and that, during a recent meet-the-neighbor event, Deacon’s family history came up in conversation. Deacon, 84, moved to St. Clair Shores in 1998 and in 2019 he gained United States citizenship. Before that he lived in Canada, where he grew up with his family and the family business, Deacon Brothers Ltd. His grandfather, William Bleaker Deacon, took him to the factory regularly and he’s been around the factory for as long as he knew anything, Deacon said. In one memory, his mother had put him in the fenced-in backyard to play. When she went to check on him and he wasn’t there, she called his father telling him she couldn’t find Deacon. His father told his mother, “Well, he’s right here,” said Deacon. His grandfather had taken him from the
