75 YEARS
MANN’S JEWELERS FROM THE BEGINNING PART I INTERVIEW BY MARY STONE
An ExtraOrdinary Life
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MANN’S HAMILTON
W
hen an 18-year-old Irving Mann found himself in the English Channel, shoulder-to-shoulder with other officers, he was carrying a 30-pound radio strapped to his back with no idea where he was going or what he was about to face. Soldiers like Irving wouldn’t know their destination until President Franklin Roosevelt’s voice boomed over the ships’ loudspeakers. Irving remembered the president’s words in a 2005 interview: “‘You are now about to embark on the greatest campaign, the greatest adventure of your life,’” Irving recalled. “We’re going to the beaches of Normandy.’” As the troops approached land, Irving could hear the din of U.S. weapons, the cannons on U.S. ships, destroyers and aircraft carriers. Shells whined overhead. When Irving saw the landing nets deploy he turned to his captain. “I have a problem: The rules say I cannot go down those landing nets until I can learn to swim, but I never got to that!” Irving said. “What do we do now?” With his rifle, side arms and the radio on his back, Irving would have sunk like a stone before he reached shore. The captain looked at him and said: “Mann, a bit of advice. Don’t slip.” Irving never did learn to swim. But the founder of Mann’s Jewelers survived that day and the battles that would follow. He was awarded the Purple Heart and in his civilian life went on to start Mann’s Jewelers with his wife, Gertrude. He met Gertrude in Toronto while studying watchmaking after the war and married her
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