Fonds consists of family papers personal documents, correspondence, photographs and cards of the Exton family in Germany and Canada and material relating to the Exton Negev Dinner; scrapbooks of material related to B'nai Brith Canada, Jewish National Fund of Canada, Canadian Friends of Boys Town and Baycrest Centre, Toronto; correspondence personal documents, speeches, lectures and reports relating to Exton's business career and Seel Enterprises Limited.
Exton, Eric, 1919-2001 : Eric Exton was born in Potschappel, Germany. He was expelled in the "Kristall Nacht" purge of students from his college in November 1938, where he was studying industrial chemistry. He fled to England in April 1939, where he was interned and then sent to Canada in 1940, where he spent a year in the Sherbrooke internment camp for refugees. After his release, he worked as an industrial chemist for Sandoz Chemical, Toronto until 1946 except for a brief period of service with the Royal Canadian Artillery.
From 1946 to 1954, he was associated with Giftcraft Ltd., national distributors of giftware. In 1954 he entered the residential construction and mortgage business and founded Seel Enterprises Ltd., which was one of Ontario's well-known mortgage brokerage companies. He served as Chairman of the Board and President of Seel Mortgage Investment Corporation.
He was a prominent figure in Jewish community affairs, and was associated with numerous organizations and institutions including B'nai Brith Canada, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Baycrest Centre, the Canadian Zionist Federation and the Zionist Organization of Canada. He also served as president of the Canadian Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem and was its chairman of the board. In 1980, he was elected president of the Jewish National Fund of Canada and in 1978 he and his wife were Toronto's Negev Dinner honorees. He died in 2001.
See: Canadian Who's Who, 1984, pp. 364-365.
