Background
He was educated in Toronto public and high schools (Dovercourt, Dewson and Givens Public Schools and Humberside Collegiate) and graduated from the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario. It was in 1904 that Dr. Conboy opened his office at Bloor and Westmoreland Street, a short distance from the family farm where he grew up. Since 1917 he had been professor of dental praxis at the School of Dentistry.
With the Masonic Order, Orange Order and the Odd Fellows, he again was a leader, but throughout Dr. Conboy's life his first interest lay in Westmoreland United Church. A charter member and elder of Westmoreland United Church, he was for over 20 years superintendent of the Sunday school. It was believed he was one of the first members of the church.
"The church," he often said, "never fails in the matter of relief for needy citizens and there is no better place where young people can fit themselves for future citizenship than in promoting its welfare work."
One thing his closest friends never quite understood was how Dr. Fred Conboy could find time for such a variety of activities. He belonged to two golf clubs and, in the war years, he started a victory garden that was the envy of neighbours for blocks around him. Even while taking a holiday, he would find an occupation that would call for a fresh release of enthusiasm and energy.
In 1924, while summering at Wasaga Beach, he discovered a cannonball at the edge of the Nottawasaga River. Not content with this trophy he spent the next two seasons prowling around and discovered the hull of a sunken ship buried in a large island that had formed around the wreck. He had found the remains of the HMS Nancy, a British armed schooner sunk by the Americans on August 11, 1814 during the War of 1812. Dr. Conboy interested the Ontario government in the preservation of the historic relic and, thanks to his persistence, the hull was excavated, raised, placed on the island and made available for public inspection. In recognition of his enterprise, his friends presented him with a model of the ship carved from her original timber.
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