Ed Mirvish - Business Career

Business Career

Mirvish lost his father at the age of 15. He dropped out of school to manage the store, becoming the sole support of his mother, his younger brother, Robert (who became a successful novelist and short-story writer) and sister, Lorraine. The grocery business did not do well, and Mirvish closed shop to reopen as a dry-cleaner, in partnership with his childhood friend, Yale Simpson. The shop was known as "Simpson's". When the well-known downtown Toronto department store "Simpson's" attempted to force him to change the name of his business, Mirvish pointed to Simpson and said, "Here's my Mr. Simpson. Where's yours?" The dry-cleaning business did no better than the grocery, however, and Mirvish soon abandoned it to take a regular job working as a produce manager and buyer for Toronto grocery store entrepreneur Leon Weinstein. Now financially stable, Mirvish bought a Ford Model T and began to court a radio singer from Hamilton, Ontario, Anne Macklin, whom he married in 1941. In 1945, their son, David, was born.