Sad News: Former judge Frank Olmstead dies; Remembered as 'compassionate, very fair and well respected'

Owen Sound Sun Times (ON)
Byline: BY SCOTT DUNN SUN TIMES STAFF

A funeral mass was to be held this morning for retired judge Frank W. Olmstead, who died Friday in Owen Sound.
Mr. Olmstead, 77, died in Georgian Heights Nursing Home of renal failure. He had been ill for the last few years.

Mr. Olmstead grew up in Owen Sound and was called to the bar in 1957. He practised law in Owen Sound with George Gardner in a firm that later became Olmstead, Salhany and Greenfield.
In 1973, Mr. Olmstead was appointed to be a provincial court judge in Bruce County. He remained sitting on the bench in Walkerton until the spring of 1997, when Justice George Brophy was appointed to the same position.

Mr. Olmstead moved to Walkerton in 1974, where he and his wife, Patricia Olmstead, raised their four children.

He was known socially as "Skip," a nickname acquired in high school. Patricia Olmstead said her husband loved classical music and enjoyed playing bridge and socializing. He also enjoyed the family cottage.

Mr. Olmstead, a big political supporter of the Liberals, was appointed by a Progressive Conservative government when Eric Winkler held the local seat provincially after years in federal politics.
When Mr. Olmstead was first appointed, his wife sat in on court a few times for support. She went with school classes too.

"He was very . . . he wasn't harsh with people. He was very considerate. People often said he was kind," she said in a telephone interview. "I think he would want to be remembered as just or fair or a good person."

Don Greenfield appeared before his former law partner occasionally. He remembers Judge Olmstead to have been "very fair" and "careful" in his research before giving his judgments.

Janet King, president of the Bruce Law Association, canvassed some lawyers and she said the general consensus
was that Judge Olmstead was "compassionate, very fair and well respected."

A funeral mass was scheduled for St. Mary's Church at 10:30 a. m. today.

James Morton
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