On October 31, 1926, Toronto lawyer and millionaire Charles Vance Millar died suddenly of a heart attack. He left behind no wife, no children, and no close heirs. What he did leave behind was one of the strangest wills ever written. Within a decade, Millar's final wishes would trigger lawsuits, newspaper frenzies, moral outrage, and a bizarre competition among Toronto mothers that became known around the country as the Great Stork Derby.
Members of the Timleck family, one of four winners of the Great Stork Derby. Credit: Toronto Star Archives
Charles Vance Millar was a successful lawyer, investor, and businessman. Born in Ontario in 1854, he built considerable wealth through investments in real estate, transportation companies, breweries, and other ventures. He was also known for possessing an unusual sense of humour. Friends and associates described him as a practical joker who delighted in exposing hypocrisy and testing human nature.
Millar's will reflected this personality perfectly. Among its many unusual provisions, he left shares in a brewery to prominent Protestant ministers who publicly supported temperance and Prohibition. He gave stock in a horse-racing organization to individuals who opposed gambling. He even left a vacation property in Jamaica jointly to several men who strongly disliked one another.
Millar's last major bequest stated that the remainder of his estate would be held for ten years after his death. At the end of that period, the money would go to the Toronto woman who had given birth to the greatest number of children during those ten years. If multiple women tied, the fortune would be divided equally among them.
When Millar died in 1926, Canada was still enjoying the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties. Then the Great Depression arrived three years later, and jobs disappeared, businesses failed and families struggled to feed themselves. Suddenly, the possibility of inheriting a fortune presented a potential escape from poverty.
Charles Vance Millar
Newspapers began following the "baby race" with remarkable enthusiasm. Reporters tracked births, identified leading contenders, and published updates as though covering a sporting event. The competition became a regular source of headlines throughout the 1930s.
Whether Millar had intended the Derby as a social experiment, a satire on greed, or simply a final practical joke remains uncertain. Some argued that it encouraged women to have children for financial gain. Religious leaders, social reformers, and politicians debated whether the contest was morally acceptable. Newspapers discussed not only the leading contestants but also broader questions about family, poverty, and reproduction. Adam Bunch, author of The Toronto Book of Love, says: “It could have been a satirical comment on [birth control], or the absurdity of the judicial system—that it would uphold this strange will he was leaving behind—or poking fun at people at how far they were willing to go for money,”
Newspapers initially focused on 37-year-old Toronto resident Grace Bagnato, who had reportedly just given birth to her 20th child. Bagnato claimed that five of her surviving ten children were eligible for the contest. Another contestant was 42-year-old Florence Brown, according to whom she had given birth to 26 children, 13 still living and 6 since Millar’s death.
In 1932, the Ontario government attempted to have Millar's will declared invalid and the estate transferred to the University of Toronto. A storm of public criticism followed, forcing the government to abandon its claim. By then, news of the Derby had spread widely. Women who had previously paid little attention to the contest began to realize that their growing families might place them among the frontrunners. As the years passed, the number of potential contenders steadily increased. By the October 1936 deadline, more than two dozen Toronto families had welcomed at least eight children during the ten-year qualifying period.
When the time finally came to divide the estate, the legal proceedings resembled a crowded convention. Thirty-two lawyers appeared at the initial hearing, each hoping to secure a share of the fortune for the families they represented. The presiding judge, William Middleton, examined the birth records and ruled that only mothers with at least nine children under the age of ten could remain in contention. This left only six families in the race.
The Timleck family. Credit: Toronto Star
One of the most controversial contenders was 24-year-old Pauline Mae Clarke. During the Derby's final years, newspapers revealed that five of her ten children had been fathered by a man with whom she lived after separating from her husband, though she had never legally divorced. Judge Middleton ruled that children born outside wedlock could not be counted toward the competition, disqualifying Clarke from the Derby. After a prolonged legal battle, however, she was awarded a settlement of 12,500 Canadian dollars.
Another leading contender, Lillian Kenny, had given birth to eleven children during the qualifying period. Her claim was nevertheless rejected because three of those births had been stillborn and therefore did not count under the rules established by the court. Like Clarke, Kenny eventually received a settlement of 12,500 Canadian dollars.
The remaining prize money, amounting to some half a million dollars, was shared equally between four women: Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck, and Isabel Mary Maclean. Each received $110,000, a life-changing sum during the depths of the Depression. Each woman had given birth to nine children during the period of the contest.
The Nagle family with their nine children. Credit: William James / Toronto Star
Later, while speaking to a reporter, Lucy Timleck said that raising a big family wasn’t easy, noting that birth control was a wonderful thing. “I am sorry, in one way, that birth control information wasn’t available years ago. I know mothers who would have welcomed such knowledge,” she said.
Decades later, Kevin Timleck, the Vancouver-based grandson of Arthur and Lucy Timleck, reflected on the Stork Derby that had briefly turned his grandparents into national headlines. He described the prize money they received during the Great Depression as "life-changing" for the family. According to Timleck, the winnings were invested in a variety of businesses and real-estate ventures, helping to secure the family's financial future. His grandparents, along with the Nagle family, also repaid the municipal relief funds they had received during the darkest years of the Depression.
Timleck, who is one of five children and has two sons of his own, says he’s “rather proud” of his grandparents’ participation in the event. “They’re part of Canadian history,” he adds.
References
# The Toronto 'Stork Derby' Baby Race. Snopes
# How A Dead Millionaire Convinced Dozens Of Women To Have As Many Babies As Possible. FiveThirtyEight Science
# An Eccentric Tycoon Left a Fortune to the Winner of a Baby-Making Contest. The Great Stork Derby Divided Canadians During the Great Depression. Smithsonian Magazine
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