Robert J. Foley

Details

Inductee: Robert J. Foley

Year inducted: 2012

About:

Robert J. Foley was born in Niagara Falls in 1941. He is a writer, publisher and historian. He wrote weekly history features for the Niagara Falls Review, Welland Tribune and the St. Catharines Standard on the history of the Niagara Peninsula and the history of Canada. The features were published in six books: Niagara Story Volume I, Beginnings to 1812: Volume II, The War of 1812; Volume III, The Welland Canal; Volume IV, The Canadians; Canada’s Story, Book One, The Dawn of Time; and Book two, The Struggle for a Continent.

He was the Executive Director of the Chippawa Battlefield Preservation Society. The society was instrumental in saving the Chippawa Battlefield, which became a heritage site owned by the Niagara Parks Commission.

Bob is the Executive Director of Heritage Niagara, an organization that facilitates heritage projects in the Niagara Region. Heritage Niagara helped facilitate a coalition of veterans’ organizations to ensure the preservation of the Niagara Falls Armoury. The organization also sponsors several awards for outstanding service to the heritage community including the George and Olive Seibel Award and the Esther Summers Award of Excellence. The Esther Summers Award is given to an elementary school student who has participated in the annual Heritage Fair run by the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) and the Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB).

He was a founding member of the Historic Niagara Education Committee that brought the DSBN and NCDSB together to successfully launch the Passport Niagara Project that will allow 30,000 elementary school students to celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812.