Wally Berry is a member of the Queen’s Football Hall of Fame and was a well-known Kingston portrait photographer for decades.

Recently Kingston’s Gwen Berry passed away, the widow of longtime Kingston photographer Wallace R. Berry.

It brought back memories of Kingston’s leading portrait photographer for close to 50 years.

A Queen’s University graduate (Class of 1942), Wallace Berry maintained close ties to the university by photographing thousands of Queen’s graduates over a period of 45-years. He also photographed many of the Queen’s sports teams during those years.

Berry was regarded as Kingston’s premier wedding photographer. When ‘Wally’ retired in 1995, he told the Whig-Standard, “I must have done over 1,000 weddings and I have definitely been in every church in Kingston.”

Berry captured an estimated 650,000 images over the course of his career. Donating his negatives to Queen’s Archives.

In his early days as a wedding photographer the bride and groom would come to Berry’s studio for their photos.

He recalled, “I could do three to five weddings every Saturday, over 150 wedding portraits a year.” 

In a 1979 interview with the Whig, Berry said, “I have trailed a bride for 10 hours taking photos.”  Adding, ‘It takes 100 times the energy and experience than it did 15 years ago.’

Wally Berry photographed my parents wedding. Chuck and Marilyn Potter were married at St. John’s Anglican Church in Portsmouth in May of 1955.

Their wedding album remained a fixture in our family living room for years.

My parents held their wedding reception downtown at Morrison’s Restaurant.

Now, to be clear the reception was not inside Morrison’s. It was upstairs, hosted in a private banquet room. Mr. Berry was there to get some additional photos.

For years Berry’s studio was located downtown on Montreal Street near Brock.

His original studio was on Wellington Street. In later years Berry setup up shop in Portsmouth Village at the historic ‘Orange Hall’ on King Street West.

Ultimately his studio would move to Johnson Street prior to retirement.

It was during his time in Portsmouth Village when I was about 13 years old I went to see Mr. Berry to ask if he would photograph our family dog. A mixed beagle named ‘Rufus’.

Berry admitted he did not normally work with pets, but I came away with a wonderful portrait of ‘Rufus’ that I presented to my parents as a gift. A framed photo of Rufus I still have today.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s I attended pretty much every Queen’s home football game, covering the team in the 1980’s for CKWS-TV.

Berry was a fixture at every game, perched high above the field in a ‘cherry picker’ in the south end zone filming the game. He had been there at every Gaels game since the mid-1950’s.

Coach Doug Hargreaves called Berry’s work, “A very important teaching tool” for his players to review game tapes.

Berry was also the Gaels official team photographer and he was inducted into the Queen’s Football Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame induction dinner was after a Saturday home game at Richardson Stadium. However, someone forgot to bring Berry down from the cherry picker that day and he was late arriving to the ceremonies.

Berry’s daughter, Jane Sansom, remembers her father,”Being stuck up there and no one knew it. The Kingston Fire Department had to be summoned to Richardson Stadium with an aerial ladder to get him down.”

Berry’s widow, Gwen, said at the time of Wally’s passing, “They had a lot of laughs about that at the induction dinner.”  

Born in Brantford, Ontario in 1917, Berry arrived in Kingston to attend Queen’s University in 1937 and remained here except for a four-year stint with the Royal Canadian Navy stationed in Halifax.

In 1947 he bought an existing Kingston photo studio called A.R. Timothy Photography and became Kingston’s leading portrait photographer for most of the next fifty years.

Throughout the 1960’s & 70’s Berry produced the yearly class photos at Kingston elementary schools.

Berry also photographed minor hockey teams in Kingston during that era.

In February 1953, Berry made local headlines when he rescued a drowning Kingston teenager from the icy waters near the LaSalle Causeway. 

Six teens were attempting to cross the ice when they fell in. A rescue attempt was already underway when Berry happened upon the scene and started taking photos. Five of the teens were brought to safety, but a sixteen-year-old boy remained in the water barely clinging to a piece of ice.

Rescuers could not get to him and the teen disappeared below the surface. Without hesitation Berry tossed his camera aside, had a rope attached to his waist and he crawled out along the ice.

A strong swimmer and a former member of the Queen’s water polo team, Berry saved the youngster’s life.

Berry dove into the icy waters and pulled out the unconscious teen who was three metres below on the bottom.

Berry dragged the youth back to shore where he was rushed to hospital and survived.

Berry received the YMCA National Heroic Gold Medal for his life saving efforts. At the time only three of those medals had been awarded in Canada since 1926.

Wally was the chairman of Water Safety for the local Red Cross and would teach and certify many young local swimmers.

With his Navy background, Berry was the Information Officer for HMCS Cataraqui and earned the rank of Lt. Commander.

In 1989 Berry received special recognition from the Kingston Branch of the Queen’s University Alumni Association for his many years of dedication to the university.

Honoured for his almost 50 years taking grad photos and for his work photographing multiple Queen’s sports teams. He was also Past President of the Kingston Queen’s Alumni Association.

Berry died of complications from Parkinson’s in 1999 at the age of 82.

Many of his iconic images live on today in hundreds of wedding albums from that era. And thousands of Queen’s graduates still have their graduation photo taken by Wallace R. Berry.

Wally Berry captured many iconic photos of Kingston historic landmarks, but his favourite images were those of his beloved Queen’s University.

Mark Potter is a longtime Kingston broadcaster and honoured member of the Kingston & Distirct Sports Hall of Fame. And has a Wallace Berry framed photo of his childhood family dog ‘ Rufus’.