Wilfred Hovius and the Dresden Tragedy

By Eric Philpott

Wilfred had everything to live for. He had just turned 19 and was beginning to taste the freedom of young adulthood. The job he and his father were working on would probably take six months to complete, and maybe, just maybe, he would be able to return to school. Wilfred still dreamed of becoming a doctor one day. He had been an excellent student, even with the challenge of a new language and having to borrow textbooks from a neighbour. But while he was still 15, he had to leave school to help support the family.

Like many Dutch immigrants in the 1950s the Hovius family’s first years in Canada had been difficult. In 1953, they exchanged a modest but comfortable life in the Netherlands for one of poverty in Canada. In 1955, after some tough years in Cornwall, they moved to Aylmer, Ontario where there was more work. Things had gradually improved and by 1957, both Wilfred and his father had found well-paying jobs in construction, and his mother and siblings were earning money harvesting tobacco.

On August 1, 1957, Wilfred and Enne travelled with a small crew of Dutch Canadians to Dresden, Ontario, where they began work on a new waterworks project. Dresden was 120 kilometers from Aylmer so they would be staying at the site, only returning home on weekends. The upside, though, was that they could work late each day and make lots of overtime.

In Dresden, the first task was construction of the pumping station beside the Sydenham River, which involved excavating from the top of the riverbank to a depth of 35 feet.

At first a power shovel did all of the digging, but progress was slow. The earth was quite soft below ten feet, so there were several “slips” in which parts of the pit wall collapsed. The fallen material had to be cleaned out, creating delays.

The workers observed all of this with concern. They knew that once it had been excavated to the correct depth, they would have to go into the pit to square it by hand. The site engineer, a young Englishman, was also concerned. He requested soil testing to confirm whether the excavation was sufficiently stable, but the contractor didn’t act, even after the request was put in writing. 

On their second weekend home, Enne paced out 35 feet to show the family how deep the excavation was. Wilfred confided to his sister that he was not looking forward to going down into that hole. The other men, too, told their wives about the dangers. Jan Oldewening’s wife urged him to call in sick. He had only recently been hospitalized for ulcers, and wasn’t fully recovered, so it would have been justified.  

Unfortunately, like many immigrants then and now, the men needed the work, so early on Monday morning, August 12, they headed back to Dresden. Wilfred’s sister Theresa remembers their father hugging their mother to say goodbye and then turning around to give her a second hug before leaving.

The next day, the excavation reached formation level and the men were sent in. A photo, taken by the site engineer, shows there was no shoring to hold back the earth. On the river side, the pit was 15 feet deep, but the back wall of the pit rose up a full 35 feet to the top of the bank.

On August 14, the men arrived early, finding that there had been another slip. About a truckload of earth had fallen into the pit. They had cleared it out quickly and began assembling the formwork for the base of the structure. Then they started placing and tying a thicket of steel reinforcement bars. They were working fast. By lunchtime their foreman, Dirk Ryksen, decided that they would be able to pour the foundation that day. The first load arrived at 4pm. The men had to improvise a crane to swing the buckets of concrete from the mixer over to a trough where they poured the concrete down into the pit.

The second load of concrete arrived at 6pm and the men got right to work. Along with the five Aylmer men, and their foreman, the work crew included two locals, both also recent Dutch immigrants. Henry Vanderveen lived a few doors down from the job site. His wife served the men their meals. The other was Harry Okkema, who was 19 years old, like Wilfred. Harry and Wilfred worked together and chatted when they had time to, “mostly about cars and girls,” as Harry recalls. 

Around 6:30, Harry was called home for dinner while the others continued working. That saved Harry’s life.

At 7pm, when the men were nearly finished, the entire east wall of the pit collapsed. It happened so fast there was no time to escape, but Wilfred and his father almost reached the top of the northwest corner of the pit before they, too, were covered in the heavy wet clay. Dirk Ryksen, their foreman, was standing on the edge of the formwork, speaking with the contractor, Alvin Keillor when the cave-in happened. Ryksen was pulled into the pit where he lost his life, along with his men. Keillor, who was buried up to his knees, was briefly trapped, but he survived, traumatized by what he had witnessed.

Word of the cave-in spread rapidly, and many townspeople tried to save the men, but it was too late and the hoped for rescue operation turned into the grim task of recovering the bodies. Wilfred was the second one they found, wrapped in his father’s arms. In all, six men died that day.

The cave-in was headline news across Canada and the Netherlands, and investigations were launched quickly, but what became of them is unknown today. Although there had been no inspections, no soil tests, and no shoring of any kind, a Coroner’s Inquest ruled the deaths accidental and the contractor was acquitted in a trial.

Although it was Ontario’s worst workplace tragedy, the story disappeared quickly. Just three years later, in 1960 when the Ontario government launched a Royal Commission to investigate workplace safety across the province, the Dresden disaster was not even mentioned.

I only found out about it because my (late) father was the site engineer. A few years ago, my mother told me the story for the first time. When I looked for more information, I couldn’t find anything to show it had even happened, but in 2020, we found my father’s diary, photos, and drawings documenting everything.

I made it my mission to reconstruct what happened and in 2023, I started work on a documentary, “Dresden 1957.” I couldn’t believe that a story like this could be allowed to disappear. Of course, those families have never forgotten. 20 children lost their fathers that day, and when I started this project, 15 were still alive. Meeting them has been emotional. I very much want them to see their story told at last. 

Wilfred Hovius will forever be 19. The promise that his life held could only be fulfilled by his sisters and brothers, but I’m certain he would be proud to see them today. He is buried in the Aylmer Cemetery next to his father Enne (39), Jan Bremer (43), Jan Oldewening (45), and Hendrik Drenth (58). A sixth plot had been purchased for Dirk Ryksen (37), but he was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Byron, London, near where his wife and young son lived.

Since starting on this project, I’ve come to realize that there is still very little public awareness of workplace tragedies. Unfortunately, that may be especially true of trench collapses, which are still happening today. I hope that by telling the forgotten story of the Dresden cave-in, we can make a small contribution towards greater awareness, both of workplace safety, and of those who have lost loved ones.

You can learn more about our documentary project at www.Dresden1957.com