Businessman.
Born at Petrolia, Ontario on 4 March 1873, son of Lewis Arnett and Angelina Hughes (1850-1944), he was educated at Winnipeg public schools, Brandon Collegiate, and University of Manitoba. He taught school for a few years, including as Principal of Souris School (1896-1897) and Stonewall School (1898-1899). After abandoning his teaching career, he worked in lumber camps of northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario. He returned to Souris and operated a lumberyard there, and at Elgin, until 1908 when he started the furniture manufacturing business of Arnett Manufacturing Company.
On 14 October 1903, he married Eliza Briggs Grant (1877-1978) at Souris. They had four children: Thomas Lewis Arnett (1904-1985, father of Thomas Lewis Arnett), Doris Angelina Arnett (1906-2003, wife of Lincoln R. Newman and H. Ted Millman), Arthur Frederick Sheldon Arnett, and Una Frances Arnett. He was a founder of the local chapter of the Refrigeration Service Engineering Society, and a member of the IOOF, COF, Masons (Scottish Rite), Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, and served as chairman of the local school board.
The family later moved to Winnipeg in 1922, where he died on 5 March 1952 and was buried in the Brookside Cemetery.
Birth and marriage registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
The Story of Manitoba by F. H. Schofield, Winnipeg: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
1916 Canada census, Ancestry.
“Rockwood,” Winnipeg Daily Tribune, 29 December 1897, page 6.
“Souris,” Western Sun [Brandon], 7 July 1898, page 1.
“Pedagogy,” Manitoba Morning Free Press, 4 January 1898, page 4.
“Around home [Principal Arnett],” Stonewall Argus, 22 December 1898, page 4.
“Company Head T. L. Arnett dies aged 79,” Winnipeg Free Press, 6 March 1952, page 10.
Obituary [Thomas Lewis Arnett], Winnipeg Free Press, 18 March 1985, page 35.
Obituary [Doris A. Millman], Winnipeg Free Press, 17 March 2003.
“Arnett Family,” The People of Souris and Glenwood From the Early Beginnings to the Present, Souris and District Heritage Club, 2006, page 262.
We thank Susan Bracken, James Arnett, and Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 10 February 2021
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