Harry Lutz Symons (1893 - 1962) was a Canadian writer, who won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 1947 for Ojibway Melody,[1] a volume of humorous essays about summer recreational life on Ontario's Georgian Bay.
[2] His other works included Friendship (1943),[3] Three Ships West (1949),[4] The Bored Meeting (1951)[5] and Orange Belt Special (1956), and the non-fiction works Fences (1958) and Playthings of Yesterday: Harry Symons introduces the Percy C. Band Collection (1963).
Symons, the son of architect William Limberry Symons,[6] was an ace fighter pilot in World War I[7] and later worked in insurance[8] and real estate.
[6] His son Thomas Symons, a noted academic, founding president of Trent University, and former chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission,[9] credits the values expressed in Ojibway Melody with framing his career and contributing to Trent's decision to establish Canada's first university department in Indigenous Studies.
[10] Another son, Scott Symons, was a writer whose 1967 novel Place d'Armes was the first gay-themed novel published in Canada.