Food behind Jabalee family’s business success

Richard Jabalee, a pioneer businessman in North Sydney, went from pedlar to entrepreneur, becoming a business magnate.

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Jabalee did so well selling beef from Western Canada, and in such great amounts that Norman Maclean, President of Canada Packers in Toronto at that time, came to North Sydney to meet him.

Now, let’s back up. Richard Jabalee came from the city of Zahle in Lebanon in the early 1900s, probably 1910; Lebanon was part of Syria then until 1949-1950, as Richard’s son, Harold and his wife, Edna, explain. Richard and his wife, Edna Kasouf Jabalee, had four children, Joe, George, Harold and Rose Marie.

He could hardly speak English but began as a pedlar, peddling anything and everything from  door to door, from pencils to groceries.

Later, he worked at a quarry in Georges River. Then work took him to the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company, the …