Roscoe Fillmore

Roscoe Alfred Fillmore (10 July 1887 – 20 November 1968) was a Canadian radical political activist, horticulturalist, and author from The Maritimes.[1][2]

Born in the tiny farming community of Lumsden, New Brunswick, Fillmore, like many working-class people from the Maritimes region of Canada, traveled to the United States for work. While in Portland, Maine, he heard a soapbox speaker for the Socialist Party and he started his path to socialism. Upon returning home, he eventually became the primary organizer for the Socialist Party of Canada in the Maritimes before World War I. In the early 1920s, he joined the Communist Party of Canada and visited the Soviet Union, including spending time in 1923 on an experimental farm in Siberia. In 1924, he moved to Centreville, Kings, Nova Scotia. In 1940, the Communist Party was banned but Fillmore and others re-established the organization as the Labour-Progressive Party of Canada. In 1945, he was the LPP nominee for the Digby—Annapolis—Kings riding and received 362 votes (1.4%). He left the Communist Party in the 1950s but continued to be politically active until his death in 1968. He also published four books on gardening and was nicknamed "Mr. Green Thumbs" for his abilities. His papers are held by Dalhousie University in Halifax.[3]