Westmount Jewellers

When he was only eight years old, Fred Susun received an invite from his brother-in-law, a master jeweller, to visit his workshop in Istanbul. Mesmerized, spellbound and utterly transfixed, Fred looked up at his guide and said, “You gotta hire me.” From that moment on, Fred was dedicated to a career as a jeweller. While his father was devastated that Fred didn’t want to go to university, a friend noted that “If someone picks their trade at this age, I can bet you he’ll be successful at it.” At age 14, Fred began working in that very shop, “bringing coffee and tea to the clients, sweeping the floors, and polishing and washing jewellery,” he says. Fred became a master goldsmith and, in 1978, he immigrated to Canada. In 1984, he took over Westmount Jewellers. The store boasts an old black and white photograph of Fred at 14 years old, proudly smiling, in his brother-in-law’s shop.

As soon as he could walk, Fred’s son, Sean Susun was in the shop learning the trade. When Sean was about 12 years old, his dad asked him to make a ring. “I gave him some silver and he got on the bench, rolled the metal into a band and shaped it up, put it together for me. I still have it,” says Fred. Because Sean grew up at Westmount Jewellers, when Fred considered closing it, Sean stepped up. “The thought of losing the family business that I grew up with didn’t sit right with me, so I had to pull up the boots a bit and say, ‘Okay, I think I have to step in and work something out,’” he says. Now, Sean owns and runs the shop. Fred, who is a mason and a Shriner, helps out when he’s not volunteering his time to charity.