Nancy Young was once asked if the calendar picture hanging on the wall of her store, Nancy’s Nifty Nook, was a portrait of her as a young child.
“If it is, I must be well-preserved,” Young replied.
The framed calendar picture had come from a store in Elmvale owned by her great grandfather, James Hill. It dates from 1911.
The framed calendar was just one of the fascinating items that members of the BWG Local History Association brought in to share at the January ‘Show & Tell’ meeting held at the Bradford Library.
Young also brought in wooden pint and quart containers, also from her great-grandfather’s store, and an engagement ring, that had been given to her grandmother Mabel – but not by her grandfather, Harold Bell.
Mabel was engaged to be married, before she met Harold, to a young soldier who was sent to Guelph for training. He gave her an engagement ring, but died of influenza before he could be sent overseas.
“She wore this ring ‘til the day she died,” Young said. Mabel later met Harold at her father’s store. He came in to buy a spool of thread, and the rest is history.
“They were married 72 years,” Young said – but Mabel’s ring did cause occasional friction.
The stories behind the items were as fascinating as the artifacts themselves – from the Ontario First Reader brought in by Sam Lee, which was sold by Eaton’s for six cents a copy, to the box camera brought in by Edgar Lloyd.
“We had a hired hand at our farm… from 1930 on. He had this camera,” Lloyd said. Although the hired man was from Czechoslovakia, the camera was made in the U.S. “He always had it…. We kids used to use it.”
Lloyd also brought in a horse bell, a sleigh bell, and an old-fashioned iron. “You just put it on the stove and heat it up,” he explained.
The January meeting coincided with the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year – a coincidence that wasn’t missed by Dianne Russell. She brought in a catalogue from the Royal Ontario Museum’s Flying Horse exhibition of Chinese artifacts, and a charm bracelet, loaded with souvenirs from all the places she had visited, including a flying horse charm from the ROM, and one commemorating the first lunar landing in 1969.
Asked if that was one of the places she had visited, Russell replied, “Only in my mind!”
She also brought in another 'memory bracelet' - of Belgian coins, dating between 1923 and 1937, brought back by her father as a souvenir of World War II.
Karon Mills of Dunkerron brought in a gold pocket watch, preserved and curated by husband Ron Mills’ mother, whom she described as “the family historian.”
The watch belonged to Mary Elizabeth Mills (1862-1928), as did a small gold pin. It was years later that Mills came across a photograph of Mary Elizabeth, in which she was wearing both the watch and pin.
Mills also had Mary Elizabeth’s autograph book, with its “beautiful writing inside,” and brought in a genealogical record of the Mills family, which she completed with help from her mother-in-law.
Ann Campbell brought in several of the treasures collected by her late husband, Tom – including a carved deed box like a miniature treasure chest, a number of children’s storybooks from the early 1900s, and other fascinating volumes.
Sam Lee not only shared the Ontario First Reader, but a box of artwork by a local girl “renowned for her drawings.”
It was a matter of serendipity. “I was at the races, when this guy said to me, You’re from Bradford, right?” Lee remembered. “I said yes” – and the man gave him a box filled with the drawings and notebooks of a Miss Wilkinson, including drawings that won prizes at the Bradford Fair in the 1930s.
The final connection? “Her mother was my Sunday School teacher,” Lee said.
A huge tray, painted a flat grey, puzzled viewers - until Louis Theriault explained that he had been given the tray, rescued from a shed where it was rusting away.
“Every person that left Europe had one of these,” Theriault said. The tray was used during travel or in the kitchen of a new homestead, to provide a flat, clean surface for drying dishes.
The trays were usually painted with a scene depicting flowers or scenes from the country of origin. For many, “it was the only memory of the country they came from,” Theriault said. Made of sheet metal, the tray has survived for over 200 years.
In between the descriptions and stories, Franz Aschwanden shared some of his own collections – pencils made in Newmarket, flip phones collected and turned into a decorative plaque, and a collection of watches that are “all correct twice a day.”
The meeting was not only the first of the year, but of the new decade. Association president Jan Blommaert noted that in its first decade, the Local History Association produced the two-volume Governor Simcoe Slept Here: the legacy of West Gwillimbury; in its second decade, the Association focused on restoration of the Auld Kirk Heritage Site.
“So, what’s ahead for the next decade?” Blommaert asked. “We don’t know what the next 10 years will bring. Come back in 2030 to find out!”
Or just come to the next meeting of the BWG Local History Association. On Saturday, Feb. 22, guest speaker Tedd Duncan, president of the Simcoe County Historical Association, will talk about the SCHA and Simcoe County Barns, 2 p.m. at the Bradford Library.
New members are always welcomed. Annual membership is only $10 per person, $15 for a couple.
