All About Blyth

Rogue School Board: Avon Maitland DSB

2011-10-16T11:04:00.001-04:00

Avon Maitland District School Board has decided to close the only school in our community of Blyth.

So what, you may say! That’s happening to many communities!

This is the community that I know well, and I just want to use it to illustrate how these closures can affect any small rural community. You have to understand the Ground Zero realities before you can grasp the enormity of what is occurring across Ontario.

We have been told by the school board that rules over our Huron-Perth education system, that they can no longer afford to operate our school. Our elementary students, almost all of them, will have to be bussed to a different municipality for their schooling, Central Huron. It is, they say, a simple matter of saving money by reducing the number of school sites.

Well, sometimes they say it is not entirely a matter of saving money; it is a question of improving education quality. To achieve this, they are building a large 24 classroom school in Wingham. This, some say, is a great step forward. The vice chair of the school board stated at the sod-turning ceremony that it was impossible to provide quality education in those old school buildings. The new school will, he said, open doors for the children that we can barely imagine today.

The Director of Education in 2009 gave a different explanation. He told an ARC meeting that the new school construction is being funded under the economic stimulus program, so we had better get busy and make our decisions quickly to please the Ministry and get this money working. So it’s not to save money; it’s not to improve education; in fact it is not an educational program at all; it’s just a project to spend a few million dollars to build a school – somewhere – to help out the economy.

That turns out to be the most plausible explanation for this school. But anyway, lucky Wingham! They are getting stimulated. Too bad for Blyth, however. Their school is going to be sacrificed to make the new school appear to be serving a real educational purpose!

To add insult to injury, only a handful of our Blyth children will ever get a chance to attend this Nirvana of educational bliss. Instead most of our children will be riding a bus down the road south to Londesborough to another of those old school which like Blyth Public School lacks the ambiance required to deliver excellent education. Here I thought teachers did the educating – not bricks and mortar.

So in return for giving up our only school, what are we in Blyth getting in return?

No joy, that’s for sure; just a long list of losses and a very bleak future for the community of Blyth.

· No children able to walk to school,

· No school board employees living or working in the community,

· No ability to attract or retain young families to the community

· 10% to 20% drop in residential property values (this decline is already in evidence)as a community which has no school

· Reduced business investment in the community

· Reduced patronage of existing businesses

· Loss of connection with the community culture and spirit

· Reduced connection between parents and school

· Loss of community identity in the present and in the future

· Loss of a major community meeting place

· Local taxpayers having to pay for development costs for a new school in another community

One wonders why our own elected officials would do this to us.

I sent some questions to the Director of Education, Ted Doherty, to help me understand the thinking behind the Blyth decision. He provided no answer to any of my questions. He wrote: “I have read your letter numerous times. The only thing I can say is that I am sorry you feel as you do, but the proper processes were followed. The school board has to make difficult decisions.” That was the whole letter. If that is not a sign of a fortress mentality, I don't know what is.

The really scary part of this is that similar scenarios are playing out all over Ontario.

One of our very attractive houses in Blyth has dropped in value by fifteen percent, $32,000, in the past year, solely because of the school closure. Imagine the loss across our entire community. Several million dollars for sure! Then think about what that means for property values across the length and breadth of Ontario where other rogue boards are behaving almost as irrationally as AMDSB.

My goal is to find some way either to force the school boards (including AMDSB) to change their deplorable decisions, or to convince the opposition parties and rural backbenchers to find a political solution which will force the weakened Liberal government to find a way to end this madness and do the right thing.

We need lots of support from small rural communities. We are all being affected.

Madame Minister: You Make me Angry!

2011-08-29T17:52:00.000-04:00

I received a letter today from Ontario's Minister of Education, Leona Dombrowsky. I waited for seven weeks for this letter. I had no great expectations that this letter would contain good news or any nice surprises. My modest expectations turned out to be appropriate. There was nothing good in the letter. Still it has had a dramatic effect on me.

I AM ANGRY? DEEPLY ANGRY!

Actually the anger that I feel surprises me. I have been in this fight on the closing of our Blyth Public School for years. I am fully aware that the chances are slim to nil that the decision will be reversed.

So I am asking myself why am I suddenly so bitterly angry at Leona Dombrowsky.

Perhaps it is in part because of the experience we've been through during the past week with the death of Jack Layton and the outpouring of emotion we have been feeling. Yes, that is really part of it. Here I am reading a letter from an Ontario Cabinet Minister who is presiding over a slimy government ploy, a kind of tag team game with Avon Maitland DSB, closing schools for no good reason, pretending that they have consulted us, telling us lies and manufacturing stories to make un-involved people think that they are "doing the right things".

Yes, this is one reason why the anger boils over. We have marvelled at the stories of Jack, this very courageous man, we've been moved by his letter to Canadians, we've shed a few tears seeing the deep sorrow of his wife, Olivia, and noting her personal strength. Even though I have never voted for his party, I have been thinking how great it would be to find another provincial or federal leader with that kind of character and moral fiber. None come to mind at the present.

And here I am instead reading a letter from a political hack, covering up her tracks, trying to justify the actions of school boards who are tearing the heart and soul out of community after community by closing their only schools. There is no right of appeal. They do not need to explain their reasoning to anyone. They don't even need to apologize. And the Minister just turns a blind eye to the carnage these boards like AMDSB are inflicting on their neighbours' communities. And she writes letters to us, as if we are just having a minor disagreement of opinion. Then she has the nerve to suggest that concerned people like me "work with their local school board and assist in the transition of students to their new accommodations..."

How do we deal with people whom we cannot believe? How can we trust our local school board once they have stabbed our community in the back? The big shock came about a few weeks ago when I came to the realization that this is not just a local scam perpetrated by our school board; it is being done in collusion with our provincial Liberal government who issued what appear to be very strict rules for boards to be open, consultative, fair, community-sensitive, and then do absolutely nothing to enforce those rules.

I have no idea which party I will vote for on October 6, but it will definitely not be the Ontario Liberal Party!

Brock Vodden

The Truth About Accommodation Review in North Huron

2011-08-21T00:14:00.001-04:00

There is no doubt that the Avon Maitland District School Board cheated in its conduct of the Pupil Accommodation Review for North Huron. The Ministry on its website describes both the authority of school boards to make decisions about closing, consolidating and building new schools, and the mandatory requirements which the boards MUST meet in making and implementing these decisions.

The Ministry's requirements are presented in bold below with comments on how the AMDSB failed to meet each of these requirements. Key words are italicized for emphasis by the blog author:

This process must follow the school board's policy that governs accommodation reviews.
Boards are required to ensure their own accommodation review policy (also known as a school closure policy) is compliant with the ministry's revised guideline.

The board failed to follow its own policies and ignored many of the ministry's guidelines. The most critical oversight was the board's failure to complete a valuation of the school to the local economy. Had this criterion been completed honestly, it would have been impossible for the board to close the BPS.

The ministry has issued a Pupil Accommodation Review Guideline that outlines the minimum requirements for school boards.
This statement means that the ministry's guidelines are mandatory, since they are minimum requirements. Approximately half of those guidelines were violated in the board's actual procedures.

The heart of this process is community consultation through representation on the ARC and through public meetings.
The representation on the ARC was not even close to a reflection of the Blyth community. There was no representation from Blyth business, Blyth Ward councillors, members at large from the community. Invitation were sent home with pupils for their parents; consequently the participants were mostly from the school community.

The ministry encourages students, parents and community members to get involved in the accommodation review process.
The entire ARC process in North Huron was a farce in that the board had already made its decisions. The community involvement turned out to be irrelevant. In fact, the ARC served the board as a diversion to keep the the school community busy while it carried out the administration's plans.

This document provides school boards and their communities with a tool to ensure transparency and accountability in an accommodation review process.
The boards decisions were all made in secret since they bear no relationship to the discussions that took place in the community forums. There was no transparency. Since neither the ministry, the Minister, the facilitator, and the community could not change the decision or appeal it, there was no accountability

Since the Ministry has made no effort to enforce its guidelines, has presented no sanctions for boards' deviations from the spirit and the words of their policy, the Ministry itself is at fault for the damage being done to communities such as Blyth by its becoming a community with no school.

Boards are required to ensure their own accommodation review policy (also known as a school closure policy) is compliant with the ministry's revised guideline.
As mentioned above, many of the ministry's guidelines were ignored by AMDSB, but also the ministry-appointed "independent" facilitator made no mention of those oversights in her review of the petition.

It appears that much of the boards decision-making took place in secrecy, taking illegal advantage of in camera meetings with no public scrutiny and no transparency.

Canadian Democracy Threatened

2011-04-27T16:48:00.000-04:00

Our Member of parliament in this riding of Huron-Bruce is Mr. Ben Lobb, a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. Ben is running for re-election in the big event which takes place May 2, 2011.

I like Ben. I've met him several times, and each time he has been doing something or presenting something which is good for this area, and he speaks well and sincerely about the meaning of the task he is performing. A couple of times Ben has gone to bat for the Huron County organization when the government of which he is a part has been doing something which is clearly harmful to the good efforts of our County. He has been successful in one of these attempts, which is no small achievement for a rookie MP.

Every time I see Ben, and even when I see his campaign signs - hundreds of them - I feel sad. I am sad that this fine young man is part of this dreadful Conservative Party of Canada and the government headed by the most dangerous prime minister Canada has ever had.

I was especially sad the other day when I learned that Ben had told a lie in an interview. It was no a slip of the tongue. It was a deliberate pre-programmed lie. He said that the opposition parties had brought the government down by voting against the Conservative budget. Of course that is not true. Mr. Harper's government was found in contempt of parliament, and was defeated by a vote of no confidence. That means that the majority of the members of parliament have no confidence in the government. That situation obliges the government to resign.

Why am I so concerned about this "one small fib"? It is because this little fib is part of a culture of lies, deceptions, ethical lapses, dishonourable actions, unparliamentary gaffs, anti-democratic ploys that have been deliberately and methodically perpetrated by Prime Minister Steven Harper and spread by members of his robotic cabinet and his faithful backbenchers. I have always respected the office of prime minister, even when I did not completely agree with his/her policies and principles. Until now!

The only political party I have ever joined was the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. When Peter McKay sold out that party to the Reform and Alliance gangs to form the Conservative Party of Canada, and elected Harper as leader, they sent me a membership card for the new party. I tore it up right away.

There are former Progressive Conservatives in the Tory caucus, but we don;t hear much from. Peter McKay has remained in cabinet in a major post, but I suspect this is his payment for betraying his original party. However there is no vestige of the values and principles that drew me to the PC party in the past.

The big lie, unfortunately. seems to have worked for Harper, although I am sure that a large part of the creidit for the last minute surge in the NDP camp is the result of people deciding they have had enough of Stevie's lies.

My new motto "ANYBODY BUT HARPER".

Memories of Blyth Fire Brigade

2011-04-04T00:05:00.001-04:00

Memories of Blyth’s Fire Department

By Brock Vodden

The Blyth Fire Brigade has always been an important part of our community. This is as true today as it was in earlier days; however, the social aspects of their roles have changed to fit the times.

I’d like to share a few memories and impressions I have of the brigade when I was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s.

I mention both “memories” and “impressions” to distinguish between accurate recollections and childhood impressions of what went on in those days.

THE FIREMEN’S DANCE

The dominant memory I have is that of the annual Firemen’s Dance. It seems to me that almost everyone in the community came out to this event – and not just the adults – it was an event for men women and children of all ages. There were no babysitters in this era. No one left their children at home with babysitters. Young people of babysitting age, would have been at the dance; they would not think of missing that dance!

The babes came to the dance, too. The event always took place in the winter time. Winter coats, all of them, were piled on two long tables in the kitchen area of the lower floor of Memorial Hall. The piles of coats served as a very comfortable bed for the infants who mostly slept their way through the evening wrapped in their baby blankets. Children who were mobile joined in the dances or played the usual children’s games as long as they could stay awake, but some of them would be deposited on the “coat bed” as well when they became victims of the late hours.

The music would be provided by one of the local orchestras playing all the familiar tunes of the era. “Watt’s Orchestra” is the main one that I recall. It consisted of Bob Watt who played the mandolin and banjo and saxophone. He also played the big sousaphone in the local brass band, and his day job was coal dealer. Mrs. Watt played the piano, and there was a violinist as well, but I can’t recall his name.

The dance styles included waltzes, schottisches, square dances, fox trot, and polka. When I was really young, a new dance style arrived from England known as the Lambeth Walk. It was one of those dance crazes that was exclusively applied to one piece of music. In this case a piece called The Lambeth Walk.

My aunt, Jean Turvey Cook, was living with us while she attended Clinton Collegiate. She was caught up in the Lambeth Walk fad and recruited me to perform this with her. At one of the firemen’s dances the orchestra played the piece while my aunt and I performed the dance, I am sure to the delight of all present. I can't remember any of the moves in this dance; all I can recall is the last line of the chorus: “Doin’ the Lambeth Walk! OY!” It seems to me that we shouted out the final “OY!” and at the same time threw up our hands. As the piece went on, the audience joined in the “OY”! This part of my story is more impressionistic than factual. I think I was possibly four or five years of age at the time.

The mood of these events was uninterruptedly happy. Everyone seemed to be absolutely delighted to be there and to be in the company of all the others, and to be listening to that very familiar music, and to perform all those familiar dances. Even a young kid could sense that atmosphere. There was no need for security. We were just one big happy, friendly community family.

I think the lunch that was always provided by the firemen (or perhaps by their wives, to be exact) was one of the many highlights of these evenings. The quantity and quality of the food and the coffee was amazing. Lunch was announced. The members of the orchestra put down their instruments and came of their platform to join us. We all found chairs around the four walls of the hall. There were enough chairs for everyone. Soon some pairs of firemen emerged from the kitchen with large baskets full of sandwiches. The sandwich fillings that I remember were ham (with mustard), salmon, egg salad, but there may have been others. The white bread was always very fresh – made that very day at either Hollyman’s or Vodden’s Bakery. The baskets were a type of laundry basket that I have not seen for many years. But each one held many sandwiches and the firemen made countless trips around the dance floor urging everyone to take just a few more.

A moment after the sandwiches appeared, other firemen began to deliver heavy white china coffee cups, followed by large white enamel urns of steaming hot coffee. The coffee was already doctored with rich cream and lots of sugar. We had never heard of people drinking coffee without these fixings. The coffee was made in a large copper boiler. The method: Fill one copper with cold water and place on hot stove and bring to a full boil. Place one pound of ground coffee in a cheese cloth bag and sew the bag closed. Drop the coffee bag into boiler for (I don't know how long). Add cream and sugar to the boiler to taste.

PERFECT! There has never been coffee served to large gatherings with such a wonderful aroma and flavour since those days.

After lunch, the dancing would resume until 1:00 a.m.

TRICKSTERISM

Many years after leaving Blyth, while living in Northwestern Ontario, we made friends with a lady from that area who had spent some time in Huron County when she was quite young. She was a pleasant and intelligent woman, but she did not have a keen sense of humour. She had developed what one might call a “mixed” impression of Huron County people – particularly the men. It seemed to her that men of this area were constantly playing very cruel and demeaning practical jokes on each other.

I was surprised at first to hear of this sort of general condemnation of Huronites. But on reflection, I realized that there was certain validity to that reputation. Not everyone in this county performed these jokes, but I had a sizeable collection of stories about such antics. I suppose I had always assumed that people from other counties enjoyed the same sport.

One of the practical jokes in my collection took place at a weekly fire brigade meeting.

Just a brief background to set the scene.

Bill Morritt had served as secretary for the fire brigade for several years. Never one to stand on ceremony, each time he read the minutes of the last meeting he would end with something like “Old Bill, Secretary.” When Bill decided to withdraw from that job, a new member was elected as secretary. He was one of the local pharmacists, Earl Willows. Earl took his new post quite seriously. At the conclusion of his reading of the minutes, he intoned the following in a very officious voice: “E.H. Willows. Secretary”. Just one more detail. Earl was an avid cigarette smoker except when in his pharmacy, but he had a habit of leaving the fag in his lips long after it had expired.

On one occasion, the fire meeting was taking place in the Morritt implement shop close to Memorial Hall. When Earl began reading the minutes, Bill Morritt slipped into the next room and retrieved a very large iron bar and then tiptoed back into the meeting room close behind Earl.

When Earl closed the minutes with “E.H. Willows. Secretary”, Bill dropped the iron bar with a resounding crash, Earl dropped his minute book and swallowed the remains of his dead cigarette.

A funny story. Amusing to all (except perhaps Earl). A way of saying “Don’t take things or yourself too seriously”. An exclusively Huron County practical joke? I am not sure.

Santa Claus was a Fireman

When I was a pre-schooler, my parents operated a bakery in Blyth. The bakery was then located in the store across from Memorial Hall where some readers will recall the Blyth Apothecary was located, and then Tim Saunders’ Antique Store. Behind the retail portion of the store, the north wall was covered with wooden shelves with drawers which were not used much. One Saturday morning, for no particular reason, I began opening each drawer to see what was inside. I came upon one drawer that was completely empty except for a pair of gray cloth gloves. It must have struck me as strange because I had never seen such gloves in our place before.

That afternoon, Santa Claus came to town. He was travelling by train in those days. He was to arrive at the Grand Trunk Station on Dinsley Street. My mother took me to the station for the event. Soon the old steam engine chuffed and huffed into town from the south. The conductor opened the coach door and set out a small steel platform. Then the familiar red suit and white beard appeared. My mother picked me up so that I would be able to see St. Nick through the crowd and began to move through the crowd towards St. Nick. The Ho, Ho, Hos were coming closer. Santa was holding his large bag of toys over his shoulder, holding on tight with his hands covered with . . . .gray cloth gloves! I remarked to mother the similarity of the gloves to the ones I had seen in the drawer in the bakery.

Suddenly my mother remembered that she had something important to do back at home, and we returned to the vehicle, and that was the end of the Santa Claus visit for me.

A few years later when I had figured out the Santa Claus thing, I remembered this scene. My mother told me that she was afraid that the clue provided by the gloves would increase the chance that I would see through my father’s disguise as soon as he came really close to us. Parents in those days went to great lengths to protect the secret of Santa Claus from their young children. They were convinced that an early discovery would have a devastating effect on kids for whom the mythology was very real.

Each year, the firemen with the required shape, took this trip from Londesborough to Blyth on the GTR in a red suit. The firemen arranged a parade from the station to Memorial Hall where they gave out a bag of candies and an orange to every child in the village. My father was a fireman for several years but I was not aware of his playing the Santa Claus role again. In those days, our grocery stores seldom stocked oranges except at Christmas time. They were a very special treat.

More for the Children

The members of the fire brigade, in the course of their duties, often got an intimate view of home situations – very often the conditions under which children were living. The men were very discreet about these findings and equally discreet about the treats, toys, and other gifts that found their way into these homes following their discoveries. I have never heard or read any detailed account specific examples of these informal social welfare deeds, which indicates to me the code of secrecy at play here.

Ringing the Fire Bell

There was a white cord hanging down the front of Memorial Hall, attached to a clanger at the bottom of the bell in the tower above, with the other end neatly wrapped around a cleat anchored beside the front door of the Hall. This rope was used to activate the clanger to strike the bottom of the bell, giving a very different sound than when the clapper strikes the inside of the body of the bell. Everyone could tell when the bell was using for fire related purposes. In response to a fire, the bell was rung continuously for as long as it took for the men to arrive.

Each week, the firemen held “fire practice”. The tradition was that either the village constable or one of the firemen would ring the fire bell to call the men to the meeting. A special ring rhythm was used to call men to the practice. That rhythm was one, two, three, pause; one, two, three, pause, etc.

One evening I happened to be in the vicinity of the Hall when John Cowan, the village constable, came to ring the bell for fire practice. Imagine the delight when he asked if I would like to do the honours. He knew that there was no need for any instruction since I had lived across the street from the Hall for years and had heard the rhythm countless times. I got to call the Blyth Fire Brigade to their fire practice! What a thrill!

Our First Fire Truck

In 1941 a used fire truck was purchased. It served the village for a number of years. It is still used in parades. I recall the day it arrived in the village. It was parked in the centre bay of Doherty Brothers White Rose garage while Gar Doherty, who was a great mechanic and also a member of the fire brigade, checked it over. Gar asked me if I’d like to sit in the seat and try out the siren. Silly question for a seven-year-old boy! I can vividly remember the thrill of turning the crank on the siren and creating all that noise.

By the way, this garage was located where the village parking lot is now at the corner of Queen and Drummond.

The Flax Yard Fire

Many years ago there was a flax mill located on the property where the Queen’s Villa Apartments now stand. One night we were awakened by the dreaded night sound of the fire bell. Looking out the back window of our house on Dinsley Street, we could see a very large glow above the roof tops of the houses behind ours. My parents and I got dressed quickly and headed out to see what was going on. It is one thing to see a building going up in flames. This was a field in flame – a very large mass of flax straw which had been piled south of the old flax mill as long as I could remember.

There was a really heavy smoke hanging in the air. Our firemen were doing the best they could to spray water on the burning areas, but the tiny stream coming from the hoses were clearly not up to the job of bringing this very broad inferno to heel.

As I recall the fire alternately smoked and flared for several days and small fire crews watched and sprayed the area through that time until the fire gave up.

I do not know if they ever discovered the actual cause of the fire, but I believe that the general consensus declared spontaneous combustion as the probable cause.

George Radford Construction Co. Fire

George Radford purchased the large building on the north west corner of King and Queen street from the estate of Dr. James Perdue, Blyth’s famous veterinarian and character. Radfords used this building for the care and maintenance of their rapidly growing construction business which involved a number of large trucks, bulldozers, and other heavy equipment.

One day I came down with the flu and had stayed home from school. I heard the fire alarm, looked out my bedroom window and was able to see the Radford building belching black smoke with flames shooting out of the roof. This was a very serious fire which took a great deal of time to knock down.

My recollection of the cause of the fire was that while one person was operating welding equipment at one end of the building, another man at the other end was filing up a gasoline tank. The description of the scene in the building was most vivid. Very suddenly the air in the building, filled with fumes, became ignited in a flash. The burning went from a few feet above the floor up to the roof. The men working in the building were able to walk out unscathed by crouching below the fire and walking out of the building as quickly as possible.

Everything in the building was destroyed. George Radford restored the building, using as much of the original structure as possible.

When the fire was completely out and the firemen were looking over the damage, they made a shocking discovery. Two of the men had been positioned for a lengthy period of time shooting water into the building through a window on the south side of the building. Stacked below this window they discovered several cases of dynamite. They apparently were told that fire alone would not set the dynamite off without some percussion, but they were still shaken by the thought of what might have happened to them.

Conclusion

As mentioned in the opening, our fire brigade has always been an important part of our community. They volunteer to protect the community, and not only that: they have always contributed in many other ways towards the betterment of the village. And that statement remains true to this day.

Remembering Emmer Dennis

2011-04-03T20:57:00.000-04:00

Emmerson Dennis

Machinist and Story Teller Extraordinaire

Dennis Family Background

Thomas Alexander Dennis came to Canada from England as a child with his parents in 1845. He arrived in McKillop Township in 1866 and lived on Concession XIII North, Lot 19 and raised a family of 4 sons and 3 daughters.

Two of the sons, Harry and John, formed a partnership and ran a threshing outfit for many years. (A picture of their outfit may be seen in the McKillop Township history book.) The steam engine that provided power for threshing also ran the grinder and the saw that cut wood for heating the house.

Thomas Henry (Harry)’s Family

Thos.’s son Harry, married Matilda Forbes and they had 5 sons: Ephraim Edward, called Eph., and Wilson, called Wils, and Porter Allen, called Port, and Emmerson, called Emmer, and Lloyd.

Emmer, born December 26, 1885, at Lot 15, Concession 14 south, McKillop Township, was the only boy in the family who went to high school. He attended Brussels Continuation School. At age 17, he headed west to join his brother, Wils, in a lumber camp in B.C. He would go west for the winter and come back in the spring to plant his crop in McKillop. Before returning home for good, Emmer tried his hand at homesteading in Alberta.

As the boys grew up, several of them, went west as farmers and adventurers. One of them, of course, was Emmerson, who came home around 1920 -1922. He had trained as a machinist in B.C. and used that trade as he made his way home. Once there, he set up shop on the home farm. During the summer, he worked at home and with neighbouring farmers. In the winter he did lathe work and repaired local machinery. He was likely inventing things as he did in later life.

Mrs. Dennis was always urging the 5 boys to marry. With a household of men, she longed for a female family member or two. The family still has a letter that she wrote to Wils telling him that she had spent $25.00 (a huge amount at that time) for a dress for his wedding which never did occur. Perhaps she wore it to other weddings.

Emmer was always a great tease and loved to tell yarns and play tricks. While out west he had a picture postcard made of himself standing with a young woman and a baby, which he sent home. Of course he had neither wife nor baby at that time.

Around 1934 a widow, Barbara Shultz, took the job as hired girl on the home farm in McKillop, and helped keep the household running.

One morning in April of 1937, to the family’s surprise, neither Emmer nor Barb were there. Perhaps they left a note saying they had gone to be married.

Emmer Dennis, Blyth, Ontario

The newly weds made their home on Drummond Street in Blyth where Emmer had a machine shop. He sharpened lawn mowers, better than anyone else, I am told. He made parts for machinery, repaired and built guns, and worked with Russell Dougherty who had been a neighbour in McKillop, to make machinery for his turnip plant. In the 1930s, Russell started the turnip waxing plant in his garage on Queen Street in Blyth, thus giving work to 5 men. Emmer helped Russell make his dream and plans for a precision turnip seeder a reality. Emmer would have been the only man in Blyth at the time with the technical skills, the necessary equipment, and experience to do such a job. He had learned the trade of machinist in B.C. many years before. Both Emmer and Russell were held in high regard in the village for their intelligence and kindness to others.

People of Blyth believed Emmer could fix anything, no matter how complicated.

Emmer and Barb's Home on Drummond Street, Blyth

In his shop was a large bull’s eye with bullet holes only in the centre. Some adventuresome sort snuck around and peeked in the window and discovered the secret. One of Emmer’s guns, aimed at the bull’s eye, was held securely in a vise. The bull’s eye was proof of the excellence of the guns he was actually making. The gun was held in the vise to align the sights. His nephew recalls that he would put the gun in the vise and open the east door of his shop, outside of which, he had a target set up with a bale of hay for support.

Emmerson also made a long bow and a cross bow. When nephews would come to visit, he would let the boys try using them. He set up cardboard boxes behind the target to stop the arrows that missed the target.

As long as children were reasonably well behaved, Emmer would let them hang around his shop and watch as he worked and entertained them with his tall tales. Many boys had permission from their mothers to go straight to Emmer’s after school.

One story he told was about his experience during a tornado out west. He was carrying a plank across his shoulders when the tornado came out of nowhere, caught that plank and screwed him right into the ground.

He mesmerized children with his tales of the alligators he had “for sure” seen in the Blyth Creek to the north of his house. He even convinced them that he knew how the critters made their way there.

He had discovered native artifacts on the McMillan farm at the east end of the village of Blyth. He often took boys there to dig. Johnny Morritt, when 80 years old, spoke warmly of those child hood experiences. Emmer told the boys that what they were finding proved that Indians had camped at that site by the Blyth Creek. His own interest in the artifacts began when he was a boy and many arrow heads were discovered on the home farm.

Emmer never owned a car and often men who were going out of town would invite him along. His company was always entertaining. One day Harold Vodden and his son Brock, 16, asked him to go to Kitchener. On the way home they ate steaks at a restaurant. At home again, he told Barb, “You should have seen the steak this young lad ate. It was this big!”and he indicated a platter size.

To be allowed to visit the Dennises on Hallowe’en Night was a treat coveted by all Blyth children. Barb and Emmer welcomed all visitors warmly. If lucky, they would hear some of Emmer’s stories. On the table would be a mound of popcorn balls. Before the witches and hobgoblins were allowed to take one, they had to sing a song or recite a poem. In later years, as Barb’s health declined, she was no longer able to make the famous popcorn balls but neither she nor Emmer would want to disappoint the children, so they put out saucers of freshly popped corn for each visitor.

One time, when Barb was in hospital in London, around 1949, Emmer walked up to The Standard Office where I, aged 13, worked on Saturdays. He wanted a special card for Barb. He asked me to write in it, a most affectionate note, which he dictated. He had the address on a piece of paper for me to copy to the envelope. I wondered if he couldn’t write but of course he could as he had attended Continuation School and had his machinist papers.

Barb passed away in 1964 and Emmerson Dennis in 1970.

Whenever his name is mentioned, people immediately smile as they at once recall a tall tale he told, or a trick he played, or a kindness he did. Chuckles follow smiles and many exchanges of memories occur.

To be remembered always with a smile

a well-earned living memorial to the life

Emmerson Dennis.

This story was written after visits with Emmer’s nephew, Murray and his wife, Oline (Godkin) Dennis, at the Dennis home farm in November 2010. They kindly shared pictures and stories to add to those we had collected earlier.

Janis (Morritt) Vodden

Repository of Blyth History November 18, 2010.

Mourning the Loss of Our School

2011-01-31T23:53:00.003-05:00

The school board has issued a press release notifying us that they have a comprehensive set of plans for transitioning to the new proposed school. As each step like this moves us closer to the day that the doors of Blyth Public School will be forever closed, I have another experience of mourning.

It's a personal reaction. Mourning always is. But I am not alone. We are all asking personal questions and mourning.

Who has the right to take away our school? Why are we not represented? We mean,"really" represented! Who stands to gain from this? Why are we gaining nothing? Why are we losing totally?

We are paying the price for school board consolidation, the price of being rural, the price of having too few voices. They took us over, and now they tell us they cannot afford to serve us or represent us. All they can do is collect our taxes.

Brock Vodden

THE BIDDULPH MURDER! A Poem

2011-01-24T19:53:00.008-05:00

A Poem composed by Blyth's dray man poet, Richard Sellars in 1880.

1. Of all the crimes that sin has done

To fill our world with pain,

That fearful murder in Biddulph

It horrors can't explain.

2. There was a family lived down there,

Who were the township's dread,

Now through the hands of cruelty,

Are numbered with the dead

3. It seems as though the people round

Of Donnelly were afraid,

And so to rid them of the earth,

This fearful murder made.

4. It happened at the midnight hour,

When Donnellys were asleep,

A mob of persons came around

Their house in blood to steep.

5. They clothed themselves all in disguise,

And with their nigger's face,

They called the Donnelly's out of bed,

To murder in that place.

6. And when they'roused them out of bed,

And one of them was shot,

Then all the reset they beat to death,

With spades and clubs they'd got.

7. When they had done this awful crime

Of horror, sin, and shame,

They went to work and burnt the house

To free themselves from blame.

8. They thought they worked a cunning scheme

Their evils to conceal,

But providence wrote our a plan

Their folly to reveal.

9. The Connors boy stopped there all night,

And with them did retire,

And there with sadness did behold

The murder and the fie.

10. The Connors boy to Whalens's went

Who lived across the road,

And there with fright and fear he ran

Their secrets to explode.

11. He was the only ray of light

On this dark scene to shine,

Because his presence filled that place

This mystery could define.

12. No doubt this gang to William's went,

And at this door did knock;

It caused their hearts to fear and quake,

At such a sudden shock.

13. For when the door was opened wide,

They then began their plot,

And when the hear John's dying cry:

"O, Will! O, Will! I'm shot!"

14. And when the cry of death was heard,

The wave of grief did roll,

When that to God poor John did pray,

"Have mercy on my soul!"

15. They waited there all robed in grief,

Until the break of day,

Then went to tell it to the rest,

Who then in ashes lay.

16 O, who can tell their feelings then,

When to their father's came,

And there with grief and sorrow saw

Them melting in the flame.

17. The Vigilance Committee there

Together often met,

So they might plan the way and time

That dreadful night to set.

18. The Vigilants they formed their plan,

Then sent their letters round,

For to foretell the people there

To keep off Donnelly's ground.

19. Or else themselves would have to share

Of what they had to give,

For by the way the Donnellys worked

They had not long to live.

20. The evidence that Whalan gave,

When Hossack did enquire,

Young Connors was the first to come

And tell about the fire.

21. The Lucanite who lived down there

To the reporter said,

"'Twould be a blessing to that place

If Donnellys all were dead!"

22. Because their ways they could not stand,

Of cruelty and spite,

Their horse, cattle, and their barns,

Were injured after night.

23. Reporter asked if others round

Were not as bad as they,

To plan and scheme and work at night,

To take their things away.

24. "No, No, siree," said Lucanite,

"No tongue their crimes can tell,

And those who did that awful deed

The township knows them well."

25. The people felt as though t'was right

For Donnellys to be killed.

For all that place for miles around

With Donnellys crimes were filled.

26. The Lucanite still did reveal

The nature of their way,

The only difference it was their shape

Between a dog and they.

27. When Mrs. Donnelly's fame was told,

For evil was inclined,

Though many acts of kindness done,

She has a wicked mind.

28. For if her sons a foe forgave

And no revenge did tell.

She often prayed that they all might

Forever burn in hell.

29. None of these murderers will be found,

For if their names appear,

Thousands in money is waiting ther

The murderers for to clear.

30. The punishment that Donnellys got

It always was too light

And so the law is most to blame

For the murders of that night.

31. And when the fire was all cooled down,

Those who in ashes lay,

Their cinder all were gathered up

To form their burying day.

32. And when their kindred gathered round,

Four in one coffin lie,

And when they came to view them there,

For grief they could not cry.

33. When Father Connelly's tale was told,

Those Donnellys did annoy,

When certain ones who wished to thresh,

Machines dare not employ.

34. For Donnelly's boys much mischief did,

When Ryan threshed his grain,

Iron and stoner in sheaves were found

To stop their work again.

35. And shortly after this was done

They took another turn,

They thought the'd pay him off at last,

So down his barn did burn.

36. The reason why this deed was done -

'Cause Donnellys got the blame

Of stealing money from Ryan,

So paid it back in flames.

37. The priest himself just summons feared,

His mind was so depressed

For fear that Donnelly, just through spite,

Would bring him to arrest.

38. Detective Phair, with all his gang,

Went to the mournful spot,

To try and find out who 'twas done

The murder and the shot.

39. At last suspicion did alight

On Carrol, their bitter foe,

And when that man they did arrest,

To London had to go.

40. And J. J. Maher, father and son,

Where Carroll did reside;

And they were put in jail to stay

Till all they had were tried.

41. John Kennedy they still pursued,

Him at McLaughlin's got;

A rifle in McLaughlin's found

Which looked as though just shot.

42. Then Patrick Ryder and his sons

They arrested for a while,

And had them placed within the jail

To await the day of trial.

43. The daughter, who lived miles away,

The only one was she;

Her heart was overwhelmed with grief

That dreadful sight to see.

44. Chief Williams letters did receive

His business for to mind,

Or else he would have to share

Of what they had combined.

45. This scene, which did our country shake

And floods of sorrow send,

And many of the Donnellys foes

Converted to a fiend.

46. A neighbor went the night before

The father to advice -

'Twas best for him to when that

So many disputes arise.

47. But this was doubtless in their scheme

The Donnellys for to tell,

For when he said he thought it would

That night in murder fell.

48. These persons now whose names appear

Are waiting to be tried,

Until that the April Assize

Their cases do decide.

49. And when the matter was decided,

Some told it with their tears,

And those who shed their tears of grief

A guilty conscience bear.

50. I now must take my leave of you,

'Tis all I have to tell;

And those who chance to read this poem

I bid you all farewell.

Courtesy of Elaine Scrimgeour Hough August 2010

2011-01-20T19:21:00.007-05:00

BLYTH CONTINUATION SCHOOL

1928

Norman P. Garrett, Principal

The Continuation School offered students the chance to acquire a High School Graduation Certificate right here in the village of Blyth. There were three teachers, including the principal, and three classrooms, one of which was set up as a science lab.

Students wishing to go on to Grade 13 (aka Upper School) for and Honours Graduation Certificate had to attend school elsewhere. Virtually everyone from Blyth went to Clinton Collegiate. There was no transportation provided by the school boards; students could travel to Clinton and back by the London, Huron and Bruce train or by automobile, or they might board during the week with a family in Clinton.

Jan and I can identify a few of the students. Not all of the students are full time residents of Blyth. Some will be from other townships or villages who either board with local families or who commute from other areas each day.

Here are the people whom we can identify:

Back Row from the left: #2. Nora Kelly #8 Gertrude Elliott #13 Dorothy Poplestone # 14 Teacher (unidentified) #15 Principal Garrett

Middle Row from left: #1 Marcella McLean #4 Edyth Lockhart #6 Irene Cole #9 Jessie Richmond #13 Edith Beacom.

Front Row from left: #2 ____ Lyon #4 _____ Scrimgeour?

If you can identify any others, please let me know, or if I have erred in identifying, tell me that, too.

This school building was erected in 1896, replacing the former school which is now an apartment building on the east side of Queen street north.

The Continuation School was closed in 1946. That is when busing began, to take all 9 - 13 students to Clinton Collegiate Institute (CCI), now known as Central Huron Secondary School.

I will be entering other school pictures from other eras soon.

Contact me if you would like to have your own copy of this picture.

Brock Vodden

Blyth 130 Years Ago

2010-12-26T16:29:00.009-05:00

Blyth 130 Years Ago

Browsing through our digital collection of Blyth history today, I came across our entry in a Huron County Directory for 1881, four years after the incorporation of the village.

It opens with a brief description of the village, as follows:

A flourishing village on the London, Huron and Bruce Railway, 60 miles from London. Population about 1300. It contains several stores, newspaper office, hotels, saw and grist mills, foundry, salt works, woollen mills, etc.

There are about 120 entries in the Blyth section of the directory. Directories of this type included entries by subscription; they were not intended to identify all residents. Both individuals and businesses are included in the listings along with the name of the street location. Most personal entries identify the occupation of the person, with "gentleman" indicating a retired person or "res" indicating a resident. Most individuals are male heads of family with no reference to their spouse. There are a few female entries in the case where a woman runs a business, or is a widow in which case the given name of her late husband is noted.

e.g. Coulter, Ann (wid Thomas) res Queen

The array of occupations I found especially interesting. There is a whole group of occupations which provide local services which today are uncommon in small communities and are usually provided by large corporations engaged in mass production. Included in this category are these occupations: pumpmaker, shoemaker, livery man, dray man, brickmaker, tailor, harness maker, cooper, confectioner, carriage maker, merchant tailor, stove manufacturer, teamster, furniture maker.

One entry that caught my eye right away is "Pollock, Robert J. , prop Temperance House, Queen" We know that Pollock owned and operated the Queen's Hotel which was located at the north east corner of King and Queen where the Corner Café is located in 2010. We can only speculate on why this hotel in 1881 bore the seemingly contradictory name, "Temperance". One possible explanation is that he was trying to assuage the anti alcohol faction by suggesting that his establishment allows only moderate consumption. A more likely explanation is that the local authority (village council or county council) had decided not to issue a licence to Pollock for that particular year to allow his place to serve spirits, and he may have changed the name to reflect the enforced "dryness" of the hotel.

The temperance movement in Ontario was misnamed, because their whole aim was towards total prohibition - not temperate use of alcohol. Invariably spurred on and supported by a outside activists, the locals applied pressure on authorities to keep a firm control on drinking establishments and close them on the slightest provocation. Although there were at times as many as five hotels in the village, those authorities would arbitrarily decide to issue only three licences to sell alcoholic beverages in public establishments. They also would usually allow one business to sell spirits for private consumption (medicinal purposes only?).

There is no doubt that there was a great deal of alcohol abuse in those days - even more than today. But the hotels contributed enormously to the development of communities in those early days. At various times the local hotels were the only place available for community meetings. Hoteliers encouraged business development and personally contributed much to the growth of the community. Of course the core contribution was their provision of food and lodging for visitors who brought wares, business opportunities, and commercial ideas to the village.

The lives of these hotel owners and operators were made extremely difficult by the temperance people. They never knew what the next year would have in store for them, since their business could be decimated by the loss of their licence for the next year.

The following are the hotel proprietors in 1881: Robert Brownlee, Mansion House (Westmoreland and Queen); Jonathan Emigh, Revere House (Dinsley near the GTR Station which is in 2010 the Station House B&B), William Hawkshaw, Commercial Hotel (Queen and Dinsley, now Blyth Inn), Robert Pollock, Temperance House aka Queen's Hotel, (Queen and King); David Erwin, Central Hotel, (Queen Street where the car wash now stands).

There is a reference to one of the Central Hotel's boarders, Arthur W. Nation, manager of McCosh Bros. We are not sure what business was conducted by that firm.

Thus Blyth had five hotels in 1881: Mansion, Revere, Commercial, Temperance, and Central.

The above commercial uncertainty may explain why in 1881 two erstwhile hoteliers, William Shane and John Sherritt, are shown in different fields of endeavour. Shane is listed as carpenter, and Sherritt as a shoemaker

The name of David Erwin of Central Hotel has the letters KOTM after his name. This stands for a benevolent organisation called Knights of the Maccabees.

Blyth's only newspaper at this time was called Blyth Review. Its proprietor was John T. Mitchell. listed in the directory.

We often think of these olden times as rather spartan, with no one having the money or the time to indulge in luxuries and ornament. This view is challenged by the fact that there were at least two jewellers in Blyth in 1881. The best known, and probably the most successful was Frank Metcalf, recorded in the directory as handling jewelry and fancy goods. (We also know that his shop included a telegraph office, and he was very active in a provincial organization of fruit growers). This shop was located directly across from the Memorial Hall, in the south half of Sharon's Miniature Museum (2010). The other jeweller listed is Martin Owen.

One man is listed as a fireman. This was Murdoch Campbell. He would have been responsible for the operation of the steam plant of one of the mills in Blyth whether saw mill, grist mill, or flour mill.

One photographer is listed in 1881 and she is woman, Mrs. Sarah Foy. Photographers were very important in those days before simple and compact cameras became widely used by the public.

There are two coopers listed here: John Kruse, and Fred Burnett. Kruse operated on Queen Street, but lived on Westmoreland; Burnett lived on Comb street, but might have worked for Kruse.

There are two clergymen listed in the Directory: William Birks, minister of Blyth CM Methodist Church (Queen Street, same building as used by the Christian Reform Church in 2010), and Rev. Archibald McLean of St.Andrew's Presbyterian Church (Dinsley and Mill Street)

There are many Blyth people in the building trades which is reasonable, given the fact that this period is one of rapid growth. There is a high demand for building of homes and business. The occupations of carpenters, sawyers, contractors, plasterers, bricklayers,brick makers are all represented in this directory. The demand for construction was increased by the frequency of both residential and commercial fires.

In 1881, James Huckstep is listed as a barber on Queen Street in Blyth. His shop was located in the middle unit of the Howard Block which is the building immediately north of Memorial Hall. James (Jimmy) gave me my first haircut, probably around 1936-37. I don't recall how I behaved during that operation, but if I cried, I am sure it was caused by the sight of the scissors in those shaky old hands. Jimmy died in 1941 at the age of 81.

Only one person laid claim to the cheese maker trade. I assume that he was not the only one in that business, but no one else subscribed. There probably was a cheese factory in or near the village at that time.

There were a few display ads in this section of the directory.

This is the text of Lawrence and Gracey advertisement:

Blyth Steam Cabinet Works

LAWRENCE & GRACEY

Manufacturers and dealers in

HOUSEHOLD

FURNITURE

Parlor Suites a Specialty

Undertaking attended to and funerals furnished at reasonable rates

--------v-------

This blog article is an example of how much information can be gleaned from a few pages out of a book over 100 years old. While it's not likely to produce earth shattering news, it can give fascinating glimpses into the world of our ancestors, and sometimes by contrast, it illuminates aspects of our life that we take for granted.

If you enjoyed this type of article, I would appreciate your sending me a note to that effect. Well, send me a note even if you didn't find this interesting. That's useful news as well.

You can use the comment feature at the end of the article. Or you can email me at

hbvodden@ezlink.on.ca

HAPPY NEW YEAR

BEST WISHES FOR 2011

Majoritarianism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

2010-11-22T19:37:00.017-05:00

Majoritarianism is the basis of the belief that most decisions should be based on the viewpoints and wishes of the majority of the group in question. It is a well-established principle in our political and judicial systems as well as in most of the community organizations. Motions that are approved by a majority in parliament or in the local club are adopted as policy. In the supreme and superior courts of the land and the provinces the decision of the majority of jurists wins the day.

Also in our electoral systems, the party winning the majority of seats in the parliament or the legislature forms the government.

In its purest form, majoritarianism presents some serious deficiencies in that it discriminates against the minorities in ways that Canadians increasingly find abhorrent. It is this sense of majority injustice that was a large part of the movement to adopt the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter has set Canada above most countries in the world in terms of it sense of fairness and openness for all people. The Charter specifies many classifications of rights including equality rights including freedom from discrimination based on race, religion, beliefs, national or ethnic origin, colour, sex, age, mental or physical disabilities.

The Charter spells out a broad spectrum of rights for each and everyone in Canada. At one time or another, regardless of our situation, any one of us may need that protection. But another very important purpose of the Charter is to protect minorities from the dominant majority.

There are times when the will or predilections of the majority come into conflict with minority rights. These can be very sensitive issues, but as time goes on, most of these matters become resolved.

One of the most contentious issues a few years ago was the decision to ban religious exercises and instruction in public schools. It was recognized that the students in our schools come from families with many different beliefs. To continue with Christian prayers and bible readings as well as classes in religious education in public schools discriminated against a these children.

While we still hear complaints about that change in the education system, it is broadly accepted as a necessary change in our increasingly pluralistic society. The Public School system was developed to provide education for all children regardless of their families' belief systems, and it was wrong for them to be treated like less than equal members of society.

In the United States, a federal court ordered the State of Alabama to remove a statue featuring the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of its legislature for the same reason. This is a good example of the clash of majoritarianism and the separation of church and state. CNN reported at the time that only one in five Alabamans approved of that order. The majority were in favour of the display, but the court ruled that it violated important basic constitutional principles.

I agree very strongly that government and civic organizations should not give special privileges or status to any particular religion or belief system.

Several years ago I was asked to make a presentation to a closed meeting of a county council here in Ontario. At the opening of the meeting the Warden asked everyone present to stand and recite the lord's prayer - which they did. I assume all of that county's meetings begin the same way. What is the message here? What does it say to citizens of that county who subscribe to a non Christian faith, or someone whose beliefs are non-religious? I wondered if a Muslim, Sikh, or Jewish person were elected to that County Council, would the protocol change or would the council ignore the diversity and require that person to "fit in"?

Those who object to the removal of religious symbols and rites from civic places and events often characterize the change as being anti-religious. That is not the basis for my argument, and it is certainly not consistent with the Charter. To the contrary, the Charter guards against the extending of special privilege to some religious organizations in civic matters while excluding other organizations and their members from such privileges.

We can illustrate this process by reference to a municipality. Many municipalities have had traditions in the past where a religious service is held to commemorate a certain event or to dedicate a new building or other symbol of the community. In these cases, it was common to invite a clergy person to conduct the ceremony. Usually the clergy selected would be from local churches on a rotating basis.

This is no longer acceptable practice. Local government (municipal councils) represent the entire community, people of all beliefs, not just Christian but people of other religions, and people with no religious affiliation. Just as it would be obviously prejudicial to always choose a representative of one particular church, it is equally prejudicial to always choose from a particular faith group.

The most common argument against that view is that "most people in this community are Christian"; therefore, our ceremony should be conducted by that group. Another argument looks at the other side of the equation: "Well, there are very few people who identify themselves as being of other faiths in this community." My response in each case is "All the more reason why the civic ceremony should not be conducted as a religious ceremony. The civic leaders must not give special honours to any one religion, and must not treat anyone as second class citizens based on their beliefs.

Adoption of this policy should not be seen as anti-religious as some people mistakenly assume. It is intended to offset the insensitivity of those groups who refuse to recognize the rights of those who do not share their particular set of beliefs. In fact many of the strongest supporters of governmental neutrality in religious matters are devout Christians.

The essence of this policy is not a ban on religious people. It opens up the opportunity to preside over and participate in any civic ceremony to anyone regardless of that person's faith, beliefs, or affiliations. The form, style, and content of any such ceremony should be cognizant of the homogeneity of the audience.

The whole field of human rights is seen by many as a matter of concern at the federal and provincial levels of government.

It is high time that municipalities recognize that they are equally subject to the Charter and the provincial human rights code terms.

Brock Vodden

Bert McElroy Writes Home About Vimy - 1917

2010-11-21T20:06:00.007-05:00

Private Bert McElroy, a young man who was born and grew up in Blyth, was an ambulance driver for the Canadian Army in World War 1. Bert is seen above at the back of his ambulance.

In 1917 he wanted to write home to the home village to tell them what has been happening in that terrible conflict. What better way to accomplish this "mass mailing" than to write to the editor of the local paper?

===

The Blyth Standard at that time was owned and edited by J.H.R. Elliott. Just last week the Elliott-Nixon Insurance Agency celebrated its 100th anniversary. The following is how the letter appeared in the Blyth Standard of July 19, 1917.

The editor has pleasure in presenting to readers of the Standard, the
following letter received on Tuesday:
Mr. J.H.R. Elliott
Blyth Ontario
Dear Sir:- As some time has passed since I wrote you my last letter, I think you are nearly due for another. Well, Mr. Elliott, I have now been in France nearly seven months and during that time have seen quite a few things pulled off here. We have been pushed around pretty much all over but a change is sometimes as good as a rest over here. I guess my busiest time was after the battle of Vimy Ridge and Messines, but between times is very often slack and so consequently we get longer rests than the infantry or artillery units. I don't think I shall ever forget what we had to do after the Battle of Vimy. We were kept busy day and night dressing wounded and getting convoys of them sent down to be loaded on boat for England. During all my time in France I have never been lucky enough to run across any of the boys from near home. Lots of Ontario and Western Canada boys passed through our hands but none that I knew.
The Huron boys reinforcing the 58th Canadians are about 40 miles from me from what the wounded in the same brigade as them say. So I guess there is a very slim chance of my ever seeing them over here. The other morning I was awakened by hearing the anti-aircraft battery firing and on getting up saw them pounding away at a German taube plane. Fritz was too high up for them to hit him but it was plain the concussion of the shells was giving him trouble in the way of controlling the machine.
As I am quite a few miles back it is seldom we see an air fight but always hear the guns pounding and see the star shells at night.

I have been getting The Standard all along and always hate to be disappointed in not gettingit, as it is practically the same as getting a letter from home.

We are getting plenty to eat over here and cannot complain at all to the way of comforts. Right here I may mention the good work being done by the Blyth Girls' War Auxiliary who are so lavishly keeping the boys from Blyth supplied with good warm socks. They are a thing always useful out here, especially to those in the trenches.
Well, Mr. Elliott, I must now close trusting to still receive the Standard as before; also remember me to Mrs. Elliott and family.

Very truly yours,
No. 528700 Pte. T. A. McElroy
No. 2 Can. Stat'y Hospital
B.E. F. France

Jamie Sims - One of our Blyth Heroes

2010-11-20T15:31:00.003-05:00

James Sims was known as "Jamie" since his father was also James and was called "Jim".

Jamie's grandfather, William Sims brought his family to Blyth around 1874 and went into business with Robert Slater. Slater built fine quality carriages, and Sims who was a blacksmith, ironed them up. Their business, Slater and Sims Carriage Works, was located where the municipal parking lot is in 2010, on the south east corner of Queen and Drummond.

====================================================

Jamie's father had a general store on Queen Street, the fifth store south of the Dinsley Street corner. Jamie worked with his father there before he enlisted in the Canadian Army for World War 2.

==================================

When he returned from the war, severely injured, he worked for a time with Harvey McCallum, a Blyth butcher. He spent the remainder of his life in London, Ontario, but often visited Blyth. He often brought a display of many types of horseshoe his father had made while learning the blacksmith trade. Jamie showed this display many times at the huge annual Threshers' Reunion and Hobby Show at Blyth. This display can now be seen at the Huron County Museum in Goderich, Ontario.

========================================

Jamie had a beautiful voice and served as soloist in his London church and often returned to Blyth to sing on special occasions.

============

Problems related to his war injuries followed him throughout his life. He is buried in Blyth Union Cemetery with his wife, Vivian McElroy, also from Blyth.

=====

Jamie left us with another treasure. While resting in a hay barn in Belgium, during the war, he wrote a beautiful poem which poignantly expressed his feelings about the ravages of the conflict and the hope for a better tomorrow. Here is that Poem:

THE PLAINS OF NORMANDY

We trod the Plains of Normandy

With pack and shovel and gun.

We trod the Plains of Normandy

From dawn to the set of sun.

We know not what the darkness held

Nor the morrow would unfold

While plodding wearily along

Among the fields of gold.

Far fertile fields of Normandy,

Made rich by man's honest toil,

Your God has blessed the sowers,

And made bounteous the soil.

But men came by in anger

With chariot, flame, and gun,

And left in trampled ruin

The work that they had done.

Caan, that ancient city

Of William the Conqueror's fame,

Stood guard o'er the pilgrims of Normandy

As vanquished and victor came.

She stood as a war torn hero,

Rent by the strife of man.

Alone, she stood in her majesty,

As all great heroes can.

We left that ancient city,

Brandishing high the sword,

Fighting our way to victory,

Subduing a murderous horde.

But some remained in Normandy,

Memorials 'neath the sod,

To show that with pack and shovel and gun

Those historic plains were trod.

===

Oh! We who are left with a memory

Bestowed on us by God,

May we never forget the sacrifice,

Of those comrades 'neath the sod.

May we carry the torch they threw us

To win the peace on earth.

May our conscience never let us fail

To remember them for their worth.

We trod the fields of Normandy

With pack and shovel and gun.

We trod the Plains of Normandy

From dawn to the set of sun.

We know not what the darkness held

Nor the morrow would unfold,

While plodding wearily along

Among the fields of gold.

J. James Sims

Belgium 1944

We thank Jamie's daughter, Linda, for giving us permission to share this poem and also for the information about her father and his family.

The Repository of Blyth History (Janis and Brock Vodden)

Pearl and Edythe Gidley

2010-08-29T12:02:00.010-04:00

This picture was taken during a Taman-Gidley family reunion. All of the people here have personal connections to Blyth, but in this article I want to draw special attention to two sisters: Pearl and Edythe Gidley. Pearl is the second person from the right, and Edythe is the fourth person from the left.

Although these ladies are no longer with us, a portion of their life stories have been depicted on the stage of the Blyth Festival this summer (2010). The title of the play is "Pearl Gidley". The playwright, Gary Kirkham, was intrigued by Pearl's story which we brought to his attention when he was visiting our Repository of Blyth History. Gary has been generous in expressing his thanks to us, but the creation of this marvelous drama is the product of his genius. The production has received rave reviews from many sources including the Globe and Mail and the Kitchener Record.

Without giving away the story, I will only say that it deals with a period of time when the two sisters shared a home in the village, and take in boarders for income. Pearl who had been an accomplished pianist, has stopped playing some years before as the result of a traumatic event in her life. Edythe has given up some of her personal plans in order to look after Pearl.

The above picture is only one item of many that have come to us from relatives of the Gidleys. We have been in touch with William Emigh of Victoria BC for several years, a close relative of theirs. He is intensely interested in Blyth even though he has never lived here, but because his ancestors and relatives lived here, loved the place, and contributed much to the development and well-being of the community, Blyth holds a special place in his heart.

We asked Bill, on behalf of the playwright, for permission to use Pearl's actual name in the play. His response was that "Pearl would be deeply offended if her real name were NOT used!"

That response is very significant. It is part of a complex web of intersecting events, people, places, pictures, and surprising coincidences.

Some time ago, Bill told us about a portrait of John Taman, a Blyth pioneer and Pearl Gidley's grandfather. The portrait was in possession of Peter Fleck who, like Bill, was a descendant of John Taman. It was hanging in Peter's beautiful Jackson's Falls B&B in Prince Edward County, which was up for sale.

Bill and Peter discussed at length what should happen to this historic picture. Bill suggested that since John Taman and his descendants were so involved in the life of Blyth, that it would be appropriate to return the picture to Blyth. He further suggested that it could join the many other family artifacts which he had already sent to Brock and Janis Vodden. Peter agreed completely.

Sadly, soon after Bill conveyed this message to us, Peter was killed in a car crash. His wife, Nancy, very graciously offered to send the picture, deliver it to us, meet us at Stratford, or invite us to Milford to accept it, whatever we preferred. We chose to go to Milford to meet Nancy and receive the generous gift.

Pearl's name comes up frequently in the early Blyth Standard papers. She is either being announced as successfully passing a music examination or as performing as accompanist for some musical event. As a child, she was a prodigy; as an adult, she was a very versatile musician. She played all types of music - classical and popular. We learned that she could pick up any piece of music that she had never seen before and play it as if she had studied it for hours. Her sight reading skills were phenomenal.

Pearl and Edythe's father was a tailor. His shop was in the north half of the building which now houses the administration office of the Blyth Festival. The stage where the Blyth Festival has been presenting the play with her name as title for the past month is the very stage where she had accompanied countless musical programs. Many of these concerts and cantatas were mounted in Blyth and in other communities to raise money to pay off the debt for Blyth Memorial Hall. Pearl would be surprise to know that she was supporting the venue that would tell her story - almost a century later.

Since word got out that this play was in development and then into actual production, we have had many new contacts with relatives of Pearl as well as people who remember her when she lived in Blyth and later when she was a resident of Huronview, a local Home for the Aged.

A rumour going around stated that Pearl lived to be 103. I am afraid that we made the quite unjustified error of believing this with out checking first. The inscription on Pearl's tombstone tells another story. Her years show 1889 - 1986, a span of 97 years.

Last evening we attended the final performance of "Pearl Gidley", the third time we saw this play. It was to me even more moving than the first time, possibly because it was the final performance and the end of another great season of the Blyth Festival.

The consensus of many theatre folks is that this play will be seen on many stages in the future. Although we adore it because of its "localness", it will endure because of its deep, universal themes. In the words from the play, "It's what we do!"

Brock Vodden

Richard Sellars: Blyth's Famous Poet

2010-08-27T15:45:00.009-04:00

Visitors arriving at Blyth by the GTR passenger train between its first run in 1876 and 1911 were almost certain to be greeted by the stentorian voice of Richard Sellars offering local transportation for persons, luggage, or freight. Chances are also that the greeting would have been delivered in poetic meter and rhyming couplets.

Richard was a truly unique and memorable character.

Richard was hired by the Commercial Hotel (in 2010, known as the Blyth Inn) to drive their horse-drawn bus to transport their hotel guests to and from the Grand Trunk Railway station. He was also hired by the Canadian Express Company to handle incoming and outgoing freight items. He was known as a "drayman".

Sellars is, without a doubt, the most quoted Blyth character of all time. We can read reports of what other people talked about or what they wrote about, but we seldom come across verbatim quotations of the words that came from people's lips. How Richard said things was just as memorable as what he said.

The London Advertiser was a paper that operated for just a few years in the 1880s. A substantial article about Blyth's Richard Sellars appeared in their edition of December 8, 1882. I will quote the complete article below:

"Blyth Babblings"

The Blyth Poet

The thriving village of Blyth boasts among its fifteen hundred inhabitants of a real live poet, Mr. Richard Sellars, town carter. He has now over fifty hymns, yielding an average of six verses each, which he intends ere long to publish in pamphlet form. The hymn book opens with the following verse:

Lord, visit this habitation.

Now to this house bring salvation.

Thous knowest it is just what they need,

For these poor souls did Jesus bleed.

His description of the Phillipian jailer is considered by some a fine effort:

When Paul and Silas went to preach

The word of God at Phillipi

So that they their hearts might reach.

The power was given from on high.

"'What must I do,'' the jailer cried,

Who kept the jail and held the key.

''My guilt is such I cannot hide,

Can Jesus save a wretch like me? "

Mr. Sellars is happy as the day is long. Everywhere he goes in an out among commercial men, wheat buyers, reeves, councilmen, he has a complete and sometimes a whole verse ready for every case. He rarely greets an old acquaintance in prose, as he has any amount of poetry at his command. A few evenings ago, seeing a London gentleman coming off the train, he sang out:

"Good day, Mr. Case;

You've got back to this place."

One day he forbade a pugilistic encounter on the platform by remarking:

There's no use wanting to fight, sir,

For Pat Kelly is king of Blyth, sir.

Wishing to purchase some chicken feed for his poultry on the road from the station, he hailed one of the wheat buyers:

Hello! Mr. McMillan,

How much wheat for a shillin' ?

An old friend at the station, departing for the North-west, he addressed with tears in his eyes as follows:

You're going to Manitoba

That cold but happy land,

For the hardships of Canada

You can no longer stand.

One day an old lady stepped on a piece of orange peel outside Southcott's tailoring shop, and rested suddenly on the sidewalk, which gave the poet an opportunity to getting out the following:

There was an old lady of Blyth,

Who slipped and fell on her side.

"This vile orange peel

My fate will yet seal"

Said this heavy old lady of Blyth.

from the London Advertiser December 8, 1882

from the Repository of Blyth History - Janis & Brock Vodden

Another account of Richard Sellars fame

In 1900, a former Blythite, J.S. McKinnon, wrote about his childhood memories of Blyth. He included the following references to Richard Sellars:

At one time the transportation of passengers and freight between the village and the station was the vested right of Richard Sellars, and for years, Sellars, as he was familiarly called, was one of the best known citizens and characters in the community.

As well as being Bussman and Drayman, he was known as "The Blyth Poet". Four times each day the most familiar sound on Queen Street was Richard Sellars calling out "All aboard for the train going north - Wingham, Lucknow, Kincardine" or "All aboard for the train going south - Clinton, Exeter, and London". Richard could make a rhyme about anything at any time or place, and as a passenger would be stepping into his bus, he would say something like the following:

"It will cost you a dime

And the train is on time."

When a train would be coming from Londesborough and it would whistle at the boundary [Blyth Road in 2010], and the passengers would be getting ready to take the train - Sellars would say

"The train is coming 'round the bend

To take you to your journey's end."

Richard Sellars and his horse, Old Kate, were certainly conspicuous figures on the streets of Blyth in horse and buggy days.

Taken from Blyth: A Village Portrait, Susan Street editor, pp 57-58

About Richard's Life

Richard Sellars was born in Yorkshire, England May 17, 1855 to Richard and Maria Sellars. The family emigrated to the United States in 1860, but his parents both died of a fever shortly after their arrival, leaving Richard as a five year old orphan. He was taken in by an uncle who was living in Cedar Rapids, Pennsylvania.

On the very day that Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, November 6, 1860, Richard and his uncle entered Canada from Detroit, Michigan and travelled directly to Exeter, Ontario. Richard grew to manhood in this new home. As a young man, he moved to Blyth and took up his career as drayman and bus driver. We believe that he was employed by the hotelier, William Hawkshaw, who owned the Commercial Hotel around this time. Hawkshaw had lived in Exeter. We assume that he and Richard knew each other prior to Richard's move to Blyth.

On May 4, 1876 Richard married Christiana (Christine) Coulter, 18, also of Blyth. She was daughter of William and Mary Jane Coulter who had retired to Blyth from Morris Township. The young couple were married in Mitchell in the Bible Christian manse by William Hopper. (Marriage registration #008909). We have no explanation as to why they went to Mitchell for this occasion.

Richard is registered in the Blyth assessment rolls as owning three lots in the McCaughey Survey (Plan 170) Block D, lots 7, 8, and 9. These lots are located at the south west corner of Dinsley Street and Morris Street. Lots 7 and 8 face onto Dinsley and lot 9 faces onto Morris Street.

Richard wrote a few lines about a John Carter for the Huron Expositor of Seaforth on February 14, 1879 saying "He bade good bye to his friends and his debts a few months ago, and went to live with Uncle Sam". Not poetic, but well put.

In the 1901 census, the Sellars household was made up of Richard, 51years and his wife, Christine, 40, and four sons Wesley, David, Russell, and Whitfield. As well, Christine's mother, Mary Jane Coulter was living with them.

Richard died at his home August 27, 1911, only 56 years of age. The probable cause was given in the death registry as apoplexy (stroke). The death was registered by his son, Whitfield.

The following obituary was found in the Blyth News section of The Huron Expositor for September 1, 1911:

One of the old residents of this town passed away on Sunday, in the person of Richard Sellars, the well-known drayman and poet. He has been at that business ever since the Grand Trunk Railway came through here. He will be greatly missed by all. The funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon and was largely attended. He leaves a widow and five sons. The boys have all scattered, but three of them were at the funeral, Albert, and Russell from the States, and Whitfield and wife from Toronto, They have the sympathy of the whole community in their sad bereavement. It will be hard to get another man who will be so obliging and careful to fill his place.

In a later blog article, I will share with you a complete poem of 50 verses which Richard wrote about the Donnelly affair - a contemporary piece of great interest!

Special Request

If you happen to have any poetry by Richard, or if you have a photograph of him, or any related memorabilia we would love to add a copy or the real thing to our collection. You can respond to this blog.

Other Blyth Characters

A few years ago, some of us old timers were reminiscing about the odd, colourful,and memorable characters we knew when we were younger. I raised the question of why we don't have any such people around the village any more. Doug Whitmore responded with another question: "Brock, have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Brock Vodden
August 28, 2010

2010-08-23T23:16:00.005-04:00

Blyth circa 1910

CULTURE DAYS IN ONTARIO

September 24 -25 - 26, 2010

These are CULTURE DAYS throughout Ontario.

Individuals and groups across the province are inviting everyone to see, enjoy, celebrate, admire the products of their works, talent, creativity, humour, expression, whatever they do.

Huron County has organized many activities and diversions under the newly minted term, "Communitrees". All across the county! Everyone is invited to walk around, bike around, or drive around to see the huge array of interesting offerings.

A basic rule is that all of these events and activities must be FREE OF CHARGE!!!!!

To get more detailed information about Culture Days, Google "Culture Days Ontario" and you'll get many informative hits.

Janis and I will have our own little contribution to this celebration on that weekend.

We can't invite crowds to our two bedroom walk up apartment and we don't have access to a spacious lawn or garden.

So we are inviting people to make a virtual visit to us. Mainly it's an invitation for people who have questions about Blyth ancestors or acquaintances, and who have some burning interest in Blyth's history. We invite people to take advantage of these three days to send us questions about Aunt Martha, or the funeral of great grandfather Scott, or who built the Blyth Inn, or what was the first church built in Blyth, or any other questions.

How to reach us: Look us up on the Culture Days Ontario web site. To find us, just type in our postal code in a box placed on the site to enable you to find all the events taking place within that postal district. Our code is N0M 1H0. So far we are the only event within this postal code, but many other nearby events will come up as well.

You will be able to phone in your request, email us, or write us a letter. We will make a limited number of appointments for site visits for those who need extensive access to the information.

We have no idea how many people will call or what kinds of information they will be seeking. We might be flooded with calls and our mail boxes may be overflowing. Or we might have a very lonely boring three days, staring at the phone.

We may be able to reply immediately to your query, or we may need to do some digging and get back to you ASAP. For most calls we will have a simple form on which we will record your question, and your contact information. In some cases a response will come almost immediately; in other cases, it might take a few days to find your answers. We may also need to start a dialogue with you to track down elusive information.

Why are we doing this?

In part it is shameless self-promotion. We have this marvelous collection. Most people who come to us or consult us by phone or email or in person are amazed at the extent and depth of our collected information. In a few cases people have said "You know more about my family than I do!"

We are in touch with people almost every day of the year. Often we have people come here and spend several hours poring through our binders or reference cards. Some come here often.

We want this collection to be as available to as many people as possible. We hope that by tapping into the marvelous promotion created for Culture Days that our efforts may be accessible to hundreds of people who would otherwise never know about this resource.

If you know of anyone whose ancestors came from Blyth, let them know about this event.

The Repository of Blyth History

Brock Vodden

Blyth Participates in Culture Days

2010-08-14T20:58:00.003-04:00

I thought about inviting everyone in Ontario to our home during the week-end of September 24 to 25, 2010. Then it suddenly hit me that our three and a half room apartment might be crowded even if we had a small uptake to our offer.

So, during Culture Days we are inviting virtual visits to our place - a time for all those thousands of people out there whose ancestors lived in Blyth, passed through Blyth, thought about living in Blyth, or wished they could live in Blyth to call us, write us a letter, or send us an email, asking us anything about Blyth that they always wanted to know.

Jan and I were both born and raised in Blyth, and Jan's family came to this area when it was just beginning to be settled. My parents came here in the early 1930s. Thus we have many connections with Blyth families and our memories are reasonably good. But more important than that we have resources that astound most of our visitors. We also have trouble believing the extent of our collection. Quite a few visitors have exclaimed that "you have more information about my family than I have".

It's an innocent little hobby that got completely out-of-hand. We are always months behind in our filing and indexing new information that keeps rolling in. The satisfaction we get from being able to provide family researchers with great leads, copies of documents, actual contemporary newspaper clippings, and interesting anecdotes about great uncles and grgr grandmothers, makes it all worthwhile.

We don't know whether we will get any takers in September or whether we will be swamped with calls for three solid days. At least we have this opportunity to spread the word about this collection of history that is of absolutely no interest to most Canadians, but it is of huge interest to a surprising number of very special people with Blyth connmections.

Educational Democracy - 1881 Style

2010-04-17T23:46:00.002-04:00

We came across the following Blyth news item in the Huron Expositor of October 21, 1881.

It illustrates what has happened to our education system as a result of our school board's complete loss of connection with community in matters dealing with our schools. Here is the item:

BLYTH -

TEACHERS AND SALARIES - With a view, no doubt, of lessening the national debt, the salaries of our Public School teachers have been reduced. The Principal, Mr. Henderson, who heretofore received $500, is now only offered $475 per annum, of course merely as a recognition of his past efficient services. The two lady teachers, who were allowed $265, are now being raised backwards to $235. This step has elicited public dissatisfaction in a very marked way. A petition signed by the large majority of the ratepayers, praying that the salaries be left at the usual figure, was presented at the trustee meeting last Saturday evening, where it was moved and seconded that it be filed, but an amendment having been moved to the effect that the petition be laid over for consideration was withdrawn. It is hoped that our trustees, who are certainly elected to carry out the wishes of the ratepayer, will in this instance show their good judgment by acceding to the unmistakable evidence of public opinion, and grant the prayer of the petitioners.

In 2009/2010, Avon Maitland District School Board commits "educational abuse" on Blyth with no compunction and without explanation or even a "we're sorry". In 1881, the boundaries of the school board were identical to the boundaries of the community. If the school board of 1881 did not reverse their decision, you can bet that the board for 1882 will have had a very different membership and will undoubtedly have taken a different stand on the salary issue.

School Board Hears From County

2010-02-21T23:21:00.002-05:00

As reported in The Citizen for February 18, 2010.

A delegation of Huron County (Ontario) councillors addressed the Avon Maitland District School Board. Their concern is with the Board's approach to dealing with declining enrolments in the public schools throughout the county.

The Warden of the County, Bert Dykstra, gave a balanced presentation. He acknowledged that the board has a difficult task being faced with numerous fiscal, operational, and demographic issues. He provided some suggestions for making the board's decisions more palatable for the people of Huron County.

In a number of locations through the county, the board is thinking of closing schools located within towns and villages and in one case has already decided to close such a school. Warden Dykstra stated that he represents "all the students, parents, and all the schools across the county"

He emphasized the value of schools to their communities saying "our communities are built on the foundation of our schools" as well as other insitutions. "It's one of the components of a healthy community."

Dykstra emphasized that schools located in urban communitities should not be closed.
[End of borrowing from The Citizen.]

These ideas are not new; they have been expressed one way or another by many community groups and representatives to this same board. Let's hope that the county delegation has greater effect. So far there has been no sign that these very pertinent concepts have had any effect on the AMDSB.

It is to be hoped that this argument coming from the highest political level of the county will have a greater effect on this board, but given their past demonstration of intransigence, and stubborn deafness, we cannot be completely hopeful.

If the process of implementing these destructive plans could be somehow delayed for a few months, the elections in October may produce a slate of school trustees that have better hearing, better ideas, and may actually prove to be trustees to be trusted by the voters.

Brock Vodden

When Things Come Together

2010-02-11T21:25:00.004-05:00

The picture below is familiar to many Blythites. Janis and I have had a copy for many years. The picture itself reveals quite a lot about its subject. We can tell that it is a parade related to the Frost & Wood Company. We recognize Blyth's main street. We can tell that it is probably dated before cars were common. But the picture left us with a few questions.

On this very date, February 11, 2010, Janis came across a little 14 line item in an old issue of the Blyth Standard which answers almost all of those questions. Just think! A newspaper published exactly 106 years and 8 months ago today pops up and explains a picture taken the day before the publication, June 11, 1903. From this tiny item in the Blyth Standard we learn the purpose and the date of the event, the route of the parade, the number of wagons in the parade, the name of the photographer, and what happened after this picture was taken.

Here is the article:

- Yesterday was a busy day in Blyth. Mr. W. A. Carter, agent for the Frost & Wood Co. had a delivery of farm implements. There were 85 loaded wagons in the procession, which was formed at the railway station and marched up town to Queen street, where Mr. T. B. McArter took a photo of the group. The implements delivered consisted of binders, mowers, horse rakes, and corn cultivators. All those who took part in the procession were entertained to dinner at the Commercial and Queen's hotels by the Frost & Wood Co.

from The Blyth Standard, June 11, 1903

By way of explanation: the railway station is the one on Dinsley street now the Station House B&B, the Commercial Hotel is now the Blyth Inn, and the Queen's Hotel was located where the Blyth Corner Cafe now stands, torn down about 1920. The photographer was Baxter McArter. We are not sure where the F&W company was located then.

Brock Vodden

February 11, 2010

Getting Back to the Purpose of this Blog

2010-02-11T00:46:00.002-05:00

Funny how events have a way of re-directing one away from the main goal.

When I began this blog, my intent was to reveal to my readers (both of them) the reality of this amazing village as I perceive it. I wanted to get across the fact that this perception, which began to form in my early childhood, is still continuing to grow and evolve as more and more of the history of the village and stories of the people emerge.

Then came the school crisis; an immediate and real time change of course that seemed out of character with this village, and which casts a dark shadow over its future. We can only guess at what the future holds. Today's future is tomorrow's history. But I felt compelled to express my outrage at this action.

There has been no shortage of change in the village's past. Blyth has always been able to adjust to these trends and shifts in economy, technology, lifestyle, etc.. The difference with the recent changes is the fact that they have been determined by outsiders despite lack of clear justification and despite strong opposition. Nevertheless, I am confident that we will rebound and overcome these incursions.

Now I intend to get back to basics in All About Blyth. I will be offering more stories and historical perspectives, as well as some comments on current events and issues.

Jan's and my days are now filled to overflowing with studying the many old issues of the Blyth Standard that were discovered a few months ago and given to us by the Whitmore family. They have been microfilmed to preserve their content and to make them available through the Huron County Libary system. We have copies of these papers on compact disks (CDs). We thank the Huron County Library for their interest and assistance in this endeavour.

Thus we are in the process of recovering pieces of history from 1893-94, 1900-1903, 1907-08, and 1930. We will soon have additonal material from the 1940s. Of course there remain gaps in our historical record, but the fact that approximately 1200 newspaper pages of our village heritage have come to light is - I was going to say "nothing to sneeze at". (One remarkable thing about these papers is that they appear to be free of mold. Nothing to sneeze at indeed!)

In the meantime, we have had many rich discoveries coming in from Blyth people and from many descendants of yesteryear's Blyth residents. A dramatic story of a family feud ending in a brutal murder at the edge of Blyth has come to our attention. Although it was widely publicized at the time, an aspect of the event that never came up in the trial and that was never reported in the press at the time has been brought to light by a current Blyth resident.

We have been given access to the entire history of a Blyth area farm by scanning deeds and other legal documents covering the entire period from the original purchase from the Crown. Besides the obvious historical value of this material, it has been a thrill for us to see the handwriting of people who were just names to us up to now.

I hope you will enjoy the pieces that follow over the next few weeks. And feel free to leave a comment or a question at the bottom of the article. Or give us a call!

As you can see, we are just as interested in getting your stories of Blyth as we are in giving them out.

Brock Vodden

Who is qualified to comment on school issues?

2010-02-03T14:31:00.004-05:00

There have been comments made by members of the Avon Maitland District School Board, members and staff, that "ordinary" people should leave school administration up to them, the experts who understand the issues and are wise by virtue of their membership in AVMDSB.

That attitude is sheer arrogance - a stance that people fall back on when they are incapable of explaining or justifying what they are doing.

I also want to make it clear that many of the most adamant critics of this Board are knowledgeable and experienced people in the field as former board members, current and former teachers and officers in this and other school systems.

As for me, I believe that my background entitles me (with a touch of arrogance) to at least comment on what is happening to our schools. I have the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education, Master of Education. I have taught in elementary schools, high schools, college. I have worked as a curriculum and language arts consultant, and was a superintendent of education. I was a senior administrator in one of Ontario's community colleges. In the course of my work in these positions, I also served as an advisor to provincial educators on education in remote northern Ontario schools.

And I am also one of those ordinary people who feel strongly about our community, its families, and its children.

Municipalities and Religion

2010-01-30T23:42:00.005-05:00

Fortunately, most nations of the western world have maintained a clear separation between church and state. We see many nations where lack of that separation causes many problems for both the quality of governance as well as for religion.

At the more local levels - school boards, county and municipal councils - the process of separation has been at times a contentious issue, and in a few instances there remain a few vestiges of the old links between the civic and faith realms. The elimination of scripture readings and the Lord's prayer from public school classrooms has been achieved, although we continue to hear a few individuals complain about the change - in most cases because they do not really understand the reason for it.

A few years ago I was asked to speak at an in camera session of a county council (not Huron County). I was shocked when the meeting was opened with everyone being asked to rise and repeat the "Our Father". I can imagine the commotion that would arise if someone on that elected body were to make a motion that this practice be eliminated, yet it is clear to me that such a motion is long overdue.

Here is my reasoning.

County councils, like all municipal councils, are created to serve their entire community. To maintain a tradition of opening each meeting with a Christian ritual is a clear signal that this court is giving special and discriminatory recognition of a group of people of a particular religious tradition. All other religious groups are thereby diminished in the status they enjoy within that community. The situation also suggests that "this council is not prepared to welcome non-Christians as members of this body even if they are elected by their community".

We live in a pluralistic society made up of people from many faiths as well as those who follow no religion, and our laws and charters guarantee that none of us should be discriminated against for the orientation choice that we make. Those who do not subscribe to the religion "favoured" by their local government may well feel that they are regarded as a sub-class of citizens.

I am proud of the fact that most Canadians have accepted the separation of religion and governance in most regions and in most respects, and they understand the reasons for supporting this ideal. Many years ago working in other parts of Ontario, I experienced many heated debates on these matters, but those days have passed. Today virtually everyone understands and accepts the nature of our current society. They understand that the debate was not a pro-church versus anti-church debate, but rather a move to eliminate significant signs of religious intolerance in our local government operations.

Re-Inventing Blyth - Again!

2010-01-01T19:37:00.005-05:00

It seems clear now that Blyth Public School is doomed.

No manner of argument, debate, discussion, pleading caused even a ripple of interest or concern in the Avon Maitland District School Board. The board's feeble gestures of consultation and review of the process of closing schools have so far proven to be empty pretences and false imitations of democratic community consideration.

Closing the school in a community tears the heart out of that community. As an educator, I am sure that the closure will have a negative effect on the education of our children. The long term effects on the community are daunting. They could include loss of businesses, reduced property values, loss of inflow of young families who will shy away from a community with no school for their children. The presence of a vacated school has the same effect as a business district with many vacant retail buildings; it could be seen by many people as a sign of a dying community.

Blyth will survive. Our children will get an education of sorts. But the village will be diminished. We will not forget the sense of abandonment when we recall what the school board, people who were supposed to represent us, did to us, and the fact that the majority of our own municipal council turned their backs on us in the end. Well at least we have a little better idea of where we stand.

Most disappointing is the fact that only a small fraction of members of the community showed up to express their outrage at this attack on our community.

What we need to do now is figure out what we can do to overcome the loss that we are about to experience. We need ideas, creativity, and lots of discussion to come up with a vision of new Blyth. We need dozens of ideas to be discussed, studied, compared, evaluated, weighed, until we come up with a handful of great prospects from which we can choose one or two or three that stand out as WINNERS! Along the way we may come up with a few additional ideas which will be easy to implement, not too demanding of time and energy, and which will contribute to the new community.

By referring to the "new Blyth", I am not implying that we throw away what we already have. We must build on those great assets that we have developed and fostered.

Gulliver's Travels Revisited

2009-11-29T09:32:00.002-05:00

The Avon Maitland District School Board is on a very mindless and destructive course, hell bent on destroying communities and down-grading our education system.

Tiny minds tend to focus on one thing at a time in order to simplify a complex issue. The AMDSB board and senior staff are illustrating this tendency. They are focussed on the numbers - numbers of children and numbers of desks, classrooms, and schools. Don't talk to them about other facts or issues no matter how relevant they may be. They just can't handle more that one facet at a time.

They have told us that they are not interested in what happens to our communities or their economies even though closing a school damages a community and its economy. "We are concerned only with children and their education. The community and its economy are not our concern." Never mind that these children live in these communities and are affected by their economies.

What a surprise to learn that they have already picked a site for a new school and the plans are all drawn up! Well not quite all the plans. They are not sure where the roads are going to be to get to the new school in Wingham.

They must have scoured the entire countryside to find architects that are equally adept at ignoring facts that confuse tiny minds. When asked about where the roads will be placed to handle traffic to and from the school, the architect replied, "We don't build roads; we build schools". With any luck the new school will remain inaccessible and we we will have to fall back on our previously condemned schools.

In the meantime, we will be further increasing our carbon footprint by having to run buses for almost every child in the county.

The eighteenth century satirical novel by Johnathan Swift describes our school board quite well. In Gulliver's Travels, the hero finds himself in the land of Laputa. It is a country ruled by a king and noble persons whose minds are totally immersed in numbers and music theory. So enrapt are they that each of them requires two servants to accompany them to remind them of what they are doing. The servants carry a kind of rattle to tap on the noble person's mouth, ears, or eyes to remind them to talk, listen, or watch where they are going. When Gulliver was talking to the King, for example, the latter would forget what they were discussing and who he was discussing it with, until the servants would apply their rattles.

While the nobility are constantly and mentally solving complex equations, they lack the ability to actually apply the results to any real project. As a result their buildings are unsound and their tailored clothing never fits.

The rulers live on an island that floats in the air. It is a perfect circle, four and a half miles in diameter. They are able to raise, lower, and move the island in any direction within the boundaries of the country below. The common people live on the land below, and they provide the rulers with food and whatever else is needed to live.

If any community on the ground does not contribute support, or is in rebellion, the rulers will move the island over the offending town, and if they still fail to comply, the island is slowly lowered onto the community crushing all of its buildings and its people. End of revolt!

Like AMDSB, the Laputans are obsessed by numbers to the exclusion of all other matters, they don't listen well, they are disconnected with the reality of the area for which they are responsible, on a whim they can crush any community they wish, and they answer to no one, and they tax their people without representing them.

Blyth Politics of the Past: Two Armed Camps

2009-10-27T13:39:00.002-04:00

A few decades ago, Blyth was a hotbed of political intrigue. Elections were fought as if there were no tomorrow unless your side wins. Whose side you were on made a difference. It affected where you did your shopping, to whom you spoke when you walked down the street - or ignored as if they were not there. Alliances were formed as a means of improving your side's chances at the polls. We told everyone about mistakes the other guys made, and when we ran out of them, we made up some more and spread the word.

As a young child belonging of course to "our side", I was frequently reminded by "their side" that I was not as good a kid as I should be. One of their employees stopped his truck one day to tell me that if it were not for the dairy on our street, he would not have plowed the snow from it. On one summer day I was walking down the street and a woman from their side came out on her porch and shouted at me using some very raw language and some words that I had never heard before. I have no idea why I was chosen for this attention apart from the fact that I was on the other side.

Election days (which came around each year in December) often ended with a huge argument over how the votes were to be counted, and complaints that the other guys were doing something illegal.

If you were a town employee and were identified with one side, you could be sure that the other side would be looking for a chance to replace you with one of their friends.

Nomination meetings were very well attended, and many were nominated for each position. Not everyone agreed to stand, but there were very few acclamations. If someone resigned before the term was up, the person who came next in the voting would often be appointed to fill the vacancy.

You might ask what all this partisanship was based on. I don't have the answer to that. It was not a Liberal-Conservative divide. It was not a matter of commercial rivalry. I have no idea what caused the rift. It was akin to chosing sides for a game of soccer in the school yard. I am sure that some people in the village were not involved in the division and may not have even been aware of it. But a very significant portion of the population was linked to one side or the other.

I have been thinking that it's too bad that we could not recapture that enthusiasm for local politics - so long as we could eliminate the vitriol and the bickering and the senseless and petty actions that took place in the background.

Blyth people need to get engaged in the life of this community AS AN IMPORTANT PART OF NORTH HURON.

Amalgamation is a fact of life whether we like it or not. Burying our heads in the sand will not make it go away.

A New Thought About the School Situation

2009-10-20T20:35:00.002-04:00

Let’s All Cut Our Losses

Let me make clear at the outset that I represent only myself. If I get my facts wrong or misrepresent some group’s position on the school situation – blame me.

I sent an email to Jenny Versteeg, the chair of Avon Maitland District School Board a few days ago. The message reflected my usual impatience and anger against the board for deciding to close the Blyth Public School and for the potential closing of the Brussels Public School. It was not a very polite letter.

In a very short time, I received a reply from Ms. Versteeg. It was a lengthy, very polite, clear and logically developed presentation of the board’s process and position. I still strongly disagreed with their conclusion, but the message caused me to re-think the situation.

Naïve or not – this is what I came up with.

As things stand now, everyone is losing: the AMDSB, the children, the parents, the communities, local businesses.

As for the school board – they are almost universally detested throughout our communities, and these feelings will remain for a very long time. Their image falls into the same category as those who pushed us into amalgamations, ultra large health units (LHINs), attempted hospital closings, etc.; remote, uncaring, bureaucratic, meddlers who, we feel, have no business attacking our communities, ignoring our wishes and needs.

Our children are losers in that none will be able to walk to school, they’ll be separated from many of their friends, infants will spend hours travelling by bus on school days.

I don’t need to repeat the complaints raised by parents of the children. We do not want our Grade 7 and 8 children in F.E. Madill and we are under no obligation to fall in line with other jurisdictions that permit this arrangement.

Communities will become unattractive to young families who will not care to move to a town that has no school. Property values will decline. Businesses will see a loss in commerce for this and other reasons.

A JUDGMENT ERROR BY THE LOCAL COMMITTEE

I believe that the ARC team gave the board permission to close the Blyth School when they promoted the idea of a Super K to 8 School which would replace several area schools including that of Blyth.

True, they gave this option given the prospect of replacing the schools with what to them was an exciting new vision of an institution which will represent an advance into a high value educational experience made possible by an innovative building and innovative teachers using innovative methods. They were turning a perceived problem into an opportunity.

The board perhaps should have realized that the agreement on closing the school was contingent on the super school being part of the deal.

It seems to me this is a time when some negotiation should be considered. Negotiation could avoid the situation where everyone loses.

Huron County, North Huron, Huron East cannot tolerate the losses of Blyth and Brussels Public Schools. If Blyth and Brussels lose their schools, the losses are not confined within their borders; they extend out into the rural area surrounding them, most residents of which see these villages as the centre of their communities.

Let’s hope that there are some statesmanship displayed in the next few weeks, regardless of what comes from the current review of the Blyth School decision.

Minister Wynne Replies About School Closure

2009-10-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

I have received a three-page letter from the Minister of Education Wynne in reply to my complaint about the imminent closure of Blyth Public School. Ms. Wynne tells me what I had already learned: that school boards have the absolute authority to close any school they wish. I will quote one paragraph from her letter:

“It is to the benefit of all students that locally elected boards are allowed to operate with a level of autonomy and are provided with the authority and responsibility to make decisions regarding the most appropriate pupil accommodation arrangements for the delivery of their elementary and secondary programs.”

In theory, this is a good model: a local body provided with the authority and responsibility to make decisions, this body ostensibly being accountable to the electorate for their actions. Unfortunately, we, the electorate were asleep and did not realize that the people we elect to the school board actually had the power to make so much mischief and outright damage to our community. Perhaps even the board members did not realize that they would be called upon to make such decisions as have been thrust upon them.

The result of our negligence has thrown us into a terrible situation. We have ended up with board members who have failed in their accountability to the communities they are supposed to represent; board members who can be led around by the nose by board staff who have no sense of community and can hide behind the board.

Blyth is obviously a victim of this mixture of its own inattention, spineless board members, and bureaucrats who are incapable or unwilling to comprehend the place of the school in communities.

It appears that the same fate may be in store for Brussels. If this is the case, it would appear that there is an anti-village agenda at work here.

Huron County is a very rural community. It contains no cities. Ignoring the imposed amalgamations for a moment, it is a county of 5 small towns and 5 smaller villages, with all of the land in between comprised of rural, mainly agricultural townships. All of those descriptions have made us subject to many government, economic, and commercial assaults many of which have had devastating effects on our way of life, our economy, and our local political system. What is especially depressing about this school situation is the fact that the damage is being done to us by our own people. Even our M.P. and M.P.P who should be supporting us vigorously are less supportive than we expect.

As I have written before, we need a strategy to cope with this type of assault if we are going to survive and thrive as a community. We need a methodology to get messages back to those who threaten us. We need to find ways to force them to pay attention. Failing those efforts, we need to devise ways to “put a burr under their saddles”. Make life uncomfortable for them, embarrass them, whatever it takes to force them to re-think their irresponsible policies and practices.

In the present school case, the only solution is to change the minds of the board members. Solid arguments and reasoning do not seem to penetrate. They should be ashamed of themselves, but are not. Stronger measures will be needed.

We need to a strong level of support from the residents of our communities, from local councils, from our M.P.s and M.P.P.s and from other rural counties and small communities.

I am still waiting for a member of the school board to come and tell us why she allowed the board to close the Blyth Public School and to send our children helter skelter in all directions for their education.

A PART OF BLYTH YOU'VE NEVER SEEN

2009-09-22T20:47:00.004-04:00

This was Blyth's Queen Street about 1910 to 1915. The two buildings in the foreground were occupied by Munro's Hardware from 1922 to 1936. Elwyn Munro had purchased the business from Lew Williams in 1922. In addition to the usual sales of hardware products, Elwyn did a great deal of tinsmithing and glass work, hence the need for a relatively large space. Mr. and Mrs. Munro and their two daughters, Lena and Alma, lived in the apartment above the store.

The location of this building was directly across from Blyth Memorial Hall, between the CIBC bank and Sharon's Miniature Museum. Today, the space is occupied by a small lawn and garden near the street, and an extension of Sharon's building at the rear.

On December 17, 1936 Munro's Hardware was totally destroyed by fire. That's why it is unlikely that readers of this article will recall seeing this building.

My parents operated the Home Bakery next door to Munro's. It is amazing that their building had no significant damage from that conflagration. The lot stood empty for many years.

A copy of the above picture was given to us by Tim Saunders of Three Squirrels Antiques, and it is one of the most treasured photos in our collection.

We visited Alma (Munro) Curry, the younger daughter, at her home in 2008. She told us many stories about growing up in Blyth and the great attachment she still feels toward the village.

The Administrative Review re: School Closing

2009-09-21T23:12:00.003-04:00

Most of us are very casual when it comes to voting for municipal and school board representatives - deciding for whom one should vote, or whether to vote at all. Tonight I was reminded that our collective decisions really matter and that terrible things can happen when we fail to make good choices.

Case in point: Choice of school board representatives.

I attended the meeting of the petitioners objecting to the procedures followed by the Avon Maitland District School Board in deciding to close Blyth Public School. The only persons allowed to speak were those who signed the petition, which was a reasonable limitation. There were a few contribitions from the public gallery, but fortunately these were minimal. Those who spoke were very well spoken and much more polite than I would have been had I had the right to speak.

There were excellent presentations among those that I could hear, but to me, sitting in the public gallery, many of them were completely inaudible. The facilitator, Ms. Margaret Wilson I am sure received a very complete, clear, and reasoned set of objections to the AMDSB handling of the accommodation review.

It was somewhat disconcerting that she argued against some of the points raised, and provided explanations for some of the things that were done or not done - explanations that could be interpreted as "supporting the bad guys". For example, with respect to the opposition towards sending grade 7 and 8 children to a high school, she pointed out that this is normal practice in many Canadian provinces and many countries around the world. Does that mean that we should do the same?

But the most disconcerting information that I received at this meeting, leads me to doubt the chance of blocking this terrible decision for Blyth.

Let me put it this way:

Suppose Ms. Wilson agrees completely with all of the petitioners objections, and
Suppose she reports to the Minister that the board did not follow its own policy, and
Suppose she reports that their procedures also failed to follow the guidelines set out by the Minister of Education, and
Suppose she recommends that the Board be forced to reconsider and change its decision, and
Suppose the Minister accepts the recommendation of the facilitator.

THE MINISTER HAS NO POWER TO FORCE THE BOARD TO CHANGE ITS DECISION.

The Board has full and sole power to close any school it chooses to close.

Now you see what I meant at the opening of this article. All those who voted for the members of this board have a great deal to answer for.

There were numerous examples given tonight about the lack of responsiveness of our local board representative, about indifference, about lack of communication. One person questioned why no one from the board has spoken to our community to explain why they decided to close Blyth Public School. Indeed why did our representative not do this. (Silly question, I know.)

Even the facilitator mentioned that it would be normal for the board to give the community some sort of explanation for changes like this.

So here we are stuck with the people we elected. With the higher population density in this municipality in the north, we are in clear danger of remaining unrepresented following future elections, unless we encourage worthy and responsible candidates to come forward.

Small rural communities like ours face many difficulties these days. We cannot afford to continue with representatives who represent no one but themselves.

Blyth School Review - A Hoax?

2009-09-02T16:02:00.002-04:00

If the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Avon Maitland District School Board thinks that the announcement of a review of the decision to close an essential school is putting us off our guard, they should think again.

Sure we will discuss the matter with a "facilitator" in good faith, but we know now that the track record for these events is not encouraging. The stated purpose of the review according to the press is to determine whether the process followed by the board was consistent with their policy.

We really don't care about AMDSB policy. If it was policy that made the decision then the policy is wrong because closing the Blyth School is WRONG FOR BLYTH. We question this board's competency to formulate a reasoned policy, let alone follow one.

If past history is repeating itself here, then the following statements will be true:

* The board has no intention to reverse the decision regardless of what comes out of the review
* They have already decided on the wording of the announcement to confirm their decision

Pay attention, AMDSB. These facts are also true:
* if by chance the review surprises us and seems to offer hope, we are not going to relax, but will watch you like hawks now that we know what kind of people you are.
* if the closure is confirmed, you will not have put this matter to rest. You will have merely lit a new fire which will haunt your organization until matters are set to rights.
* you will have spawned a movement which will be prepared and skilled at thwarting all kinds of assaults from governments at all levels which, like yours, has no comprehension of community values and integrity.
* that movement will spread across this province and this country so that its power will surpass the power of our large urban areas.

Brock Vodden

New Hope for Saving Our School

2009-08-27T19:21:00.004-04:00

In an article in the Citizen, our great little weekly paper, we learned today that the Ontario Ministry of Education has acknowledged that this community's complaints about the Avon Maitland School Board's accommodation review process may be justified.

They are in the process of selecting a facilitator to handle this case. The article describes the intention of this step as "reviewing the ARC process and its consistency with the board's accommodation review policy".

This is a very significant step since most people in this community had pretty well resigned themselves to the fact that there was no hope of saving our school. The Ministry has heard us.

It's too soon to declare victory. I would feel more confident if I knew more about the facilitation process to be followed. Will the board bring in a gaggle of lawyers? Will the facilitator also consider whether the ARC process was in line with the Province's stated policy - not just that they conformed to their own self serving policy. I would also like to know what power the facilitator has to bring the parties together and to resolve the matters.

But for the present, I think we can enjoy the fact that the Ministry is paying attention to our plight.

One suspects that the outrage expressed by people all across the province has helped to put our complaints into a larger context. It stands as a lesson to us that we don't need to meekly accept arbitrary decisions from on high. No more "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full" while clutching the forelock.

BETRAYAL BY OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS

2009-08-19T23:55:00.006-04:00

If you have read my other blog items, you may have gathered that I am fed up with the antics of the Avon Maitland District School Board, and their decision to close the Blyth Public School. I admit that it is not just the Board that is at fault, but they have not even had the decency to speak to our community and tell us why they reached that devastating conclusion. The representative for North Huron has also been strangely absent, but of course it may be that she does not know where Blyth is. In any case, it doesn’t really matter; she is of no use to us anyway since she has done nothing but harm to this community.

This kind of bureaucratic assault is becoming increasingly common in fields other than education. We were dragged into an amalgamation with Wingham without consultation. Our own village council did that to us. Many of us were of the view that if amalgamation was obligatory, the smart move would be to create a single tier municipality of the entire county. Our local councillors had decided that at the public meeting, they would allow no discussion of single tier. There was no consultation – only an announcement that we were getting hitched to Wingham. A bad choice for Blyth. Even if we had good representatives on Council, we would still have a diluted representation!

Our health care system has taken some equally negative turns. We had the Community Care Access Centre for Huron for a short time. Then the directive came from on high that Huron CCAC must merge with the Perth CCAC. Once again our local representation was watered down. From personal experience as a patient returning home in Huron from a Perth hospital, the merger was a disaster. From what I hear the service has never recovered at least for Huron patients.

People in the Ministry of Health seem to have a great sense of humour. They have made us part of a LOCAL planning area which extends some 470 km from Tobermory in the north to Lake Erie in the south. Surely they are joking when they call this a local network. On their website they refer to their current board members as LOCAL people. The closest person to us is from Stratford. There are no representatives from Huron county on this board. Many other counties have no representation either. These strangers are charged with making critical, strategic decisions about the health care of our community and of the health facilities in this area. This does not instill confidence.

Business has provided all kinds of evidence that mergers, alliances, amalgamations, acquisitions most often fail. A few years ago, a study revealed that almost 70% of mergers of two or more companies end up in either a serious decline in productivity or an outright failure.

We have a local recent example. A longstanding Huron County heavy equipment business after many decades as an industrial leader, was purchased by a huge international corporation. After a very few years of operation, this company decides to pull out, leaving hundreds of people out of work, and a huge empty place in this county.

That action by that company is almost identical to what AMDSB did to Blyth. They took over our school system and then shut down our school. The company will make their graders elsewhere and AMDSB will educate our children –but elsewhere. Huron County means nothing to that company. Blyth means nothing to AMDSB, Southwest LHIN, CCAC, and I am not sure about North Huron.

The analogies are obvious and accurate.

In my next blog item, I am going to tackle (but probably not solve) the problem of creating a strategy to “make the bums pay” for trampling on us. A good dose of public embarrassment might work in some cases. We'll need a different strategy for those who are without conscience or shame.

What Happened to Our Fighting Spirit?

2009-07-20T00:22:00.005-04:00

Blyth must be going soft. Our forerunners did not accept arbitrary decisions of others. They either fought them or ignored their detractors and went ahead with what they thought was right.

Today, we are faced with an arbitrary and prejudicial decision which will rob this village of its school. We have raised our objections respectfully and politely. We’ve presented well documented arguments against the decision by a group of outsiders to make this assault on OUR COMMUNITY. The ARC committee did an enormous amount of research and solid work.

In return, we have been ignored. We have been fed official lies and subterfuge. We have been subjected to a make-believe consultation process which was rigged against us before we began.

Surely it is time that we stop being polite. Time that we begin to treat the Avon Maitland District School Board with the contempt that they so richly deserve. Time that we take some action to embarrass them and make them at least extremely uncomfortable, if not repentant. Time to report their destructive ways to the Minister of Education who needs to understand what the provincial policy on school accommodation has unleashed on rural communities across this entire province and on this community in particular.

We sat idly by when amalgamation was forced on us a few years ago even though 99% of the community opposed the process. The adventure increased our costs, diluted our representation on municipal council, and produced no discernable advantages. It is too late to go back on that fiasco. We lost on that one.

In this case, we already know that there are no advantages to this change in school arrangements, and that we in Blyth are facing serious and irreparable damage to our children and our community if it is implemented. If ever there was a reason for protest, this is surely one of them.

Let's not stand there. Do something!

Brock Vodden
http://allaboutblyth.blogspot.com/

More About the Repository of Blyth History

2009-07-08T11:42:00.006-04:00

The best source of general information about our collection is the publication of the Huron County Historical Society titled "Huron Historical Notes 2007: Repository of Blyth History" 47 pp.

The Society has reprinted this publication and copies are available from The Citizen weekly newspaper office in Blyth as well as the Huron County Museum in Goderich. They cost $8.00.

Our repository began as a simple act of listing the names of the Blyth people we knew or knew about. Then we began adding information about them. Then came some pictures. Then people began contributing items and more information. We tried to put some time boundaries on the collection: "We'll focus on 1850 to 1900!" we declared. But then we received a whole box of school information which came close to the present time.

Finally, we dropped all the boundaries and opened the collection process to "everything about Blyth". As we have said many times, one persons comment to us told us that we were onto something very important. This lady told us that her family had been in the Blyth area from the beginning, had contributed to the growth and development of the village in a low key way, and yet they were never mentioned in any of the histories or the stories about the village.

This changed our focus to something like "NO BLYTH FAMILY LEFT BEHIND!"

Our goal now is to be able to respond to the request of any descendant of persons who ever lived in or around Blyth with a significant amount of information. We are getting very closer to achieving that goal, but there is more information needed. We appeal to local residents, former residents, and others who know something about Blyth to come forward with "stuff". We accept donations, we scan or copy items that you want to keep, handwritten family stories also welcome.

Recent discoveries of old Blyth Standards, (back to 1894) when we get a chance to analyze all of them, will provide us with an enormous amount of "new" old information which we assumed would never be found. (Many of these papers are off being microfilmed and digitized.)

We receive contacts from far and wide requesting family and other information about the old days of Blyth. We have visitors, too, who come to see the collection, to seek specific information, and to bring their information to us to fill in the gaps we have. These people have come from across Ontario and Canada, and some from USA are planning to visit us.

The size and scope of the collection is surpising to us as well as to visitors when we consider the small population of the place. It consists of many three-ring binders (about 150), many file cards (approx. 10,000), a collection of maps of Blyth showing the entire village and separate maps of the surveys of various parts of the village, close to 15 GB of computer information, along with a few artifacts, the largest of which is an antique portable typewriter which belonged to the publisher of the Blyth Standard in 1894 to 1906.

The question is constantly in our minds as to where we are going to put this collection when we are no longer able to work at it. We want it to be in a safe place where it will be looked after well, where it will (ideally) continue to grow, and where it is accessible to people doing research on the village or its families, and in a way that makes it easy to find the information being sought.

There are such places, but the best of them are full and do not have the space. Some places have the space, but do not instill confidence that material will be looked after properly. There are places which could contain this collection along with other Blyth material, but there is no plan for staffing it and maintaining that kind of facility.

In the meantime, we carry on collecting, recording, filing, researching, answering questions, asking more questions, and most of the time enjoying it all to the full.

We think every community should have such a collection. It provides services that no history book, no museum, and no county archive could (or should) provide.

Perhaps what we need is a facility to accommodate all of our community collections.

Please leave comments or write to hbvodden@ezlink.on.ca

Lucy in the sky is not my cousin

2009-07-06T14:11:00.004-04:00

I have it on good authority from my friend Linda that Lucy Vodden, who inspired John Lennon's famous song, is not related to my Voddens.

Not being a fan of the Beatles, I needed one of my sons to explain the story to me.

Caught in the Act – Almost!

2009-07-05T07:58:00.004-04:00

It’s a little known fact that Blyth once harboured a gang of gun-slinging desperadoes. Daily gun battles took place in the back streets, the church sheds, sometimes even on main street. Many households in the village were guilty of harbouring these unconvicted mobsters. Why, they even provided funds to support their wicked ways.

I have never publicly admitted this before, but now that I am getting close to 75 years of age, it’s time to lift this terrible burden from - well, maybe not from my chest, but from my trigger finger. Yes, I was one of them. I was almost caught, but through my natural ability to think on my feet, I managed to avoid arrest.

This took place in the early 1940s. The weapon of choice among these gangsters was the cap gun. The ammunition was rolls of red caps that fit into the cap gun. Each time you pulled the trigger, the hammer would hit a little black circle of explosive, producing a bang remotely similar to that coming from a small hand gun, but not nearly as loud. These cap guns could be purchased at the “five and dime” in Wingham, and the caps could be purchased locally in a couple of stores.

Then the cap guns were banned.

I’m not sure how or why the ban took place, but word got out that the firing of cap guns was not to be tolerated in Blyth. There was no public announcement of this, as far as I know, and no by-law passed by the village council. It was a word of mouth intimation which was a tried and true small town broadcast technique for spreading rumours, good and bad news, as well as rules of behaviour and decorum.

The boys of the village took the message with a grain of salt. The lure of the crackle of cap gunfire was too strong to make them want to lay down their arms. What they did was conceal their weapons whenever the police constable was close by, and go elsewhere to wage their battles.

As with the gunslingers in the western movies, I became vulnerable when I ran out of ammunition. I headed for the store which sold the ammo. I was about to ask for a roll of caps, when I happened to notice, sitting on a low chair behind the counter to my left, Constable John Cowan. I could see only the top half of his face and his eyes were looking straight at me. I felt the blood rushing to my face. The storekeeper was also staring at me, waiting for me to say what I wanted. I was mulling over my options. What I really wanted to do was disappear both physically and from the memory of the people staring at me. No, disappearance was not an option.

I spoke.

“An eraser,” I said. “I want a Pink Pearl Eraser.” I added the last phrase, cleverly giving the impression that this purchase had been carefully thought through hours ago , and the decision was made that not just any eraser would meet my needs. It had to be a Pink Pearl.

I got the eraser, I gave my dime, I got the nickel change and I got out of there, taking only a moment to glance in the direction of the Policeman. I could tell by the hint of a smile on his face that he had no idea of what my real intentions were.

What The Avon Maitland School Board Has Taught Us

2009-07-03T09:18:00.008-04:00

Blyth Public and Continuation School

Built 1896

This was our school back in the good old days. We had our own school board of local people who were elected each year. They were from all walks of life: merchants, preachers, doctors, labourers, gentlemen (retired folks), etc..We knew all of them personally and they knew us. Heck, they even knew most of the students.

When we wanted to indicate that we liked or disliked their decisions, we would tell them so when we met them at the post office or at the ball game. Once in a while, but rarely, a big issue would come up and a group of citizens would go as a delegation to a school board meeting and have their say.

The public school usually had two teachers for grades one to eight - sometimes three. The Continuation School had three teachers who taught all the subjects required for grades nine to twelve. Those who wanted to go further had to go to Clinton Collegiate Institute for their Grade Thirteen or "Upper School".

It was our school, and it was a good school. Two of our Grade 8 students in the 1940s happened to move to a big city in the same year. In Grade 9 in that new school they placed first and second in overall marks above all the students in that grade. They attribute their achievement to the grounding they received in Blyth Public School.

Along the way we lost our school board, then we lost our representative on the later school boards. They say that we have a representative on AMDSB, but she doesn't talk to us and few know who she is. Now we are about to lose our school. The present school board has turned against us on advice of their senior employees who have decided that although we used to run our own schools successfully, we are not smart enough now even to have an opinion about how our children are to be educated.

If AMDSB were to be picked up by aliens from another planet (what a dream!), Blyth could actually manage and maintain its own school and educate its own children. The education requirements are different than they were in 1896 and 1946, but we have learned a thing or two as well. The advantage we would have is that we could hire real educators who know and value our community and we would not require those many layers of administration overhead which have made things so costly and complicated that they can't afford the money or the time to look after our children and community properly.

We won't be setting up our own school any time soon, but I am betting that this community is going to remember what AMDSB did to us and our community.

I support public non-sectarian education and when I see the public board behaving so badly, I become very angry and disappointed. They are the kind of board that is supposed to serve the whole community.

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T12:57:00.002-04:00

On this July 1, Canada Day, we see and hear many expressions of pride in our great country.

What impresses me, also, is the fact that through the entire year, we hear people comment on what a great country we live in and how proud we are of our past and present and our aspirations for the future. We acknowledge that life in general and the life of any country - no matter how great - has its ups and downs, its challenges and its difficult transitions. Despite these, we never lose the sense of pride and hope. For each of us there is a personal list of qualities and facts on which we base our pride for Canada.

On this day, I take a moment to identify the particular things that stand out in my mind as sources of my pride. They are as follows (not in any special order):

We are a caring society.
We have in our constitution a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which stands as an example to the world.
We have an excellent health care system.
Our parliamentary system allows for the smooth transition of power when required following an election, and most of our politicians treat each other, even their opponents, with respect most of the time.
We are a pluralistic society which treats people equally most of the time without regard to religious beliefs, race, country of origin, gender, and sexual orientation.
We are a society which recognizes its shortcomings and is always working to improve in areas such as human rights, environmental improvements, economic progress, civility among political adversaries.
We resisted pressure towards becoming involved in the unnecessary Iraq war.
We are firm in our resolve to withdraw from the combat arena in Afganistan, which has not contributed to the stabilization of that country, and which has killed many Canadians.

Memorial Hall: Little known trivia you should know about.

2009-06-29T13:14:00.004-04:00

Blyth Memorial Community Hall

Home of the Blyth Festival

The heart of Blyth since 1920

This picture was taken shortly after the hall was constructed in 1920. The landscaping has not been done. There are only a few of us old guys around who can explain some of the original features of this amazing building, features that have been obscured by additions and other changes. They tell us a lot about the way of life in earlier days.

Note the open doors at the rear of the hall. They are the entrance to the firehall which was in use from 1920 to 1941. The fire equipment included two hand-drawn reels for carrying fire hoses to the scene of a fire as well as some axes and other tools for getting at the fire source. The fire hall also contained a structure for hanging the hoses for drying. In 1941 the village acquired its first fire truck, replacing the hose reels. The fire truck is on display at the current fire hall.

Notice the bell tower at the front of the building. That bell for many decades was rung at least three times a day: 7:00 am, 12 noon, and 6:00 pm. Occasionally, as a result of vandalism or other misbehaviour by young people, the council would set a curfew and the bell would be rung briefly at 9:00 pm to announce the curfew. The bell was rung by the person holding the job of town forman and police constable (plus many other duties).

The ringing of the bell was an art form in itself. Timing was everything. Jack Cowan held this position for many years during which he drew a distinctive and rhythmic sound from the old bell. Every other pause between rings was slightly longer than the other. When the bell swung back for the second ring he held the rope down for a moment, allowing the reverberation to continue before letting the bell swing down and up into the next ring. Wherever we were in the village when the bell sounded, my friends and I could always tell whether Jack was the ringer or whether he had to have someone stand-in for him.

My father, who operated a bakery across the street, was asked by Jack to stand-in for him for the noon bell ring one day. I recall my embarassment when I heard my father's rendition. He just didn't have the right rhythm, and I was sure that the whole town would be upset by the performance.

The rope for routine ringing the of the bell hung could be reached from the floor immediately above the front entrance of the building.

There was another way of ringing the bell which produced a radically different sound. It was produced by a clanger, a piece of metal which struck the bottom of the bell when the rope attached to it was pulled. This rope was a small white one which hung down the fromn of the hall from the bell tower to a bracket beside the front entance. This clapper was used exclusively for fire purposes: to sound the alarm for a fire, or to announce a meeting (fire practice, it was called) of the volunteer fire brigade. For a fire alarm the bell was pulled continuously and in an even rhythm; for fire practice it was rung as follows: clang,clang,clang, pause, clang, clang, clang, pause clang ,etc.

In larger printouts of this picture and the others taken up to the 1950s, you can see that white rope. It remained there beside the main entrance to the hall for many, many years. As far as I know, there never was an occasion when someone gave a false alarm or rang this bell as a prank.

There is a campaign in place to restore the ringing of the bell through an automated system. I only wish Jack Cowan were around to show them how to do it.

Amalgamation

2009-06-28T12:04:00.004-04:00

Small Towns Under Siege

Amalgamation

In the year 2000 an amalgamation took place which combined the Village of Blyth, the Township of East Wawanosh, and the Town of Wingham into the new Municipality of the Township of North Huron.

It was a very unpopular event and as far as I know, the only people who claim that any benefits came of it are members of the resulting councils. In Blyth, I would judge that the majority of the people considered the amalgamation to be a “takeover by Wingham”. Frequent comments like “All the revenues from the Threshers’ Park and Memorial Hall and our taxes are going to Wingham” indicated that. even though people knew about the formation of North Huron, it felt to them as though Blyth was being robbed. Those feelings still exist nine years later.

Amalgamation has taken place. Whether it was a good move or bad, whether we like it or not, there is no point now to complaining about it. There is, however, a very important lesson that we can learn from the process, a lesson that we need to learn.

Amalgamation was yet another example of control moving elsewhere; an example of decisions affecting our community being made outside of our community by people who may or may not share our understanding, our culture, our needs, our aspirations, our history. Not long after amalgamation, the potential hazard from this arrangement became obvious. The new council seemed bent on erasing our unique identity, and treating all three wards as if their historic realities were of no import.

An informal group (the Blyth Idea Group [BiG]) took form very quickly and decided that since council was not doing its job for Blyth, they would form some plans and urge the community and council to support them. The most tangible evidence of this group’s efforts is the street signage around the village. These are not just fancy replacements of drab old signs that went before: they are a revelation to visitors and locals alike of the many assets we have as a village, of the community’s vibrancy, of the things we have achieved over the years by volunteers in collaboration with visionary local councillors. They change the way Blyth was and is now perceived.

The lesson for Blyth is that they need strong representation in the local council, representation by people who know and value the special nature of Blyth and who are capable of communicating that awareness. Furthermore, the people of Blyth need to remain vigilant and watchful to ensure that Blyth continues to thrive and to build on its resources and values.

This is how Blyth can contribute most to the success of North Huron and to the County of Huron.

A Day Off From History Research - Sort Of!

2009-06-28T00:30:00.003-04:00

Jan and I headed out yesterday for a pleasant drive to go wherever the car takes us. We need this sort of break now and then, when the pressure of history research builds up. Retirement, we have learned, is not for children.

Strangely enough, the car pulled over and stopped at an antique store. We obediently went in to see what was on offer. The store was absolutely packed with every type of object you could think of - and some that you could not think of. The only things missing were customers. (We were only browsers.) There were no aisles; there were only slight openings through which one could squeeze, being careful not to allow the static electricity to pull the artifacts off their purchase on other artifacts.

I talked to the owner while Jan cased the store. He was a clever interviewer. In no time he had extracted the information from me that we were involved in research about Blyth. At the mention of Blyth, he announced that he had a picture of some Blyth people. He had no idea where it was, but every once in a while he comes on it and thinks that he should set it out in case someone from Blyth shows up - but, alas, the picture disappears again. Here is someone from Blyth standing in from of him and - where is that picture? There followed a trek through the store. About every three feet, there would be a bunch of framed pictures leaning against a piece of furniture, a trunk, or some other solid object He would flip through these pictures very quickly, and then move on to the next. This went on for some time until I was convinced that I was never going to see the evasive picture. Suddenly an exclamation. Eureka!

I suddenly became a customer and we brought the picture home with us. It is now part of the Repository of Blyth History.

It's a framed picture of children aged from about 5 to mid teens, all dressed in their best, girls all in white dresses many wearing large white bows at the nape, boys in suits. It's probably marking the occasion of a confirmation ceremony at a church. The only indication of Blyth was in the name of the photographer stamped on the corner: "Baxter McArter - Photographer Blyth, Ontario".

I will post this picture here in case some one out there might be able to identify some of the people in the picture and the oaccasion and perhaps determine the time period.

But apart from that, Jan came up with the idea of creating a Baxter McArter Gallery. We have many of his portraits and we know that there are hundreds of other out there.

Why not? All we need is someone to call a meeting and ... well, perhaps you can decide how to get this project going.

Small Towns Under Siege

2009-06-24T00:10:00.004-04:00

A series of discussions about small town issues

Small communities right across Canada are under siege. They are assailed from all directions and from many sources. They are at risk economically, culturally, medically, socially, politically, educationally, and some of the troubles come from within the communities themselves.

While we occasionally hear our politicians declare their concern about “protecting small town Canada” (usually when talking to a small town audience), they continue to enact policies that damage small towns, and ignore opportunities to protect them.

While Jan and I were driving the other day, we got to talking about the negative things that are happening now and those that took place in the past. Sometimes you need to list these things in order to realize the extent of the problem. As we talked, we saw the items as the result of trends. The over-riding trend has been that of control being moved progressively farther away from our community.

Take education for example.

When this community was first formed in the mid 1800s, there was very little money available, but the people found enough money to build a school and to hire teachers for it. The question never arose as to “whether we could afford it or not”.

In 1896 the village opened a modern two-storey school to house the Blyth Public School (Grades 1 to 8) and the Blyth Continuation School (Grades 9 to 12).

In 1946 district high school boards were formed, with one representative from Blyth on that board, and the Blyth Continuation School was closed. Students from 9 to 13 were bussed to Clinton to attend the newly named Clinton District Collegiate Institute. Blyth had an elected representative on that board.

Some time later the Huron County Board of Education was formed, and more recently Huron County and Perth County boards were combined to form the Avon Maitland District School Board. If there is a board member who represents Blyth, no one seems to know who that is. In any case, if there is such a person, he or she will be representing so many communities that none of them will be truly represented.

Now because of declining enrolment across the county, it has apparently become too expensive to educate Blyth children within Blyth, according to the AMDSB, so the school is likely to be closed permanently. This is a terrible blow to Blyth as a community. Many of the ramifications of this latest move is against the wishes of nearly all the parents and the members of the community. There is a deep anger throughout the community about this unfortunate turn of history. But that remote, foreign body – the Avon Maitland District School Board - does not care. Blyth is not their responsibility. While their actions have a direct effect on the community’s economy, society, culture, and the children’s development within their home town – there is no means to hold that foreign board accountable for the collateral damage they inflict, the negative side effects they cause.

The standardized tests reveal that Avon Maitland Students on average perform below the provincial average on all measured subjects. The changes being discussed provided an opportunity to make changes that would support strategies to improve education quality. Instead the board staff have recommended actions that will do nothing towards that end. These changes do not take children, parents, communities, or education into account - only the equation of bodies and desks to hold them.

Perhaps the board and staff members’ mentalities are victims of that whole centralization process – a process which has some good points as well as a good many negatives. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a mentality emerging which is capable of finding ways to ameliorate those negatives.

So, what are these damaging effects?

The education system has been completely divorced from the community context in terms of education content, community engagement, and acceptance of accountability to the community.

The fact that the larger unit of administration has almost completely eliminated the community’s meaningful representation on the Board has not been lost on the board staff and the board. They are showing that they feel no obligation to consider the community and make no attempt to even pretend to be accountable to the community.

According to the plans that we have heard about, the Blyth school children will be split off in several directions: Grade 7 and 8 children will be bussed to Wingham to take classes in that town’s high school, while some of the K to 6 children will go south to the Hullett school and others will go north to a school near Belgrave.

The curriculum will not relate to the Blyth community context since few if any of the teachers will have any interest in or loyalty to or knowledge of that village.

The Blyth community, devoid of any school, will be less attractive to young couples seeking a place to raise their families.

There will be an economic impact since fewer people will come for shopping to the village when the school link is broken.

The exposure of Grade 7 an 8 students to the influences of secondary school students is still of grave concern to parents and the educators have done nothing to assuage those concerns.

The next addition to All About Blyth will look at the municipal amalgamation process of 2000

What is a Blog?

2009-06-14T00:08:00.000-04:00

Many people have asked me what is a blog: "What do you do with it?"; "How do I access it?" "How do they work?"

Since you are looking at this blog, you've already managed the most important part. I am just learning about this tool myself, hoping that it will be of interest to some people, and that it will help our collection of Blyth history fulfill our high expectations.

Do a web search for "What is a blog" and you will get many web pages that will help you understand what blogs are all about.

blog - It's a short form for Web Log. It is situated on the Web, and it's my log book or a kind of public diary. As for the content, it will include mainly my thoughts, ideas, stories, and hopefully, you and others will make some comments about what I write. Disagree with me, agree with me, chat with me, ask me questions, answer my questions, correct my mistakes. With your help, this blog could become really interesting. So help me brighten up this one-way chatter and make it a conversation.

You may choose to join this group and become a follower if you want to keep in touch regularly. I honestly do not know the benefits of joining and following. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten all of us by entering a comment below about what it all means.

Comments will be visible to me and anyone else looking at the blog.

I have a special request of you. If you know people with a Blyth connection who you think might be interested in this "stuff", tell them about the address of this blog: http://allaboutblyth.blogspot.com and suggest that they look in an leave a message or comment.

We have developed this Repository of Blyth History. It is helping dozens of people find out about their ancestors who once lived in Blyth. That's one of the main purposes.

Over 200 families have either requested information or have provided us with their information - and many have done both. It is turning out to be a tremendous resource. Many of our contact people are planning to come to Blyth this summer to look at our collection - some for the first time, some for the second or third time. They are coming from Northern Ontario, from Michigan, from Ottawa, from Kitchener-Waterloo, as well as closer to Blyth.

The Huron Historical Society's publication called Huron Historical Notes 2007 is entirely devoted to Blyth and our collection. There are still a few copies available at the Citizen office (weekly paper in Blyth) as well as the Huron County Museum in Goderich, Ontario. They cost only $8.00. If you need one mailed to you write to me at the address below and add $3.00 for mailing.

Brock Vodden
Box 492
Blyth, Ontario N0M 1H0

Discovery: Cache of Blyth Standard Issues

2009-06-10T09:13:00.000-04:00

For Blyth history buffs and Blyth watchers, old news is good news.

A few weeks ago a large number of back issues of the Blyth Standard were discovered in a store room above Blyth Printing. Many of our readers will recall that the Standard was produced in that building from 1938 to the time that the paper was sold. The papers apparently remained undisturbed for many years because they are in excellent condition considering their age.

Jan and I were thrilled when we were told that the Whitmore family were giving us the entire bundle which will become part of the Repository of Blyth History. We have turned them over to the Huron County Library for microfilming and digitizing, so that the collection will be added to the newspaper microfilms available in the main branches of the library. We are all indebted to the Whitmore family for making these available.

There are no complete years of issues, but there are substantial numbers from 1900, 1902, 1903, 1907, 1908, 1930, 1943. There are a couple of fragmented issues from the 1890s, on 1914 issue, and a few from various years in the 1940s.

In all, there are about 150 issues of the Blyth Standard, 1200 pages most of which were believed to be lost in the mists of time.

WOW!

Why Blyth?

2009-06-09T13:59:00.000-04:00

Blyth is located in Huron County, southwestern Ontario, Canada

Blyth is a remarkable village. It has achieved this distinction without the aid of a spectacular geological formation, haunted castle, or site of an ancient battle. It 's remarkable because of remarkable people who came here between 1850 and now, and quietly built and maintained a successful community and some are still building and maintaining.

My wife, Janis, and I have created the Repository of Blyth History - a collection of facts, stories, descriptions, pictures, artifacts, trivia, documents, old newspaper quotes, obituaries, marriage records, articles, etc. etc. etc. - all about Blyth, its people, its families, its events, achievements, challenges, character, ways of life, humour, foibles . . . We are volunteer historians. There is no charge for our services.

If you have ancestors who lived in Blyth and want to find out more about them, the chances are very good that we can provide you with some of that information. Sometimes people ask us for information which we have not uncovered yet - not often, but sometimes. We want to change that, so that 99% of the time, we will be able to find all that you want - or even more than you would like.

If you have any Blyth information or photos, we would appreciate getting copies for our collection.

I'll be adding brief messages here from time to time. I hope you will follow them and enjoy them.

Brock Vodden