BLYTH HISTORY ON DISPLAY

On October 12 and 13 a Huron County event called Doors Open took place. Buildings of many sorts were open to the public to visit, hear presentations, observe activities, taste the food, etc. Displays were open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day.

Blyth Memorial Hall was one of the Huron County sites. Members of the Blyth Festival Board and Staff  were providing guided tours through the Memorial hall and the Festival Theatre facilities. In addition, Janis and Brock Vodden were invited to place a display of their Repository of Blyth History in the Bainton Gallery adjacent to the Memorial Hall.

We set up about 10 or 12 tables of display material as a sampling of the collection. It was arranged so that people were not only able to walk around and look at pictures and objects, but they could sit down with large binders of material on a topic of interest, and read, take notes, ask questions, and have copies made.

Below are just a few snapshots of the display.

A few artifacts that have been donated to the Repository of Blyth History.  At the centre is  an early portable typewriter that was a gift to A.E. Bradwin, who was editor and publisher of the Blyth Standard weekly from 1894 to 1906. The gift was received long after his leaving Blyth, but was sent to us by a great nephew, Bill Emigh of Victoria, B.C. The group picture at the back is the Blyth Football Team of 1906. On the right at the back is a newspaper photo of Emma Scrimgeour who was one of the great community builders of Blyth as a volunteer in countless organizations and as a talented correspondent to area newspapers such as the Stratford Beacon-Herald and the London Free Press.

Beside the Football Club photo is an engraved silver cup, presented to James  Emigh by the Blyth Baseball Club in 1889. James was manager-coach of the team. This cup was also sent to the Repository of Blyth History by Bill Emigh, James' great nephew. This cup survived at least one fire as well as serving as a play toy for generations of Emigh children in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Bill felt strongly that the cup wanted to return to its roots in Blyth.

This part of the Doors Open display includes as small portion of the materials that Brock and  Janis Vodden use  in connection with the Repository. On the far table are several long narrow boxes containing approximately 30,000 reference file cards. These cards contain information about people, places, events, buildings, in Blyth and surrounding area, as well as items with a Blyth connection. Many of them point to other sources for additional information. On the near table are just a few of the several hundred binders containing information about Blyth. During the Doors Open event many people spent a lot of time going through the books and cards that were of interest to them. In the background is a printer/copier for copying any materials requested by visitors. A laptop on the table contained 2600 obituaries which would be copied on request by any of the participants. Another laptop and projector on the left of that table provided a continuous slide show of hundreds of historic pictures of Blyth.