Queensborough, our real-life Christmas village

I believe I’ve said it before, but it’s Christmastime again and by gum it’s still true: Queensborough is kind of the perfect little Christmas village.

Do you remember those miniature villages that people used to set up in their homes at Christmastime, tiny snow-covered (fake snow, but you know what I mean) houses and shops and churches, with little lights inside so the windows would be glowing warmly? (Think Hogsmeade in wintertime.) They looked like this:

(I have the vaguest of vague memories from my childhood here in Queensborough that Bobbie Sager Ramsay used to set up one such lovely little village in the windows of her general store every year. People who would know: am I right about that?)

Actually, given the vast number of pictures that just turned up on Google Images when I searched “miniature Christmas villages,” I am pretty sure lots of people still set these miniature villages up in their homes. Which is wonderful news, because I have always loved them, and I think the Manse is going to have to have one sooner rather than later. Here’s another nice one:

Anyway, what I was going to say is that whenever I drive into Queensbrough in wintertime, it reminds me of one of those quaint miniature villages – only full-size. With the graceful spire of the historic white board-and-batten former Anglican Church in the background, the picturesque waterfall of the Black River at the old grist mill – the water is still flowing now, but soon it will be frozen – and the beautifully decorated and lit-up homes, our tiny hamlet in a valley is kind of a Christmas village incarnate.

I am working on taking some photos of the beautiful Christmas lights that people have put up around Queensborough this year to share with you. (I downloaded a night-photography app on my iPhone, but I am still trying to figure it out. A photographic genius I am most decidedly not, as any reader of Meanwhile, at the Manse will have long since figured out.) But in the meantime, and as a little introduction to the idea of how pretty and Christmassy our village is at this time of year, I took the photo that’s at the top of this post – about a week ago, before we had the snow that now lies on the ground. You’ve seen that sign before in my posts (and you see it every day if you are lucky enough to live in Queensborough), but I just thought it was so nice that the Queensborough Beautification Committee had dressed up the entrance signs with seasonal decorations for Christmas.

All you have to do is drive over the modest hill that you see in the background of my photo, and you come down into the valley where our perfect Christmas village lies. Do that drive after dark, when the seasonal lights are on – preferably after a fresh snowfall – and you will see a magical little place. A full-size miniature Christmas village, so to speak.

A friendly face from the past: Kel Kincaid of the Madoc IGA

Longtime readers might remember that I’ve been known to reminisce about Kincaid Bros. IGA in Madoc. Back when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s and ’70s at the Manse here in the hamlet of Queensborough, Madoc was “town” – the big place. And Kincaid Bros. was a great big shiny modern supermarket compared to Queensborough’s two old-fashioned general stores – Bobbie’s and McMurray’s – where we bought most of our groceries, our gasoline, and lots of other stuff, ranging from penny candy to rubber boots.

Because my mum, Lorna Sedgwick, taught for many years at Centre Hastings Secondary School in Madoc, she did do a fair bit of shopping at Kincaid Bros. At the end of a long day of teaching, that’s where she’d stop in for wieners and beans or hamburger and the other essentials (remember the tasteless tomatoes from Mexico, the only tomatoes you could get in those days when it wasn’t August, that came three to a pack in a green cardboard base covered with Saran Wrap?) that she needed to make supper when she got back home to the Manse. (Because, you know, despite the fact that she taught full-time and had four small kids to deal with, of course it was her job to make dinner. Always. Those were the days, my friend.)

These days, when I go into the wondrous Hidden Goldmine Bakery in Madoc, which is housed in the building where Kincaid Bros. IGA was, I am stunned to think that the same relatively modest space housed what we thought of as a big supermarket – complete with aisles and a meat counter and a produce counter and checkout counters with a bunch of cashiers. But hey, everything was smaller and more modest back then. And I am not at all sure that that was a bad thing.

Anyway: the face of Kincaid Bros. in my memory (and, I think, in the memory of many other people) was Kel (short for Kelvin) Kincaid, who always seemed to be front and centre in the store with a friendly smile and a helpful presence. In a post here, I lamented the fact that the painted plywood figure of a grandfatherly grocer who looked a lot like Kel Kincaid was no longer adorning the side of the building where Hidden Goldmine now is. (After putting that post up, I received the reassuring news that, while “Kel” is no longer up there on the side of the building, he is safely in storage.)

So you might imagine how tickled I was today to receive in the old inbox the image that’s at the top of this post. It came from Keith Kincaid – fellow journalist, and chronicler of the Kincaids of central Hastings County, as I wrote here; and thank you, Keith! – and it shows a page from no less than the mighty Toronto Star in 1972 (back when the Toronto Star was really mighty) in which none other than Kel Kincaid of “Kincaid IGA, Madoc, Ont.” is “Mr. IGA.”

And I only have this to say: it takes me back to happier times and makes me feel better about the world in general to see Kel Kincaid’s smiling face and bow tie once more. (And to see those tasteless Mexican tomatoes on sale, 3 for 99¢!) For all those who, like me, remember Kincaid Bros. IGA – I hope it has the same happy effect on you.

Quintessential Queensborough, on display for you

One of the most classic Queensborough pictures of all time, in my view: local folks sitting on the benches at Bobbie Sager Ramsay‘s general store. That’s Bernice Cassidy, Bobbie’s younger sister, in the coat at the right-hand end of the bench. And there are (as there always were) some kids eyeing the potato chips and candy displays. It’s nighttime; in the days of my childhood in Queensborough, Bobbie’s and McMurray’s stores stayed open quite late several nights a week. The stores were the focal point of our community. You can see this picture, and many others that will bring back memories, at Historic Queensborough Day.

Well! It has been a busy, busy Saturday, preparing for tomorrow’s Historic Queensborough Day here in our pretty little hamlet. The weather is forecast to be fine, the village is looking splendid (thanks to hard work by property-owners and volunteers), and the legwork has been done. If you’ve decided to join us for the event, I am thrilled; and if you’re still hesitating, well, please consider this post my encouragement for you to do so. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.

All the details of the event are in my post here (and there’s still more information in posts here and here and here and here), but long story short:

• Our weekly service at historic St. Andrew’s United Church (built in 1890) is at 11 a.m.
• A barbecue of excellent hamburgers and hot dogs, with homemade and locally baked sweets and treats for dessert, starts at 12 noon and runs till 4 p.m. outside the Queensborough Community Centre (the village’s former one-room schoolhouse, built in 1901).
• A little ceremony, complete with dignitaries (Politicians! You know you love them! Plus special guests), paying tribute to projects by the Queensborough Beautification Committee and the Queensborough Community Centre Committee – new street signs, a historical sign, beautiful floral displays, and general sprucing up – takes place at 1 p.m. “downtown” by the river.
• Two stunning local gardens, at 1861 Queensborough Rd. and 2225 Queensborough Rd., will be open to visitors from 1 to 4 p.m.
• There are displays of fantastic (believe me, I’ve seen them; and more on that shortly) historical material at the Queensborough Community Centre, from 1 to 4 p.m.
• And throughout the afternoon you are invited to stroll, drive, cycle or take a horse-and-wagon trip through town, your copy of our Historic Queensborough brochure/guidebook in hand ($3 each, with all proceeds to help the work of the Queenborough Community Centre Committee), and learn about the history of our splendid little north-of-7 corner of the world.

Tonight as I write this final pre-event post, what I am particularly excited about is the collection of historical material that you’ll find on display at the Community Centre. Raymond and I went up there this morning to join other volunteers in the scheduled setup session, only to discover that a lot of the setup work had already been done through long hours over the course of the previous week by indefatigable QCC volunteers Elaine and Lud Kapusta. Here is Elaine today, looking (justifiably) a little bit tired but (extremely justifiably) happy at the results of all that work:

The tireless Elaine Kapusta, at the close of an exhausting week of preparing displays for Historic Queensborough Day.

The display is incredible. If I hadn’t had to be so busy doing setup work today, I could have spent hours and hours going through it all. There are photos and documents about the schools, the churches, the women’s groups (Women’s Institute, Ladies’ Aid, United Church Women, etc.), the general stores, business and industry, the families of Queensborough – and it’s all just fascinating. Trust me: you will be immersed the moment you walk through the door.

Here are a few photos that I hope will whet your appetite:

The minutes of a meeting of the Queensborough Ladies’ Aid held Feb. 22, 1945, at Jennie Moore’s farm (1376 Queensborough Rd., which was the home of Leslie and Jean Holmes and their family when I was a kid in Queensborough a couple of decades later) – and, serendipitously, a photo of the participants in that very meeting. Can you name them? Stop by and share what you know!

Mr. J.H. Squires, proprietor in the very early 20th century of the flour (grist) mill around which Queensborough grew up in the 19th century, wrote multiple letters a day to suppliers, customers, and so on. A book containing copies of his letters has been preserved and makes for fascinating reading. In this one, he complains to the people at the Ogilvie Flour Mills, Montreal, that he is “doomed to trouble” on the rolled-oats front. The sacks of rolled oats, which must have been shipped from the Ogilvie people, “look as though they had been dropped into water” before being loaded onto the railway car bound for the Queensborough station, he reports. “They are yellowish green caked hard. Please cancel my other order for the 5 sacks due to come out in (railway) Car on 20th of Sept. These 2 sacks are not worth much only for feed & then not much more than one dollar a bag.” Poor Mr. Squires!

Hard-working Queensborough Community Centre Committee volunteers (from left, Barb Ramsay, Betty Sexsmith and Wendy Gordon) finally took a break from their labours late this afternoon to examine the displays, and reminisce. In which exercise I happily joined them.

Of all the great historical documents I saw today, this one clutches at my heart the most. It is a detailed bill from Bobbie Sager Ramsay’s general store, dated Oct. 31, 1969. In Bobbie’s handwriting! How many of those same bills came home with the groceries in paper sacks here at the Manse. And how wonderful to see one once again!

I think you get the picture. Whether you grew up in Queensborough and later moved away; or have lived here all your life; or have distant family connections with Queensborough; or whether you are just interested in local history and a small community that has a great story to tell and is still telling it – you are most welcome, and I think you’ll enjoy yourself mightily. See you there!

Nobody here but us dogs, cats and people

Here is Oliver, one of my favourites among Queensborough’s dogs and cats.

You won’t be surprised to know that when I was growing up in Queensborough many years ago, everybody knew everybody else. That is especially not surprising because Queensborough is so small. (Today it is smaller still, and by and large everybody still knows everybody else – though I think maybe a little less so than in the old days, something I attribute to the fact that our two general stores are no longer with us. It’s harder to get to know people who live in the area but work and buy their groceries and stuff in some larger centre. Whereas when everyone congregated at the general stores back in the days of in my childhood – for groceries, gas and most especially gossip – you really got to know everybody.)

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, not only did we all know each other, we also tended to know each other’s pets – their names, their habits, their personalities. “Oh, there’s (Allan Ramsay‘s big old dog) Jim – well, he’ll be heading back to the store (Bobbie’s store; Bobbie and Allan were eventually married, and that great story is here) for a nap.” (Napping was one of Jim’s favourite things, right over the heat register in the store. I can still hear Bobbie’s voice telling him forcefully, when she thought he should be napping rather than chatting with her customers, “Go lay down!”) Anyway, like that. And such pet knowledge really is the stuff of a small-town (actually small-hamlet) childhood, isn’t it?

Even today, though, in this rather less sociable world we live in (thanks to TV and the internet), Raymond and I aren’t doing too badly when it comes to picking up the names of the local dogs and cats. I haven’t yet learned the name of this friendly dog who came by for a visit and a nap in the shade of our mailbox one day…

… but I do know Princess, and Abby, and Rainman, and Oliver, and Fozzie, and Lin-Lin, and Roady, and Chester, and Leroy, and Mother, and Smokey. And sooner or later I’ll figure out the name of that skinny orange cat I keep seeing, the one who hangs out with his lookalike, Roady.

I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of living in a place where the local dogs and cats are, like the local people, your friends and neighbours.

Eldorado, then and now

“Downtown” Eldorado, looking south, probably somewhere between 90 and 100 years ago. The rather basic (to put it mildly) road running through it is what is today Highway 62. (Photo courtesy of Grant Ketcheson)

The same scene, more or less, photographed by me, January 2014. I love the fact that the former general store (at least, I assume that’s what it was) with the great verandah is still there.

Everybody loves then-and-now photos, right? Or is that just me? Well, anyway, since it’s my blog I’m going to say that everybody does. And I’m happy to say that, thanks – once again – to one of my wonderful readers, I have what I think is a cool set of then-and-now photos for you today, both featuring “downtown” Eldorado, a village in Madoc Township that is maybe seven miles from Queensborough (via Cedar School and Rimington Roads and Highway 62).

Eldorado’s main claim to fame is that it was the site of Ontario’s first gold rush, and that gold rush is of course what gave it its name. (El Dorado having been, as my handy online dictionary puts it, “an imaginary place of great wealth and opportunity; sought in South America by 16th-century explorers.”) Writer Isabella Shaw, who lives near Eldorado, has written a history of the area with a focus on the gold-rush years, called Quest for Gold. Eldorado was also the location of one of the two United churches in the Queensborough-Eldorado Pastoral Charge, of which my father, The Rev. Wendell Sedgwick, was minister between 1967 and 1975; you can read about the pastoral charge here.)

Anyway, the photo at the very top of the post shows Eldorado perhaps a little less than a century ago, with several townsfolk (all of whom look to be male) out for the photo-taking occasion. Note the Bell telephone sign outside what I assume was the general store; I imagine it would have been the only phone in town at the time. (Which makes me wonder whether one of the two general stores in Queensborough in my childhood, Bobbie’s and McMurray’s, might have once housed the only phone in Queensborough. Since the post office was at McMurray’s [until it, along with many rural post offices, was closed], I would put my money on that one if I were a betting woman.)

My source for the vintage photo tells me, “The aproned guy is the blacksmith” and that “The blacksmith shop was to the right, on John Street.”

What a remarkable look back in time!

But what I find most remarkable about the old photo is the road that you can see in it, running south in the direction of Madoc. That rutted, muddy and winding route, my friends, is the precursor of what we now know as beautifully smooth and straight Highway 62 (or, as older folks sometimes call it, “62 Highway”). And that’s one reason why I wanted to take a “now” photo. Let’s just say it makes a person realize that we don’t have much to complain about when it comes to the state of our roads.

Do you remember Green Stamps?

Pasting stamps into this buy-hundreds-of-dollars’-worth-of-groceries-and-get-a-free-knife card got me to thinking about the Green Stamps we collected in my 1960s childhood at the Manse.

The Foodland supermarket in Madoc (the town nearest the Manse in Queensborough) is encouraging people to shop there by giving customers stamps (one stamp per $10 spent, I believe) that you can paste on a card and, if you get enough, exchange for kitchen knives. Raymond and I don’t need kitchen knives particularly, but then again you can never have too many; and since we were spending the money on groceries anyway we figured we might as well take the stamps. While I was sticking them onto the card one recent day (still a long way from a free knife, as I discovered), I thought – for the first time in many a decade – of the green stamps people used to collect and exchange for – well, stuff. Mostly household stuff, but there were other things too (toys?), I think.

I have a vivid memory of my mum having those stamp books at the Manse, and how they bulged when they were full of pasted-in stamps. What I do not remember was where they came from. I can’t think that Bobbie’s or McMurray’s general stores – independent operations, obviously – gave them out, and I don’t recall it being the Kincaid Bros. IGA in Madoc either.

When I looked up green stamps just now, I learned that in the U.S. they were S&H (for the Sperry & Hutchison Company) Green Stamps, and I have to say the images looked familiar. Our friend Wikipedia has this to say:

S&H Green Stamps (also called Green Shield Stamps) were trading stamps popular in the United States from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry & Hutchinson company (S&H), founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson. During the 1960s, the rewards catalog printed by the company was the largest publication in the United States and the company issued three times as many stamps as the U.S. Postal Service. Customers would receive stamps at the checkout counter of supermarkets, department stores, and gasoline stations among other retailers, which could be redeemed for products in the catalog. 

But that’s the U.S., right? What about Canada? Well, I also discovered that Loblaws stores had a green-stamps program of their own, called Lucky Green Stamps. Here’s what it says on the Loblaws site:

1959 – Loblaws enters the trading stamp wars with its own “Lucky Green Stamps.” Featured on its saver books is Miss Lucky Green, a bright-eyed, pony tailed little girl. With wand in hand, she points the way to the “Magic World of Gifts” that awaits Loblaws shoppers. The Loblaws Lucky Green Stamp Gift Catalogue, with hundreds of household items to choose from, becomes a mainstay in many homes.

Trouble is, in Queensborough we were a long, long way from a Loblaws supermarket, so our Green Stamps couldn’t have come from there.

Anybody got any ideas?

Anyway, wherever they came from, I know that my mum did redeem them. I’m not really sure what items in the Manse came to us as a result of Green Stamps – with one exception. The one thing I am pretty sure of was a set of melamine dishes – turquoise! – that were perfect for a large (four kids) rambunctious young family. (I don’t think it is possible to break melamine dishes, though you can burn them. Don’t ask me how I know.) Where that set ended up I’ve no idea (the dump would be my best guess, more’s the pity), but the happy news is that Raymond and I have a replacement for it:

We found this set – the right colour and everything! – at some antiques-and-collectibles warehouse or other a few years ago. A little expensive, but I knew I’d be kicking myself if I passed it by. So the turquoise melamine dishes sit at the Manse, unused to date, but I’m sure their time will come.

Do you suppose the original owner got them with Green Stamps? I’d like to think so.

Of Actinolite bears, and picking up pop bottles

You never know what you’ll find on the internet: tonight I discovered this vintage postcard featuring Actinolite’s Buster and Bandy. It’s for sale by a U.S. collector here, but the sale ends tomorrow (March 19) and the price isn’t cheap. (Photo from delcampe.com)

Buster (or maybe Bandy) in the 1960s, behind bars at Price’s Log Cabin service station and restaurant on Highway 7. (Photo by J.A.S. Keay)

Longtime readers might remember my post from last July featuring Buster and Bandy, the caged Coke-drinking bears who were the star attraction back in the 1960s at Price’s Log Cabin Restaurant at Actinolite, just a few miles southeast of Queensborough on the Trans-Canada Highway. I also posted a couple of photos that my grandfather, the late J.A.S. Keay, had taken of the bears. Subsequently, another central Hastings County-based blog that I follow, Provost Family Cookbook & Archives, picked up one of those photos and asked readers if they remembered good old Buster and Bandy. (You can see the post here. And for a very entertaining music video that features Actinolite prominently and includes mention of the bears – though their names are incorrectly given as Mandy, Bandy and Moe – check out this post.)

The comments that came in to the Provost post were very entertaining; clearly people have very fond memories of the Actinolite bears. But one comment that was posted very recently was so great that I’m just going to quote it. Not only does Eugene have some good Buster and Bandy recollections, but he brought back another happy childhood memory. (Plus his signoff is classic.)

Yes i remember the bears. I was just a young boy. I’m 60 now. I grew up near Cloyne and we used to stop on our trips to Tweed. I remember giving them a pop. A pop wasn’t something us kids got regularly. 5 cents a bottle? I forget as i didn’t buy it. I just drank it. But we used to pick up empty bottles for a penny each. A dollar was a lot of money for a kid. 100 pop bottles. That was a lot of walking along the road. Polluters paid me haha. And i sold frogs. Now you can hardly use them for fishing. Times sure have changed in 60 yrs. i even thought in the future we would have a box that you ask a question and it would give you the answer. I’m typing on one of those. No flying cars yet though.

Now we collect them for their vintage look (Raymond and I found these in an antique mall in Stratford, Ont., last summer) but back when I was a kid, empty pop bottles meant cash for buying candy, and that was good stuff.

Good stuff, Eugene! I’m sure GM will be introducing the flying cars any day now. Meanwhile, thank you for reminding us all about the days of collecting pop bottles by the roadside. It’s hard to believe now, in these eco-conscious times we live in, but people used to toss soft-drink bottles out of car windows willy-nilly. We kids would get together and go for a walk along the roads outside of Queensborough and gather ’em up. I think by then the refund was up from a penny to 2¢ for a small bottle and 5¢ for a big one, but I could be wrong about that. As Eugene says, we kids benefitted from the polluters’ thoughtless ways. How exciting it was to take our collection of empty Coke, Pepsi, Crush, Pure Spring, Wilson’s, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper and Canada Dry bottles to Bobbie’s or McMurray’s general store and turn them into cash that could buy a pile of penny candy!

Ah, yes. Coke-drinking bears and bottle-collecting kids. And general stores.

Life was good.

The story of Bobbie’s wedding.

It took me about half a nanosecond to know which one was Bobbie when I saw this 1939 photo of a Queensborough United Church Sunday School class. There she is, front and centre, her eyes just as penetrating and all-knowing at the age of – what? 10, maybe? – as they were when I knew her as the village storekeeper and unofficial mayor. (Photo from the Marion Love collection, by way of Elaine Kapusta)

In a post several months ago I promised that one day I would tell the story of Bobbie’s wedding. Today is the day. I have been inspired by seeing a great old photo (sent by my Queensborough friend Elaine Kapusta) that features Bobbie as a little girl. She may be young, but she is so Bobbie in it – and the sight of it brought back a flood of memories.

All the time that I was growing up at the Queensborough Manse, and for many years after my family moved away, Bobbie Sager was the unofficial mayor of Queensborough. She ran one of the two general stores (and then, when McMurrays’ store closed, the only one). She was the Sunday School superintendent. She was the one who called out the numbers for seating at the St. Andrew’s United Church ham and turkey suppers. She held down alto in the church choir. She was the person my mum looked to for a diagnosis (chicken pox) when her eldest child (me) developed itchy red blotches all over my tummy. She was tall and strapping and strong, and very smart and very, very funny. She was an excellent and tough businesswoman. She had a soft spot for kids and was known to treat them with candy from her store. She knew everything that happened in Queensborough, and was discreet with the information – save for when spreading the news was called for.

She was, in short, a force of nature.

And for much of her life she was, to use the old-fashioned word, a spinster. All her siblings (one brother and four sisters, if I’m not mistaken) married, but Bobbie stayed single and lived at the family home, a handsome brick house a little south of St. Andrew’s United Church with her widowed mother, Elsie. (Her father, and Elsie’s husband, was Robert Sager, after whom Bobbie – Roberta – had doubtless been named. He was the proprietor of the store before her.)

The building that for many, many years housed Sager’s general store, operated first by Robert Sager and then by his daughter Roberta – Bobbie.

Bobbie’s store was in a large building that had an apartment in the back, and she rented that apartment to Allan Ramsay, of the Queensborough Ramsays. (There are a lot of Ramsays in Queensborough. Good folk.) Allan was a big, sturdy guy, owner of large trucks and heavy equipment, and did the things that owners of dump trucks and the like did. Since my father the part-time woodlot manager and farmer (and full-time United Church of Canada minister) was fond of doing things that required trucks and heavy equipment, he and Allan of course hit it off. “The Preacher and the Bear,” Bobbie used to laugh when she’d see them together.

Anyway, Allan lived in the back of the store and Bobbie ran the store and everyone had the sense that they sort of “kept company,” but that was that. Bobbie lived a ways up the road with Elsie, and continued to live alone in the big house long after Elsie died, when Bobbie was quite well into middle age. I am pretty sure everyone in and around Queensborough thought that was just the way things were, and that Bobbie would stay Bobbie Sager, spinster and mayor (mayoress?) forever.

Then one day in about 1973 or 1974, we four Sedgwick kids were told the biggest news, and the biggest secret, ever, by our parents: Bobbie and Allan were getting married. We had to be told because the secret ceremony was to take place at our house, the Manse, so of course we’d see what was going on. But we were sworn to secrecy and, I think because we would have instantly realized that this was the BIGGEST NEWS EVER TO HAPPEN in Queensborough, we just got the fact that this was not a secret to be told. To anyone. Under any circumstances.

(Actually, upon further reflection I am not 100-per-cent sure that all of us were told in advance. John and Ken, if you’re reading this: were you? Maybe it was just Melanie and me, the older ones.)

I did not tell, but I was bursting with that secret. The people of Queensborough would have been mad with excitement had they caught a whiff of the news. I remember being at a Thursday-evening choir practice at Bobbie’s house (where we always had choir practice) and playing Crazy Eights afterward with some of the choir members who stayed (a little choir-practice tradition). One of them was Bobbie’s own nephew, Gene Cassidy (son of her sister Bernice, who is second from left in the back row of the 1939 Sunday School photo at top, and her husband, Ken Cassidy), and I remember thinking: “Bobbie’s getting married in a couple of days and I know and almost nobody else, not even her own nephew, does!” It was very exciting.

Our choir leader, Katherine Burnside, did know; she and Bobbie were fast friends, and Katherine was maid of honour at the tiny ceremony. Gene’s older brother, Wayne, a chap of very few words, was Allan’s best man. (The story goes that when Wayne was leaving Ken and Bernice’s home to head for the Manse for the ceremony, one of his parents asked him where he was off to. He answered with the one thing that nobody would believe: “Bobbie’s wedding.” Of course they thought he was being just hilarious.)

Bobbie and Allan and Katherine and Wayne stood facing my father, The Rev. Wendell Sedgwick, in the Manse’s living room, and there Dad pronounced Bobbie and Allan man and wife. And Bobbie was proudly Bobbie Ramsay for the rest of her life.

A vey welcome late addition to this post: a photo of newly married Bobbie and Allan! And it was taken in the dining room of the Manse, right after the ceremony. My mother told me she had commissioned a cake for the occasion from a colleague at the high school in Madoc, where she taught. Don’t Bobbie and Allan look great? (Photo courtesy of Barbara [Sager] Martin, Bobbie’s sister, via Elaine Kapusta)

As I recall they departed on their honeymoon under cover of darkness, and as far as I know it was not until the next morning that the people of Queensborough learned the momentous, the stunning, the incredible news:

Bobbie’s gotten married!

Oh, that was some kerfuffle, let me tell you. “How? Where? When? How did they keep it secret?” It gave us all something to talk about for a long, long time. (Those of you who remember all this, please chime in with your stories!)

And then Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay came home from their honeymoon. And Allan moved into the big house with Bobbie. And Bobbie ran her store for many more years, and Allan drove his trucks and operated his heavy equipment. And they lived happily ever after.

Allan died a few years ago, not long after my father did; I remember Bobbie telling me at Dad‘s funeral that Allan couldn’t come because he wasn’t feeling well. And Bobbie herself died a few years after that. You can imagine how packed to the rafters St. Andrew’s United Church was for the funeral. And afterward during the social time (complete with a trademark Queensborough spread of great food, including of course platters of local cheddar cheese) many stories and memories were swapped.

And none was better than the story of Bobbie’s wedding.

Going to town. Would that be Madoc, or Tweed?

Tweed has one thing that Madoc does not: stoplights. Two sets! Madoc has only a flashing-red four-way stop at the main intersection. I wonder if the folks of Madoc wish they had stoplights too.

In my previous post, I got all enthused about the fact that tiny Castleton, Ont. (about 80 kilometres southwest of Queensborough in neighbouring Northumberland County) still boasts a bustling general store, and I mused about the chances of Queensborough being able to support one too.

I mentioned that “town” for Queensborough residents – that is, the place where they have to go to buy anything at all – is about 15 minutes away. (Which is why it seems so appealing, to me at least, that Queensborough would have a general store again, as we did – two stores, in fact, Bobbie’s and McMurray’s – back in the 1960s when I was a child at the Manse.)

“Town” for us is either Madoc or Tweed, which are about equidistant from Queensborough in opposite directions, although Madoc might be a minute or so closer. In the olden days when I was growing up, our “town” was Madoc; our postal address was a rural route of Madoc (which it still is), and we went to senior elementary school and high school there. It was the default position for “town.” But now Raymond and I now lean a bit more to Tweed, perhaps because Queensborough has been absorbed into the Greater Tweed municipal area. One all-important determinant for what “our” town is: Tweed is where we take our garbage (and recyclables) to the dump.

So what’s in “town”? Well, let’s have some fun with a “best of Madoc” and “best of Tweed” list. Caveat: I haven’t spent all that much time in either town in the few months since we’ve owned the Manse, which means that most of what I know or remember about them is from many decades ago. Those who know Madoc and Tweed better in their present incarnations should feel free to correct me, or offer your suggestions!

Madoc has:

• Quite a good Foodland supermarket, big and bright and with a thoroughly decent produce section (that’s my main guide for judging a supermarket). It’s also open till 10 p.m. every night, which is handy.
• A public library that’s much expanded from my Nancy Drew-borrowing days, with an archives/research setup and space for arts displays and public readings. I haven’t yet had time to visit, but I look forward to doing so.
• A medical clinic, with at least one doctor and dentist and sundry other practitioners.
• What looks like a great kids’ skatepark and water park and all-round good playground and activity space. When we drove by on a sweltering day recently I was really wishing I could get away with joining the little tykes splashing in the water fountains.
• A throughly excellent – and I mean excellent – butcher, the One Stop Butcher Shop. Their steaks, sausages (house-made) and so on are superb, and the service is friendly and funny.
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  This is the screened-in rear verandah of The Barley restaurant and pub, looking out over Deer Creek in Madoc. A lovely place for lunch or dinner.

  A really nice restaurant/pub called The Barley. Cozy in winter thanks to wooden floors and ceiling and a roaring fireplace; lovely in summer because there’s a screened-in terrace right beside the creek that runs through Madoc. It’s in the town’s old firehall and has been restored and renovated very nicely.The first time I walked through the door I said, “This is in Madoc???” (Sorry, Madoc. That was unfair, and I’ve since learned my lesson.) They have amazing fish and chips and very good steaks (from across the street at the One Stop Butcher Shop).

• The Hidden Goldmine Bakery, which I’ve written about before but that has just recently moved into much bigger new digs in the centre of town, where long ago the Kincaid Bros. IGA store was. Everything Hidden Goldmine makes is amazing, but I am particularly partial to their chocolate-chip cookies, which I think are the best in the whole world.

Tweed has:

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  The Tweed Heritage Centre, run by the indefatigable Evan Morton, is a happening place.

  Well, the highlight has to be the Tweed Heritage Centre, a wonderland of heritage information about the area, all lovingly collected and tended by the amazing Evan Morton, whose energy never seems to flag. There are archives, displays, collections, artwork, books, stuff for sale – it’s absolutely amazing.

• Not one but two Home Hardware stores – one focused primarily on building supplies and home renovation, the other more a general hardware store – that have supplied us with many an item. (Mind you, so has the Home Hardware in Madoc. Maybe I should buy some shares in Home Hardware, since we’re getting to be their best customers…)
• The Old Cheese Factory, a lovely shop in a historic stone building on the northern edge of town. All manner of fresh and frozen prepared foods for sale, as well as kitchen stuff, giftware, and even furniture.
• Quinn’s of Tweed, a store that has been there forever but that has morphed into an art gallery, a great display space for the work of local artists. It adds a real touch of class to the main street.
• The Skootamatta River, which runs very prettily right through town.
• The Tweed News, a great old-fashioned extremely local weekly newspaper. It’s a hugely wide broadsheet like they just don’t make anymore. Dedicated to local coverage, and they do a very good job. I also like the fact that the News’s offices on the main street double as a stationery and office-supplies store – something that small-town papers used to do but that you rarely see these days.
• The Elvis Festival. Oh dear, should I mention the Elvis Festival? Well, let’s put it this way: it’s a big deal for Tweed, and if you’re an Elvis fan (or maybe more to the point, an Elvis-imitators fan), it might be right up your alley. (This year’s edition is Aug. 24, 25 and 26.) But let’s just say you probably won’t see Raymond and me there.

So there you have it: a highly personal tour of the interesting things we’ve found in our two towns. I look forward to adding to those lists as we get to know Madoc and Tweed a little bit better – in my case, all over again.

A kindred spirit

What a find! A wonderful blog about heritage architecture, history, and Hastings County. Note at top right the Building of the Week: Bobbie Sager’s general store in Queensborough! The blog is at ancestralroofs.blogspot.com.

Thanks to our Queensborough pal Elaine Kapusta, we have discovered a wonderful blog about heritage architecture, with a special focus on Hastings County. It’s called Ancestral Roofs, and you can look at it here – and please do. The photos are gorgeous, and the writing is informed and lively.

In the main panel at left are posts about the writer’s travels and discoveries in Hastings County and elsewhere; down the right hand side are many more photos. It is one of the handsomest and best-written blogs I know. (Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the subject matter is dear to my heart.) Also provided are links to other good heritage and architecture sites (the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, Heritage Canada, Archives of Ontario, Ontario Heritage Trust, etc.) and some well-chosen suggested books.

Ancestral Roofs’ post about a trip to Queensborough, featuring a lovely photo of the 1845 Thompson house

Two of the most recent posts, here and here, are about Queensborough. One is about the grand style of the building that was McMurray’s store, and the other is more about the community generally and Elaine’s family’s historic property specifically. There’s a beautiful photo of the 1845 home owned by Elaine and her husband, Lud, and one of the mill building and the dam in the river. And it contains the very intriguing tidbit that Sir John A. Macdonald is supposed to have briefly owned 11 lots in the area. Now that’s worth investigating!

Of Queensborough, Ancestral Roofs says: “The village calls me back.”

I know what that feels like.