Why I Moved to the Country: Reason #70

No matter where I have lived, there has never been a time when I didn't take an interest in learning about the local history. A whole new set of challenges crop up, however, when you're trying to learn about the history of a rural area. There are fewer books, photographs or museum exhibits testifying to rural life. To date, our best resource has been word of mouth from long time residents, which is pretty much everyone except us. We have yet to determine who the original occupants of the old farmhouse were but I'm itching to find out. It will likely require a visit to the city records office and we have that on our list for fun times during our summer holidays. Exploring our local heritage is a wonderful way to become part of our local comunity and is a fun summer activity while we very patiently wait for harvest time to roll around.

In the meantime, I've been browsing these books the Artist stumbled upon at our local library branch. It seems our nearby village was a bustling community at the turn of the previous century. During the 1860s, the same time the old farmhouse was constructed, the village was home to 67 dwellings, 7 stores, 1 tavern, 1 cooper shop, 4 blacksmith shops, 2 wagon shops, 1 bakery, 3 tailor and millinery shops, 2 saddle and harness shops, 3 saw mills, 1 grist mill, 3 shoe shops, 1 woolen factory, 1 pottery, 1 oil refinery, 1 school and 2 churches. Today, there is the library, the post office, a variety store, a feed store and 1 church. There are farm markets, of course, an electrical contractor and probably a few other home based businesses but when comparing store front to store front, times have certainly changed.

There is still a sense of community, people are friendly and always willing to help out for various community events, including a large celebration for Canada Day.

Do you like the gratuitous background I used in the photo above?

It's another thrift store find. It's a hand sewn quilt for a single bed. The reverse is white; each tiny stitch is impossibly perfect and the radiating floral pattern in the centre is just beautiful. What I really love about this quilt, though, is that it's the same style of work that my great grandmother used to make. My mom still has one or two that my 'Big Grandma' made. (That was the moniker given to her to differentiate between her and my grandmother.)

I can still remember going into the dark, low ceiling basement of her old house, quite scared of the ominous furnace at the end, but also quite enthralled with whatever large quilt she had set up in the frame waiting for her to sit and stitch a spell. I used to crawl underneath and look at the pattern from the bottom up, but only for a minute; there were Chinese checkers upstairs, calling my name.

~Be well friends~