I just clicked "Submit" on the online application form. The supporting documentation is all neatly collated, with covering pages, labelled with the application number, and in an envelope which is addressed and ready to go.

Our application for operating funding from BC Arts Council is done! This is a big one - I've worked on it almost exclusively for the past week. It feels good to get it off my desk, figuratively speaking.

I'm going up to the post office right now to mail it, so I can get it off my desk, literally speaking.

Kathryn was in a couple of days ago. She's starting to work on our 2013 feature exhibit, "Elemental" and is starting by going through some of the compiled histories we have here, looking for references to forest fires, floods, windstorms, and other natural disasters that we might want to include.

She began with this book:



It's called In One Ear: Rambling Reminscences of Creston Valley 1911-1936, and it was written by R.G. Penson, whose family came to Erickson in 1911. It's a great book, lots of fantastic information and fun anecdotes about the valley's (and especially Erickson's) early years, and even a kind of guided tour of downtown and Erickson.  Our conversation went something like this:

Kathryn: "I love this book! I just wish he'd pinpointed the locations a little better, so I could know exactly where he's talking about."

Me: "I recognise some of the landmarks. One of these days, I'm taking that book on a field trip and following his route - match up his stories with what's there now."

Kathryn: "Are you selling tickets on that field trip?"

Me: "Well now, isn't that just the most brilliant idea I've heard in a long time!"

We need a bus.

Today, one of my favourite local long-timers, Ethel V., sent me a little note. She'd heard that I make the occasional jar of jam (!) and thought I might be interested in these instructions on how to make jelly - the old-fashioned way:



Early morning you bathe and nurse your baby and put it down for its morning nap.  Dress and send the bigger kids out to play.

Assemble your utensils:
Two large heavy pots and one long-handled wooden spoon
Sterilised jam jars
Two chairs
Broom stick
Twelve or more clothes pins
One block of paraffin wax
Clean white pillow case
A box of good dry wood by the stove

Stoke up the stove even though it's ninety degrees outside.

Put well-washed fruit in one of the large pots, cover with water, and place on the hottest part of the stove. Cook the *%$* out of it.

Place the broom handle over the back of two chairs.

Drape the pillow case over the other post and make a hammock in the middle of the pot.  Secure the pillow case with clothes pegs around the rim of the pot.

When the fruit on the stove is cooked to a mush, remove it from the stove and carefully pour into the pillow case, making sure none of the clothes pegs come loose.  If the mush goes into the juice you have to repeat the whole procedure.

As soon as it's cool enough, remove the clothes pegs, and twist the pillow case tighter and tighter, squeezing out as much juice as you can.

Carefully place the pot with the juice under the broom stick. Tie the pillow case to the broom stick and keep twisting. Leave the jelly bag to drip.

After the kids have been put to bed, stoke up the fire, put your juice on the hottest part of the stove, add a ton of sugar and bring to a boil.

Stirring constantly, when you lift your spoon up from the boiling juice and a blob forms on the bottom of the spoon and one drop slowly drops your jelly is ready.  Leaving it any longer and it will crystallize, according to the old wives tale.  Never happened to me.

Remove the jelly from the stove and pour into your sterilized jars. Pour melted paraffin wax on top of the jelly. When the wax has hardened put on the lids and put it into the fruit cellar.

On a cold winter day, bring up a jar of jelly, remove the lid, dig out the paraffin wax, take a spoon and remove the mold from the top of the jar, wipe the remnants from around the top of the jar and serve.  It's delicious!

I can tell you right now - there are a whole lot of things on that list of utensils
that have never made an appearance when I'm making jelly! And one thing that Ethel doesn't mention, but which anyone who has made pectin-free jam can attest, it takes a LONG time to get that blob-and-one-slow-drop on your spoon that tells you when your jelly is ready. That's why I go straight to my favourite liquid pectin! Since Certo was invented in something like 1905, I figure I'm still making jams and jellies "the old-fashioned way" using it.

And that reference to mold on the jars? Ick! But probably the main reason why paraffin is no longer recommended for sealing jams and jellies! Though Mom always used that method on the jam I grew up eating, and I survived with no ill effects (but I don't remember having to scrape mold off the top).

Thanks for the laugh, Ethel!

Wow that's really awesome.

Sweyn Gartland came in today.  Several weeks ago he'd brought me a little book he'd written, called "Logging Daze" - a history of his life in the logging industry of the Creston Valley. I've been enjoying it very much.

Today, he brought in this photo of his father, Johannes Severin Gartland:



Johannes was, Mr. Gartland told me, a tie hacker - and a very good one at that.  You can see him in this photo, taken about 1920 at the Bull River Tie Camp, standing on a log he was hewing into square railway ties.  in the bottom right corner of the photo is the chunk of log that he's already squared off on one side.

Look closely. That cut is so straight, it looks like sawn lumber out of a mill.

Mr. Gartland said his father "could hew both sides of building logs straight as a die," using only the tools of the trade shown in the photo: the broad axe (which Johannes is holding in the photo), a picaroon (hard to see here - it's wedged into a tie just to the right of Johannes: essentially a hook with a handle that got stabbed into the tie to move it), a D-handle cross-cut saw, and a scoring axe (in the stump on the very right edge).

When he was over 40 years old, he could hand-hew sixty railway ties a day. The average was about 40.  There were other guys who could match him - but they were twenty years younger.

Remember a few weeks ago I said we would soon be taking apart the Ladies Parlour display in the Loft, to make way for some important renovations?  Well, today we ("we" meaning James - I spent the day writing grant applicatiosn and getting sidetracked by no news in old newspapers) started doing just that.

James began by removing the objects on display on the shelves at the end of the Loft today: the ladies' toiletries:



and the men's toiletries:



You can see he started by arranging everything according to the type of artifact - that way, when he puts things in boxes, similar artifacts all wind up together. That kind of care and attention helps ensure that artifacts don't get damaged when they're in storage, but it also means that taking down an entire exhibit can be a rather time-consuming process. That's why I'm so glad we have James here for a couple more weeks, and why we're starting to take the display down now instead of waiting until just before we begin the renovations (hopefully in early November).

One of the artifacts James brought over to the storage areas was, I think, worth posting a photo of. Let's call it the "Cool Object of the Day" for today, even though it's been in our collection for years.  Though, I admit, in this case, it's not so much cool as creepy:



It's a purse, made from an armadillo. The creepy part is that you have to lift up the poor creature's head and reach down his throat to get anything in or out of the purse.  And the really creepy part is that there are, apparently, a lot of these things around - just google "armadillo purse" and you'll see what I mean.

I can't imagine what would lead anyone to make even one of these things out of a stray armadillo!

James and I spent the whole day tidying and organising, because, as I mentioned this morning, the office has got pretty chaotic due to a number of events, displays, and other projects all happening at once.Here's what we started with:



And here's what we have now:



There's still a stack of objects waiting to be catalogued (there is always a stack of objects waiting to be catalogued!), but we've moved them over to the awkward corner to create a usable working space at the very back of the office. We've also cleared a small workspace on the left, and it'll get bigger as we work away at the boxes of documents that need to be filed (that's one of our ongoing projects).

The items on consignment from the gift shop are all boxed up and ready for their owners to pick up; in fact, we've had a couple of boxes go home already today. The remnants of two exhibits have been put away, and the third one is neatly boxed and just waiting to go back to its home (we ran out of time and energy!). A whole bunch of costumes, brought in from time to time by volunteers working at our Old-Fashioned Tea in August, have gone back to the costume storage bins in the Carr Building (James made about fifty treks across the parking lot and up the stairs - thanks James!). And we have three work spaces clear in the middle of the room.

So do I get a gold star now?

The busy summer season is over. I've got the notices of our Annual General Meeting, and the invitations to our Volunteer Dinner, in the mail. James is here, taking down the Depression-era exhibit and giving tours to anyone who drops in. This month's article for I Love Creston just got emailed. I have the BC Arts Council grant to write, but all day tomorrow with nothing but that on my to-do list. So here's today's project:



Yep, that's the Archives office. There are some remains of the Fall Fair display on the right that need to be put away. A box in the centre needs to be filled with artifacts coming off of display, labelled, and put up in the storage areas. Two boxes on the floor next to the desk are filled with consignment items coming out of the gift shop; they need to be packed up, statemented, and returned to the artisans. The boxes on the desk in the middle are filled with artwork and signs from our Art/History exhibit, which got taken down last week. There are two plastic boxes on the table to the left that have embroidered pieces and reproductions, also from the Fall Fair - the display of the project we did with the Creston Valley Embroidery Guild; it all needs to be put away. I have no idea what's in the red box farther back, and at the very back is a stack of recently-donated objects that needs to be organised, at least - though I think I may leave the cataloguing for Helen when she's in on Wednesday.

We get so busy at this time of year, it's easy to just stack things up and deal with them later, while we turn our attention to whatever is next on the calendar. Well, today is "later" and I'm dealing with it.

I think I'm going to be busy. But I'll take an "After" picture and post it this evening. Then you can all congratulate me on how much better the place looks.

Well, today wasn't exactly the thrillingest day I've ever had. James and I spent most of it printing, folding, stuffing, stamping, and sealing - it's newsletter time! James at least got to take a bit of a break from that when a couple of tours came in.

The newsletter is one way we keep our members up-to-date on what we're doing, and probably the most important announcement in today's issue is our Annual General Meeting coming up on October 9. All members are encouraged to attend, and non-members are more than welcome (though you do need to be a member if you want to vote on anything). One of the topics for discussion at the AGM is our membership structure and membership benefits. I'll be posting details about that tomorrow, which you can access through the "Annual General Meeting" link on the right.

The other thing we're sending out is an invitation, to all our volunteers, for our Volunteer Dinner, which also takes place on October 9. If you've done some volunteer work for us in the past year, you'll be getting your invitation either by mail or email within a day or two. If you don't, please please please give me a call (250-428-9262) or email (mail@creston.museum.bc.ca).

It took us about an hour and half to hang approximately 75 quilts and wall hangings in the Museum this afternoon. I'm not going to show you very many of them - because they're so much more impressive in person - but here are a couple of photos as a sneak preview of tomorrow's show:



This is part of Founders' Hall, and you can see we still have quite a bit of some exhibits showing - in this case, the forestry display. We do that because a lot of quilting ladies drag their husbands along, and we've got to have something for the guys to look at!  But in other sections of the Museum, like the dining room:



The displays are really only peeking out from behind and underneath the quilts. So the Museum looks totally different from its usual state!

The show opens at 10:00 tomorrow morning (September 15) - and that's when we'll be unveiling the very special "Slice of Creston" quilt.

Thanks to all the quilters who have loaned quilts for the show, and thanks to Bunny, Joanna, Kate, Erich, and James for hanging them!

Yesterday, the Creston Museum turned thirty, having opened to the community on 12 September 1982. It's a birthdate that's easy to miss - what with Fall Fair and Quilt Show and a steady stream of visitors, this is a pretty busy time of year for us.  Planning a big birthday bash in the midst of all that is a bit too much. But thirty years is still well worth celebrating, so...



I have been going through records of objects that have been donated over the past three decades, choosing my favourite from each year. It's a big job - we're talking thousands of artifacts, photographs, and documents, so I haven't quite finished yet.  But, starting on October 1, I will show you my picks for our Top 30 Objects. I've been finding it very hard to make some decisions for some years, so there might be a few runners-up too.



Watch for 1983's top pick on October 1, and a new object for each year on each of the following 29 days. Thirty objects for thirty years will take us to October 30, and on October 31 I'll open it up to your votes so you can help me choose the best object in the whole Museum collection.

Can't wait?  Me neither.  Guess I'd better get busy and finish choosing my top 30 picks!

Last Sunday, I got a phone call from Pat Bolton, in Campbell River, asking if we'd be interested in a couple of quilts to add to our collection.



They're older quilts, and she wasn't sure how old they are, but they were made by Mrs. Olson, Clarence Olson's mother, who lived in the Creston area. She gave them to Doris Bolton, and Doris gave them to her daughter Heather, and Heather's sister-in-law Pat felt they should come home to Creston. They arrived in the mail this morning.



I don't know anything about Mrs. Olson, but we have a photo of Clarence Olson rowing out to feed his chickens, on his farm in Goat River Bottom, during high water in the late 1950s or early 1960s. That gives us some idea, at least, of how long the family has been in the valley, and how old the quilts might be.

I'll try to have more information for you by the time the Quilt Show opens on Saturday!

Community museums are all about preserving memories. That's why we record the stories behind the artifacts we collect, why we ask people to contribute to our exhibits, and so on. It's why our "Own-A-Stone" program is so popular. And it's why we now have this bench alongside the schoolhouse:



The family of Wes Ducharme, who passed away a little over two years ago, brought this in in his memory this past Saturday. They'd first talked to us about it quite some time ago, then had to get the bench engraved.  It reads:
"Loving Memory of Wesley Ducharme: Son, Brother, Husband, Dad, & Uncle."

I haven't had much time or energy for blogging these last few days, because of the Creston Valley Fall Fair. Between finishing our exhibit (on th erole of women in local agriculture), setting it up, and then staffing it throughout the fair, it's been a pretty busy few days!

The Fall Fair has had a scarecrow contest for may years now, and I've been wanting to enter it every year - but was having a little trouble finding inspiration for a unique scarecrow. But this year, thanks to a combination of my summer students' creation of "Suffragette Sue":



and this great photograph of Winifred Collis on a picking ladder in full Edwardian regalia:



we came up with this:



This is Farmer Frannie, and she represents all the women who have done so much to establish and maintain the agriculture industry in the Creston Valley. I admit, she's not a very scary scarecrow (though she did get an honourable mention), but she did get a lot of attention. She was probably one of the most photographed things at the fair, and it was kind of funny how many people had to look twice to make sure she wasn't a real person up on that picking ladder!

Hmmm. From "Suffragette Sue" to "Farmer Frannie" - I wonder who she'll show up as next?

As I promised yesterday, I'm going to introduce you to James today:



That's him on the left, along with Carol, one of our awesome volunteer tour guides, working on our Fall Fair exhibit for this weekend. James is here full-time until the beginning of October, thanks to a program at Kootenay Employment Services. Right now, in addition to doing a lot of the work on the Fall Fair display, he's also giving very good tours of the Museum (which is a huge bonus at this time of year - makes it much easier to staff the Museum for September!), and, after September 15, he'll be helping me take down a couple of exhibit sthat are scheduled for replacement.

So, welcome James (a little late, admittedly), and everyone else, please feel free to come down and see him!

It was a pretty quiet day at the Museum today, which is a little disappointing - especially when we look back on some of the crazy-busy days we've had lately. But in a way, it's a good thing, because it meant James and I could spend most of the day working on things for the Fall Fair. (Which reminds me, I haven't properly introduced James to you yet, have I? I will do that tomorrow!)

As you may know, a big part of the Fall Fair's mission (and that of the provincial Agricultural Fair Association) is to educate its visitors about the importance of agriculture. So, since the 1998 Fall Fair, the Museum has partnered with the Fall Fair committee to help do that.  The committee needs educational and interesting exhibits; we have a whole museum full of stuff that illustrates the changing role of agriculture in the community (and, often, a burning question we'd like public input on). Last year we asked "Where Have All the Apples Gone" (and had a couple local growers walking around the fair talking to themselves as they tried to recall the varieties of apples in their orchards!); and I think the most popular theme we ever had was "The History of an Apple Pie" (we had samples).  This year, as you'll know if you've been reading some of my recent posts, we're looking at the roles of women in the local agricultural scene (very busy, and very diverse, as you might guess). It will be a big display near the stage, in the main arena. There will be lots of photographs and artifacts for you to enjoy, and, as always, we look forward to hearing your stories!

We're also working with the convenors of the needlework section to bring you a little exhibit called "Stitches in Time." It's the result of a project we undertook last winter with the Creston Valley Embroidery Guild to reproduce, and create patterns for, a number of vintage embroidered items in the Museum's collection. We might also have a collection of antique tins and cooking untensils in the baking section. And, for the first time this year, part of the Museum's camera collection will decorate the photography section.

We hope to see you there!

As you may know, for the past several years (since November 2009, I think), I've been doing a little segment on CIDO Radio called "This Day in Local History." I'd find little tidbits of news, mostly from the old newspapers, and talk about them on the anniversary of the day they happened.

At first, we did this every weekday. Then, due to changes at the radio station, it was Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, then just Wednesdays and Fridays. For the past year or so, it's only been on Friday mornings - which meant we'd have a whole week's worth of things to talk about, and we got some pretty strange assortments.  This morning, for example, it was the advent of delivery by truck (rather than train), a dispute over the ownership of the Bluebell Mine, a weather report from August 1929, and stats for the number of visitors to the Goat River Dam.

But that was the last one. Dave St-Germain, the Friday morning host, said this morning was his last morning show. So no more "On This Day" broadcasts for me, at least for the time being.

If you want to catch all the latest (old) gossip, though, you still can - check out I Love Creston's Daily Buzz on Friday mornings, or follow us on Facebook, because I regularly post tidbits from local history in both places.

I had some time today, between tours of the Museum, to think some more about our exhibit for the Creston Valley Fall Fair.  The theme, as you may recall, will be "Women in Agriculture." So today I made some notes on the various roles women have played in the local fruit-growing industry.  here's what I have so far:

Women as Farm Labour: Everything from helping plant and plough, to helping harvest. The farmer's wives who worked as equal partners with their husbands on their ranches, and the Doukhobor, First Nations, and other women who were hired specifically to pick local crops.

Women as Support Staff: The women who played a supporting role - they might not have been out in the fields or the orchards, but they were an important part of the agricultural process. This includes the women who cooked the meals for dozens of hungry harvesters, as well as the Red Cross ladies who provided soup and sandwiches for the men who were attempting to prevent the floods on the farmlands in 1948.

Women as Breadwinners: This might seem a little strange when you think of the traditional (read: in the home) roles of women in local history - the "breadwinners" were generally men.  But in terms of agriculture, often it was the women who prepared the final products for sale.  Butter, eggs, cheese, cream and milk - all sent to local co-op stores or the creamery, generating important revenues for the family, and almost always the domain of women. Same for kitchen gardens, and the vegetables that were sold. Packing fruit for sale; running the roadside stands - much of this activity was done by women. Not to mention the hours of canning and preserving and storing the fresh produce, so that it would feed their families over the winter.

Women in Industry: Sorting and packing apples in the packing sheds; sorting the peas in the Pea Shed; running the canning lines in the cannery. Running their own businesses - Rovon eggs, the poultry farm in Wynndel, etc. Granted, this becomes more prevalent in more recent times, but there are a few examples from Creston's early years, such as Annie Ryckman, who operated one of the first commerical greenhouses.

Women as Leaders and Innovators: Again, Annie Ryckman comes to mind.  Amy Kelsey and her World Wheat Queen titles.  Women who worked with Future Farmers of America, or the local 4H clubs (when did those start, anyway?). Do we have any examples of women who worked with local, provincial, or national organisations to influence policy or implement change in agricultural practices on a broader scale?

What have I missed?

Well, it's the end of August and we are rapidly approaching the end of the Museum's summer season. I'd just like to take a moment to remind you of some big changes that will be happening around here over the fall and winter.
First, "The Loft" display is going to be removed. This is the ladies parlour, and it hasn't changed in something like eighteen years, so it's time - and well past time to get some of the fragile objects off display, particularly these 100+ year-old wedding dresses.

It will still be sad to see this display taken down, though - it's one of my favourites, as well as one of the favourites of our visitors. We'll be replacing it with a new exhibit on the role of women in local history, and hopefully that display will become a new favourite.
We'll also be taking down our feature exhibit for 2012. "Getting By and Coming Through" looks at the Great Depression in the Creston Valley. It won't be disappearing altogether, though, because we're working on an online version - coming to computer screen near you soon! This one needs to come down to make way for our 2013 feature exhibit: "Elemental - Earth, Wind, Fire and Flood in the Creston Valley"
Which reminds me - if you know of any forest fires, floods, land slides, or windstorms that we should include in this exhibit, please let me know! Photographs and/or film footage of them would be fantastic.  We are going to focus on natural disasters - forest fires rather than structure fires, for example - even though I know for a fact that by doing so, we'll have people telling us we should have included the Mercantile fire of 1949!
So, if you haven't seen these two exhibits - or if you have and want to see them again before they're gone - make sure you come down and visit the Museum before September 15. We're open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 - 3:30 until then.
That's right, only sixteen more visiting days before the end of the season.
We'll still be around and happy to take you through the Museum after that, of course, but we'll start taking down these exhibits on September 16. So don't wait!

Ethan's last day of work was last Friday.  Laura, Krista, and Christiana worked their last shifts today. They're all going back to school, and, as usual, it's hard to believe how fast the summer has flown by!

But we have accomplished a lot!  Great events, from our very fun Found-Art Challenge to the best Old-Fashioned Tea we've ever had; Krista has put together new ehxibits in the Outdoor Shed; and Christiana made great strides towards completing an inventory of our storage areas.

We still have James working with us, for another five weeks, thanks to support from Kootenay Employment Services. He'll be primarily giving tours and staffing the gift shop, helping put the Quilt Show together, and working on our display for the Fall Fair.  It's going to be a busy few weeks!

But, because we're down to James, me, and some awesome volunteers for staff, we can't quite manage to keep the Museum open seven days a week as we did all summer. So, until September 15, we'll be open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 to 3:30.  And, as always, we look forward to seeing you!

That is a Singer Featherweight and they are a very reliable little machine much loved by quilters.

Do you ever have one of those moments when it seems obvious that the universe works in really mysterious ways?

This morning, a man came in and asked if we would be interested in having a sewing machine. My first thought was "NOT another treadle sewing machine!" but fortunately he was offering us an electric Singer from the 1940s. That is something we don't have in the collection, so I said sure, we could find a home for it.  He left, saying he would bring it in soon.



Not even fifteen minutes later, a woman came in, carrying a black case, asking if we were interested in having a sewing machine. Since what she was carrying was obviously not  a treadle machine, my first thought was, "This must be the one the man was talking about earlier." My second thought was, "Wow, they got it here fast!" But, no, her 1940s Singer electric machine is not the same one that we'd been offered fifteen minutes before.

That's a little bit spooky. In the fourteen years I've been here, no one has ever offered us an electric sewing machine of any description. And now, within the space of fifteen minutes, we were offered two that are virtually identical (I think - I haven't seen the first one we were offered yet!).

I haven't plugged the one we've already got in yet, but it looks like it's in really good condition.  There's even still thread in the bobbin. And it comes with the instruction manuals.  Anyone want an old-fashioned sewing bee?

Some days, I think the fates must be conspiring to get me sidetracked, and today is one of those days.

I'm trying to get as many little tasks done as I can, before my summer students all go back to class (their last day is Saturday). So today, I sent off replies to a couple of research requests. One person was asking for photos of Sirdar, so I sent him these ones:

Photo 1:


This one shows the CPR's coal station and water tower at Sirdar, with the bunkhouse for the train and steamship crews in the background.

Photo 2:


and this is a close-up photo of the station itself.  I had previously sent him this photo:

Photo 3:


which is a really neat photo, because it shows Sirdar about 1930 - at the pivotal moment of its life. You can see the CPR tracks and staton on the far left, and that's the present-day highway going right down the middle. The photo was taken just before the CPR opened the track along the west shore of Kootenay Lake, and therefore just before Sirdar lost its importance as the last land-based community before the long trestle across the south end of Kootenay Lake. That little geographic fact is the whole reason Sirdar had the coaling station, water tower, and bunkhouse in the first place.

The person I sent these photos to sent me one in return (trading photos is a fairly common occurrence around here) - a great, if somewhat grainy, photo of the Sirdar CPR station:

Photo 4:


While digging out the photos above, I noticed this one, showing "downtown" Sirdar:

Photo 5:


and it occurred to me to wonder where these buildings were in relation to the others in the photos. I managed not to get too sidetracked, though - at least until I went up to ImagineInk to copy a totally unrelated photo for another researcher. Warren there mentioned a photo he'd printed today for someone else (and I hope you don't mind that I've "borrowed" it, because really, it's a fantastic photo):

Photo 6:


It shows Sirdar about 1910, the photo's taken from on the hill above th etown, and some very nice person has labelled all the major buildings.That bright flat line on the centre right is a row of flatcars on the track; just in behind them are the hotel and store shown in the fifth photo above (the store is white in the lower photo). The station and turntable are near the centre of the photo, just to the left of the crease, and to the left of that you can see the boardinghouse and water tower sticking up into the sky.

So here's the mystery: Most of these photos clearly show the CPR station on the lake (west) side of the tracks. Now, go back to Photo 2 (the CPR station) and compare it to Photo 4 (also the CPR station). Obviously, the station has been added on to, but here's the really big question: what happened to the mountain behind the smaller station? Did they move the station (because in Photo 2 it looks like it was on the east side of the tracks), or was it on the west side and they moved the mountain?

Just like to say a quick hello and welcome to the Class of 1962, in town celebrating their fifty-year high school reunion this weekend!



I'm sure some of you will recognise that photo from the 1962 yearbook! I loved reading through the "Last Will and Testament" section, by the way - all the things that you left to the students following behind you.  Here are a couple of my favourites:

"My ability to stay awake in English 91" (Don Preston)
"Four worn-out loose-leafs and advice to do homework" (Michael McKee)
"My ability to look innocent under dire circumstances, and get away with it." (Linda Oleshko)
"My ability of remembering the answers, but forgetting what questions they belong to." (Clive Wilson)

Enjoy your reunion!

We have a lot of old books in the Museum's collection. Since we're in the local history business, and not the "let's collect old books" business, we tend to be a little careful about accepting more books into the collection - otherwise we would be quickly overwhelmed by them. About the only thing we use old books for is as an illustrative piece in an exhibit, and really, a couple of novels, a cookbook or two from different eras, a few school textbooks on different subjects, and that's about as much as we need.

We also have a couple of sets of encyclopedias - one about a hundred years old, and one about fifty years old - because they serve as excellent references for technology and events of the past.  Google is becoming more and more of a reliable resource, but can't quite match the old encyclopedieas in all respects yet.

But every now and then, we're offered a book that we just can't pass up, and today was one of those occasions. Tim Ottley brought in five books, actually - a four-volume encyclopaedia of the history and biography of British Columbia, and this book:



It's Sixty Years of Progress, British Columbia, and was published in 1913 (the encyclopaedia's from 1914). It was written by E.O.S. Scholefield and R.E. Gosnell, two of the first Provincial Librarians in the province. In and of itself, it's a fantastic reference book for the province's early hisotry and the people who built it (even if, apparently, women weren't invented yet - not a single women is included in the biographies). The information is far more detailed than you would find, in most cases, on the Internet.

More than that, this book is a fantastic display piece. It's in really good condition, with a suede cover, binding in great shape, and only a couple of loose pages. Although we don't have a display space in mind for it yet, I'm sure it will make its way into one of them sooner or later.

But, even better than all of that, it has a really good local story behind it.  Mr. Ottley got it from Prince Charles High School in 1970, when the librarian, Isabel Lewis, "rescued" it from use as a prop in the drama department. Its size - and it is a big book, about 10" x 13" and four inches thick - meant it showed really well on stage. The High School apparently got it from the Creston Library: there's a hand-written note on the frontspiece which reads, "Presented to Creston Public Library from Col. E. Mallandaine's collection, August 10, 1949."  Edward Mallandaine, as you may know, was one of the community's "founding fathers," having come to Creston in the early 1890s and becoming involved in many of the community's early organisations (his biography appears in the book, of course, and he has added some details beneath his photograph). And Col. Mallandaine, presumably, acquired it in 1913 because he was one of the enterprising and pioneering men to whom the book is dedicated.



And, if that's not enough, it's a signed and numbered first edition, number 79 of only 350 printed.

It's only drawback, really, is its size. Weighing about fifteen pounds, it definitely makes me think that eReaders and modern technology might be "progress" after all.