CatherineHennessey.com

Imagine

2003-07-09T19:02:21Z

A couple of weeks ago I went to Boston. Now you have to know that Boston is almost my second home. Kate MacDonald, better know on the Island as Kate Reggie Alex from Souris [now of Halifax as well] had agreed to take me by plane - on her bonus points - to attend a school reunion down there. I was busy and for awhile didn't think I could fit it in, but with her persistence I decided I should do it. Anyway Kate and I haven't had that much time alone together and I thought that would be a good thing.

The plan was that I would drive to Halifax the night before and we would catch the 8:45 plane to Boston the next morning and we would be in Harvard Square for coffee with my young friend Mary Ann Winkelmes by some time before 11 o'clock. After that we'd could do the bookstores and Crate and Barrel at Harvard Square and be back to the hotel for the reception before seven o'clock. A grand plan.

There was a glitch. I had been very busy before I left ... going one direction and another. Gary Carrol had fortunately arrived home from Ottawa shortly before and he was going to look after my dog Nellie and the cats, Ruby and Rosie, but I had other things to be done. Now I do not have a passport. I am not a big traveller and had not travelled into the states since 9-11. Somewhere I do have a birth certificate and a health card, but some how or other I arrived at the airport on Friday morning without either. It was unbelievable. Kate tried to tell the man at the counter that I was well known in Charlottetown, but he just rolled his eyes. I did, too. But it was all to no avail; I was not allowed on the flight without some proof that I was a Canadian citizen. My grey hair held no weight.

I called home - it was 6:45 in the morning. My friend Gary does not like telephones and was not about to answer. On the third attend, he did, but I wasn't sure where to send him to look for anything. Even with those directions he did find my Social Insurance number [I kept calling it Social Security which didn't help anything] and he took it to my friends at the Inns of Great George Street to fax it to me. When I told my "new found friend" Dereck that I had my Social INSURANCE number coming on his fax. He again rolled his eyes and said there is no way I can allow you to go to Boston on that only: Boston would send me back and fine Air Canada. That made it clear we were NOT going to be in Cambridge for coffee with Mary Ann.

That gave us six, almost seven hours to solve my problem. I call Gary again. This time I suggest that maybe The Palace of Saint Dunstan's Basilica where I was baptised would do something. So Gary was off to The Palace. Then I thought that maybe Vital Statistics might be able to help and I called Montaque PEI where they are located. Yes, they did not mind doing business over the phone, but I would have to have someone pick it up and fax it to me - they did not go that far. Well I thought of somebody I knew in Montague, but they informed me that they had a place on Garfield Street in Charlottetown and they could look after it there. Sooooo a call to my friend Dental Don. About an hour after the 7:45 plane had left for Boston I had a bundle of faxed papers with all I needed to get into the USA of America; thanks to The Palace, Gary, Don Stewart, Vital Statistics and The Inns of Great George Street.

When after that lengthy stay at the Halifax airport where we had breakfast, mid morning Bloody Marys and lunch, we arrived at Boston and the Customs desk. The very nice man suggested, when I passed him my wad of faxed data, that next time I should travel with the originals. I smiled sweetly and told him that there would be no problem there. I have still not received my telephone bill from that morning. I am sure it will record nicely the goings on of that very special experience. By the way Kate did not bit my head off at all, and she should certainly have done so.

Beaconsfield

2003-07-04T20:12:42Z

On the night of Canada Day, thirty years ago, I stood at a window at Beaconsfield overlooking the crowds coming from Victoria Park after the Fireworks. Thousands of people were there that night and so was the Queen of England. Remember it was the centennial of PEI joining Confederation - The Place to be in'73. It was a beautiful night and mood was lovely

I was all alone in Beaconsfield. We had worked all week-end on cleaning up the house after carpenters, floor sanders, sprinklers and painters had left. I had walked around earlier in those almost empty drawing rooms wondering how we could pull it all together the next day and be ready for a Queen to officially open the place on Tuesday morning. It was frightening.

"We" were only a small group; the secretary, Janice, some summer students like Daphne Dumont and Joyce Dewar and faithful board members and friends and Alan and Isabell Swan who had recently moved into the back apartment as caretakers. We went to work. We hung William Douse over one mantle and a James Peake ship painting over the other. We had a chart of Charlottetown Harbour and a collection of photos by Lionel Stevenson of Island barns. We had the Mark Butcher sofa in one corner and "a cabinet of curiosities" in the other. There were a few other things, but they slip my mind at the moment.

At the end of the day there was a prestigiousness to it all in its minimalism. The final touches were put in place early Tuesday morning when under the direction of Mary Dolphin the most beautiful arrangements of garden flowers were put in place to fill in the gaps.

When the Queen and Prince Philip drove up about 10:30 we greeted them as if it had been no work at all. Walter Shaw, who was on our board at the time, said it was the nicest event he had ever attended with the Queen. That was quite a complement. There were some funny things like when Prince Philip went after Dr. Bolger for not putting a "Prince Edward Island and the World" map in his book "Canada'a Smallest Province" and then he caught me calling the chart of Charlottetown Harbour a map! We saw the Queen trying to turn off the drip in the bar sink we had left in the Board Room and we learned that the radiators were the same is at Windsor. She giggled a couple of times and was very interested that Princess Louise, the Marquis of Lorne, had dined with the Peakes in the house in 1879. When she did her walk about outside after she remembered a women she had met on a previous visit to Charlottetown. Not bad, eh.

But the story of the stories was the one about the cutting of the ribbon at the front steps. We had looked high and low for a fine worthy pair of scissors fit for a queen to cut a ribbon. They are hard to find. I was on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal a few weeks before and went from one antique shop to another. All I was able to find was a pair of grape scissors, but there were very sweet - and sterling. We tested them and they cut a ribbon so I took them home. Everyone seemed pleased, but mind you, not very familiar with grape scissors. There is a great picture of the Queen cutting the ribbon that day with Wanda Wyatt, Dr. Bolger and myself looking on. It has Prince Philip looking curiously over her shoulder and what he was actually saying at that moment was "Grape Scissors, she can't cut the ribbon with those"! She did and thirty years ago today Beaconsfield was officially opened.

Our Heritage Spaces

2003-06-30T13:17:25Z

Since the very early days of Charlottetown, Queen Square was the centre of government, market, court and church, with our seat of government as its focal point. Throughout the last years a the 19th century exceptional efforts were made to beautify the square and it became a place of great pride to all Islanders and their visitors. It was onto this setting that the public chose to place the Boer War Memorial in 1903 and the large war memorial in 1925 as tributes to those who made the supreme sacrifice. Both monuments were sculpted by significant sculptors, whose works appear in many prominent sites in this country. There was a time after the 1903 Market House burnt in 1958, and after the post office moved and while the Confederation Centre was under construction that the pride in the square faltered and we lost faith. The restoration of Province House by Parks Canada and their recent work on the gardens around the building has returned Queen Square to a place of tranquil beauty. During the summer months the gardens and the fountain north of the building is always being used by so many people with kids running through the fountain to the great enjoyment of many. The successful cleaning of the 1925 war monument lead naturally to the same being done for the Boer War Monument and I am sure we will be equally impressed with the results. The city and the province deserve our appreciation as does the PEI Service Memorial Park Committee who lobbied hard for this work to happen. Alas I am now concerned about the future direction of this committee. Their desire to create Memorial Park from Grafton Street to Richmond, including our Province House, is going too far. This in my mind is adding yet another name to Queen Square and truly over shadows the focal point of our provincial governance. Queen Square is a special Island place. Next the committee wishes to take over the fountain and install a sculpture reminiscent of the one on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. I believe we should not copy other places but preserve our distinctiveness; and to me, the waywe preserve our distinctiveness is by saying NO to Memorial Park and NO to the loss or redesign of the fountain. And judging from comment in the Guardian recently, it is apparent that the issue of moving the Boer War Memorial is still in the minds of some. That scheme is unacceptable in the mind of any loyal Charlottetownian. The Boer War Memorial should stay exactly where it is. I appreciate the desire of this committee to commemorate the men who served since the Korean War and I believe that to be a worthy notion, but not in this location. I believe the square has more than reached its saturation point and now we must look for new locations or simpler designs that do not express such dimensions as we have in this proposal. I have walked the site and carefully considered its importance, its merits and its surroundings and I have two suggestions that I hope will send this committee back to the drawing boards. There is a small space between the south side of the monument and the gentle curved hedge to the north of the fountain. Something small, simple and thoughtful would not intrude here. Or the relationship of Queen Square with the Department of Veterans Affairs building might be enlarged upon, leading the committee to consider a monument on the front plaza of the DVA Building. The Peace Keepers and the changing mandate of DVA go very much hand in hand. This is not a letter to discourage the remembrance of our armed forces, but a plea to protect a space that must not be cluttered by excess. *This appeared as a letter to the editor of The Guardian on June 28, 2003 from myself

New Zealand

2003-06-04T23:35:02Z

Thirty years ago this month we were busy at the Heritage Foundation putting the final touches on Beaconsfield. It was to be officially opened on July 2nd by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. We were working down to the wire. The phone rang and it was a lady from New Zealand who was in New York and "wanted to come over" because her great grand father had spent time on the Island and was in government here. I said by all means "come over' and inquire who her great grand father might have been. "Robert Poore Haythorne" she announced. I expressed my feeling of his importance in our history and she was amazed that we knew of him.

She came and I took her to see the ruins of his old home in Marshfield and and then back to town to show her his house on the corner of Hillsborough and Dorchester Streets. She was thrilled and it certainly made the time away from preparing for a Queen, worth it.. Unfortunately the Foundation seems to have lost her address and I can't remember her name. What a shame.

Our connections with New Zealand have been brought to my mind this week because of two things. The island is reviewing electral reform and the Institute of Island Studies brought in three speakers to review the issue. Dr. Helena Catt, a professor of political science at the University of Auckland was one of them. She gave a very convincing presentation on proportional representation that she believes works so well in New Zealand. There is much to think about on that whole issue.

Back to New Zealand. I have friends in town whose daughter will be marrying a New Zealander this summer and his parents are coming for the wedding. I gave my friends and Dr. Catt a great article published in an New Zealand historical journal in 1981. It is an article written by H.M.Rodewald those great grand-father had captained the "Prince Edward", one of three ships that had left Charlottetown with migrants for New Zealand between 1856 and 1863. So you can imagine that we have many connections in New Zealand. They are stories that I want to enlarge upon in the next little while. I'll do my best.

No Smoking

2003-06-04T22:54:32Z

Yesterday The Smoke Free Places Act came into effect on PEI. No public places like bars and restaurants can have smoking sections unless they construct a very specially ventilated room and they can't serve food or drinks in it. It is a progressive step. It has taken a long time, especially when you consider the article I read in the December 19, 1914 Guardian: "A regular attendant at the Charlottetown market has called the Guardian Office in reference to the large amount of smoking which is indulged in in the market proper, during market days. Especially at the noon hour is the smoke mos objectionable, when large crowds of men may be seen standingoutside and around the meat stalls smoking and expectorating, notwithstanding the facts that "No smoking etc." signs are posted in prominent places....." That wonderful old market and all the regulars there ... Mrs. Johnson, the Fords and many others whose names I forget. With all the smells in that place I never appreciated that smoke wasn't among them.

Inkerman Shore

2003-06-04T22:51:21Z

In the late forties we were at the cottage at Inkerman Shore. It seems funny now because it really was at the end of Colonel Gray Drive very much within our present city limits. We use to move from Hillsboro Street [then spelt that way] virtually across town for the summer. Our friends the MacDonald did worse than that; they lived on Ambrose Street and moved out to Inkerman Shore. Whatever there is something special about moving to a cottage and leaving behind the formality and structure of winter life. Anyway that is the life we had and there is rarely a day goes by that I don't think about it in one way or another and be thankful.

Yesterday I was out shopping around noon and the radio was on in the car as usual to CBC. It was the news. They were announcing the loss of a prominent Maritime horseman and radio announcer from St. John. I knew right away who it was going to be and I sat there and cried. Ingham Palmer was one of the boys who would come out to Inkerman to visit we girls almost every night. They were great summers. Our father had borrowed a bell tent from the army and had set it up in the backyard. Sometimes there were ten girls sleeping there a night. Hilda from down the road, Johanna and Libby whoes cottages were on the lane to Lawsons', Daphne who came from Montreal and would stay when she was allowed and my sister Betty and I. Others would stay now and then, but we were the regulars. We laughed a lot.

After dinner the boys and some city girls would come. We'd light fires on the beach, dig clams and cook them, sing, row on the river and swim and in the fall steal corn or apples. What a life. Our mothers never seemed to care where we were or worried about us. We made our own fun and expect when we, the Smiths, had to go to church on Sunday we never wore shoes. My friend Dolly's old saying, "they are picking in our row now" certainly applies to the last few months. Barbara Rupert, Bill Leonard and now Ingham Palmer have gone to another world. I'm sorry we didn't hold more reunions. I'm doing my best. A couple of weeks ago I had Charlie Hine and his wife Barb here for dinner with Ron Atkinson and Gloria, I talked to Phylis Tait on the street today with more intent and tomorrow night Jack McAndrew is coming over and that is good. Blessings to those Inkerman days that brought us all together.

Brian MacKay-Lyons

2003-05-12T22:24:22Z

Friday night, the 16th of May, at the K. C. Irving Building on the UPEI campus the Friends of The Farm are welcoming Brian MacKay-Lyons as their guest speaker. Brian is an internationally recognized architect in Halifax and for Islanders it is important to know that he is married to one of Stu MacKay's daughters. His topic will be "Public Spaces and Spirit of Place". We'll begin at 7:30 and hope many of you will be there.

The future of the Experimental Farm is still up in the air, but it is important for us all to contemplate its future so when the day comes for decisions we'll be there with our view points.

Basil Greenhill

2003-05-12T22:22:38Z

In spring of 1972 it was decided that the prime focus of the '73 Centennial Celebration was going to be heritage, heritage, heritage. It was quite a controversial time. I think I have written about it before. Anyway by June we knew that we were going to have a place to celebrate our fisheries history, our agricultural history and our ship building history. It was exciting and we had only a year to pull it all off.

Although there is a story around each of those projects, I want to draw your attention to Green Park, the site chosen to commemorate our ship-building history.

Green Park was the name given by Westcountryman, James Yeo (1788-1868) to his operation on Campbell Creek in Port Hill on Lot 15 in PEI. It was there he built his fine house and his store and shipyard. The Yeo family were involved, one way or another, with a largest percentage of the 335 vessels launched around Richmond Bay according to Marven Moore and Nicholas DeJong. I think their operation was surpassed by the Peakes, but I might be wrong.

Now back to 1972 , one hundred and four years after James died. The house had been acquired a few years before by the Province of PEI and they had even operated a display in it for a couple of summers, but now we had to do more.

Why had the house been purchased and how in the matter of one short year were we able to develop a story line for the site? It is simple. It all came to be because of a book entitled "Westcountry in Prince Edward's Isle" by Basil Greenhill and his wife Ann Gifford published in Toronto in 1967.

Basil Greenhill was in Diplomatic Service in Ottawa at the beginning of the 1960's. At a reception one night he met Angus MacLean who was then Minister of Fisheries.The talk, as it would, got around to PEI. Basil, who had previously published a number of articles on maritime history remembered a connection with Appledore in England and Prince Edward Island. They were interested in picking the subject up and they were talking to the right man.

It wasn't long before the Greenhills arrived on PEI and made connections - and friends - with the Islanders and in particular with the Port Hill people. Stories and research on the Island and in Ottawa and the Westcountry confirmed the traditional tales they had heard in England and the result was their book.

I don't think the province would have acquired Green Park if it had not been for the Greenhills whose work gave national recognition to what MLA Robert Grindlay had been saying before they even arrived. And I do think that even more of PEI's shipbuilding history would have been lost had their work not focused us collectively on those glorious shipbuilding years.

When The Greenhills visited the Island in September 1972 a group of us travelled around Port Hill area with them and we appreciated his help in shaping the story line for the Green Park site. A few years later I had a wonderful lunch with him at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich where by that time he was the director.

Basil Greenhill died a week or two ago in his beloved Westcountry. I wished I had had the opportunity to see that part of the world through his eyes. It is an area where PEI should be holding cultural exchanges. The cemeteries are full of our Island ancestors. He would have been a great tour master for us.

Cultural Circles

2003-05-12T22:20:53Z

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the Cultural Circles that are keeping the downtown of Charlottetown alive these days. Just think about it: the Confederation Centre in the old Market Square - a place that brings together, [at least on an average] 700 ++ persons a night during the summer months and the ambience of the downtown attracts double that many everyday during that period. Add to that Province House, the PEI Council of The Arts and The Arts Guild, The MacKenzie Theatre, IT Centre, The Library and The Archives, The Crafts Council with their shop and Holland College. You can also include the privately run galleries and antique shops, and the bars that provide entertainment , and, yes, of course the City Cinema; a sophisticate centre for film watching.

Maybe, if you like playing house, you could add Beaconsfield to that circle or attend some of the events that occur in The Carriage House operated by the Museum and Heritage Foundation. Then take the circle to its next 360 degrees and add the University, Carrefour, BIS and the group of cinemas at the Charlottetown Mall and you begin to recognize the support system in the arts that exists in this small part of the world. We are very fortunate.

Contemplate our media people and just how supportive they are to all our cultural activities and they add some of their own. Last week I was out to say goodbye to Wayne Collins who for years has been the co-host on the CBC Morning Show with Karen Mair. Tears all around. Then I dropped off on the way home to welcome Bill McQuire back to the Guardian as City Editor. By the end of the week I was back saying good-bye to Lorne Yeo who for over 30 years has been an editor there. All people who care. Add The Buzz, our monthly arts magazine and CFCY Radio and you have to say we are well looked after.

On second floors, on main stages and in other nooks and grannies we have publishing houses , sound studios, dance groups, film people, the Symphony, Theatre PEI, poets, writers, organists etc. etc. etc.

Since last fall City Council has been obsessed with bring in a hockey team and now they've got it. Last week they were on the radio talking about how they needed billets for those players: big guys they said who eat a lot, but would become some family's big brother and everyone would live happily ever after. They were also announcing that they were going to spend something like $500,000. on the Civic Centre to make the necessary improvements to satisfy the teams needs. And that is only a small portion of the recreational budget.

The arts are different. Individuals have a creative need and they express it and ask people to come and see what they think. Watch. Listen. Yes, and even buy on occasion. While this goes on people move around our city talking, exchanging ideas and generally being a presence. Many of the participants live in spaces around town, they eat in restaurants, drink an odd beer here and there. They add buzz. Create ambience. On occasion everything ticks and they blow us out of the water with their success. Is the support the same for the arts as for sports? I don't think so.

As we see the mercantile scene change to big box stores and the franchises, the undistingtive streetscapes and the people places that such a direction creates is apalling. We must begin to review what really attracts us to a place and what we want to do about it.

Daylight Saving Time

2003-04-05T10:49:45Z

Prince Edward Island has not always been on the cutting edge. Our attitude toward the acceptance of the automobile, and for a period of time liquor, was long and drawn out. Tonight we put our clocks ahead. It reminded me of a headline I read this winter. It was April 1961 Guardian. The headline read "Protestant Churches stay on Standard Time". I remembered that the city and the country were always at loggerheads over the daylight time issue, but I hadn't remember that there was theological side to the argument, although I remembered them referring to Standard Time as God's Time. So Spring Ahead Tonight.

Dark Sky Week

2003-04-03T22:00:05Z

I've been a member of The International Dark Sky Association for a number of years now. I love being at a meeting and contributing to the discussion like this "As a member of the International Dark Sky Association, I would like to add.....". It has been a stopper. But I am a serious member of that Association - a deep believer. Last fall I had a call from a young man who works for CFCY who asked me about the association. He, too, had come around to believe we were contaminating the earth in yet another way. I loaned him all my newsletters and told him as much as I believed I had no time - nor energy - for more causes unfortunately. I would just have to continue bring up the subject within my own circle of causes.<> God bless him, he, his name is Brian Roach, has gone to some government people, but more importantly he went to the Island Nature Trust. He asked Kate McQuarrie to take up the issue with her board. Last fall they declared 2500 acres, their holdings on PEI, as Dark Sky Reserves. That is wonderful. I told Kate today she could add 130 more acres because my farm in Fort Augustus is a Dark Sky Reserve.<> This week is National Dark Sky Week and I think it would be a great gift to the world for more people to work on toning down light. I have my causes. The street I live on in town is ridiculous. I can read the Guardian out there any night of the year. Victoria Park is a disgrace with 360 degree lights over those softball fields, but the worst of all is the newly built Island's Waste Management Plant in Brookfield, which is certainly ironic. All this when our energy costs have just gone up 13%. <> Most of the overdose is just plain thoughtless and if someone is at a table at the right time they can do some good or you can just begin at home. Think about it and to learn more check the Association's web set at www.darksky.org.

Diviner

2003-04-03T21:58:35Z

I was thinking lately of when we built the cottage at Inkerman Shore. It was 1942. I found the bill for the lumber the other day. We bought it from Wilheim Madsen in Wood Islands. It cost $108.10 delivered in Charlottetown!!! I remember the man, he had guinea hens. The first time I ever saw them and I loved them then and I still do today. We needed a well. Our father went to find a diviner and he found one - down east somewhere. It was a big event at Inkerman. All the men and the kids hanging around. The man was very serious and took his defining stick and moved carefully around the back yard. He suddenly declared the spot and it was very clear that the rod was pointing directly to a spot. That was where Jimmy the Pump dug the well and we always had great water from it. The story of the digging is one I will share with you another time. Now you might think that "Oh sure, silly stuff", but the evening didn't end at our place. Two neighbours were watching and they were having a terrible time with their pumps. Salt water all the time. One, Harold Pickard, you could understand . He was right on the shore. Roddie Gillis was on the shore, too, but he had a high bank in front of him. Our diviner took off to investigate. He declared Harold Pickard's spot to be away off by a hedge row on even flatter land - almost on the shore and he put Roddie's spot across the lane from his cottage. When they dug their wells, they never had salt again. Magic? No there is something far more serious about that exercise and I'm glad I saw it all happen when I was a kid. I do believe it has affected my thinking throughout my life. If I ever build in the country again, I am certainly going to seek out a diviner.

Canadian Collector

2003-03-28T09:20:22Z

The Canadian Antique Collector - a journal of antiques and fine arts - was a ground breaking magazine. It was the first time that Canadianna was given full prominence in a magazine format. It began just in time for Canada's `67 Centennial. Marion Bradshaw, a lady of extraordinary vigour and good taste, was the editor and carried the magazine through at least twenty years of great information. By the mid 80's the Canadian scene had changed and Canadianna was truly recognized as something to be reckoned with. The Macdonald Stewart Foundation was the patron. David and Lillian Stewart believed in the subject. Yes, he was the man who supported the Brier for years. In addition to their support of the magazine they also sponsored three wonderful symposiums. One in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Guelph. These symposiums brought Canadians together from across the land. Presented under Marion's direction, they provided a rich view of, not only antiques and fine arts, but food, music, flower arrangements and Canadian vistas that enriched the lives of a whole generation of Canadians working in the heritage field. I have friends all across this land because of those symposiums. In 1970 Marion conceived the idea of doing some special issues that would focus on one province at a time. Nova Scotia was the first and it came out January/February 1972. It set a high standard. Marion came to the Island and started on us to produce a Island issue. It was important if we were to do it, that we would have a magazine out for our 1973 Centennial. It was a worry. It would be our coming out - our first time on the national stage. I was the Island co-coordinator. The effort began in earnest in the summer. Great discussions took place on what we would cover and who would write the articles. I'm still proud of the line up; Dr. Bolger, Ian Robertson, Leslie Maloney, Mary Burnett, Gary Carroll, Irene Rogers and Ruth MacKenzie, Moncrieff Williamson, Marc Gallant, John Cousins, Leone Ross - even Corneilus Howatt was in there. The package was delivered to Marion about ten days before Christmas. It was difficult and exhausting to get everyone to produce on time, but you know that magazine is still being used by students of Island things and, sad to say, is almost the only printed information on some of the subjects we covered in the issue. Why I thought about all of this, is that the magazine was launched in March 1973 - thirty years ago this month. It is hard to believe.

Community Concerts

2003-03-28T09:15:39Z

When we were kids we would have season tickets to the Community Concert Series held each year. Theses concerts were organized back in 1932 and ran until the Confederation Centre opened and then a number of things changed - sometimes at a loss. These concerts were directed locally by group of music lovers and, internationally, by The Columbia Concerts Company with some connections with Columbia Recording business. They said they had 90% of the worlds great artists and to tell the truth they probably did. The deal was that each October our local group would hold a membership drive and you had to have that membership as there were no single ticket sales at the door. They promised quality and at least three concerts each year. We never knew what we were going to hear. It was after the membership drive that the local committee had to make the choices depending on how many memberships they sold and I suppose to some degree who other Maritime centres were choosing. We thought they were all wonderful. We hear harpists, John Knight, The Trapp Family, Leopold Simoneau, Michael Rhodes, The Longines Symphonette and the Danish National Orchestra - just to mention a few. The concerts would be held at Prince of Wales College gym which couldn't have been acoustical great, but we didn't know the difference. The gym would be full. It was a fine introduction to good music. We owe a lot to the local organization - people like Mrs Keith Rogers, Lillian MacKenzie, Art McInnis and lots of others.

Grocery Stories

2003-03-23T14:10:38Z

It is almost a month since we celebrated Heritage Day at City Hall. This year we had a small exhibit on Corner Grocery Stores. It was a timely subject since downtown Charlottetown had just lost its prime store - the Co-op on Queen Street. Gloriously situated for downtown residents and workers, it seemed not to have a strong handle on who their customer was and the changing demographics of the downtown to say nothing about the changes in culinary needs [more about that latter]. A year ago Frank Zakem did a wonderfully little book on his family and his father's store on the corner of Weymouth and Grafton Streets. It was very popular.. As part of his project he did a preliminary list of other grocery stores in the down town. He had listed 48 and by the time the exibition was over we had a list of 64 and it was obviously growing. Then if we counted grocers the number would almost double since stores changed hands and have almost a genealogy of their own. When we were growing up on Hillsborough Street we had ten grocery stories in a two block radius. Generally you charged at one and they had delivery boys - cute ones like Howard Glover. Over Christmas when my sisters were home, we had a Saturday morning coffee party for the Taweels whose store was on the corner of Queen and Fitzroy. We had shopped there almost all our lives. It was great fun. Saul, Peter and Paul and Dulla came, their wives and some who worked in the store and a lot who shopped there. Everyone enjoyed being together again. That was what it was about those stores were part of your extended family. A couple of weeks ago The Downtown Residents Assoc. had a meeting on the Shopping Crisis in the Downtown [we also lost our last hardward store recently]. Over 60 came out to the meeting. There were no solutions, but a strong consensus that we form an interesting group of consumers with fairly fussy needs and if the hurdle of "buying power" could be addressed, a wonderful useful, gathering place could be added to the downtown. Quality of product, ambience and consistent staff were some of the needs that were pointed out. Parking was an issue, but it sounded to me as if it was a hurdle that was overrated, after all most people live down town because they like to walk to places. City Hall people were there and it is hoped there will be a solution to this problem.

I'm back

2003-03-22T21:51:42Z

OK, OK I have surfaced. I have no explanation for it, but it has given me a lot of concern. I care so much for you all and I have so many stories to tell. I think your response to my web page made me shy and besides I have truly been overwhelmed with the research material that I have collected. Three to four hours a day in the archives for over a hundred days a year amasses a lot of material and then I must spends hours at home working on its recovery. No wonder my head is in confusion, but I want to share some of it with you and I must begin doing so or I will die having done nothing with it at all. I think the war - and a long winter - has caused me to escape into my dream world, think and worry about you all, and with the sounds of CBC Radio Two, I have been forced me to make contact. I hope I can keep it up. Blessings to you all in these confusing days.