WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011
AT WOODCHESTER VILLA, THE LOVE FOR ANTIQUES AND WRITING INTERESTS CAME TOGETHER
It’s now more than 30 years now since I helped launch the Bracebridge Historical Society, and eventually Woodchester Villa and Museum. A university grad with a degree tucked under his arm, back to the hometown, to lend my two cents’ worth. Whether it was wanted or not!
News this week is that it will take a half million dollars to renovate the octagonal concrete building, which dates back to the late 1800's. The outside, second story walkway, which wrapped around the building, collapsed as a result of the snow-load, deposited during the wicked December storm of 2010.....the same week my father had a stroke. It was a milestone period. The museum I operated for many years was in great disrepair, and I had to pass it daily on the way to visit Ed Sr at the hospital. Both caused me grief.
I began the museum project with great enthusiasm. So did everyone else. It was a behemoth effort to acquire, restore, re-furnish, promote and operate the unique property. Right from the beginning however, there were signs we all picked up on, that just possibly we should have been better prognosticators of the future. Even after a couple of years of museum operation, the volunteer brigade was exhausted. After incredible strawberry and blueberry socials, antique car shows, antique shows, Christmas in July events, concerts on the lawn, theatre in the round, and a hundred programs of every description, we’d spent more of our volunteer’s time than they could afford to invest. It caused stresses on everyone involved, and by the five year mark of operation, and the ongoing challenge to fundraise, and obtain grants, even the Board of Directors roster looked like swiss cheese. It was a weary bunch. It’s not to say they didn’t have fun working at Woodchester, or at the many Historical Society events, but it was all becoming more like work than feeling pleasurable.
From the beginning the town was worried about the burden a museum could represent down the road. They were right to be concerned. In this case, they were not just prophetic but realistic. It would become a burden, and in my time as president to boot. We just reached a stage when it was absolutely necessary to approach the town, cap in hand, and explain how we went from zero to a hundred miles per hour and then back down to near zero again within several years. By the late 1980's, Suzanne hated me for asking her to phone some of the volunteers on our tattered list. She was tired of rejection. It became almost impossible to get any one to help out. There were a lot of critics but nobody wanted to pitch in with everything from lawn mowing, painting, weeding the walkways and gardens, cleaning the house, volunteering for daily tour guides or even offering to spell us on occasion from what had become a drudgery. I hated to think this way but while Suzanne was teaching at the high school, I was looking after two wee lads, while working at Woodchester on a list of chores as long as your arm. Carol Scholey, as one of the last volunteers standing, used to work up a list for me that, in her mind, was a week’s worth.....when in reality it was more like a year-long project. I even had a play-pen set up in the museum annex for son Robert, while working in the nearby office. Andrew played with his toy cars amidst a towering volume of farm implements hung on the walls, and set out on floor displays. Andrew thought it was neat. His music shop today looks the same.....as he still considers clutter and heritage his true comfort zone.
Suzanne and I used to rush to Woodchester at all times of day and night, to handle tour groups, school outings, and any other visitors passing through the region. We’d open the museum for a small group if and when we could. I conducted many tours with one youngster in tow, and another in a snuggly against my chest. Family responsibilities were getting in the way of museum life and times. Then there were the midnight runs with the OPP. That was because, when the attic was wired for a security system, the coating on the wire......to a squirrel, apparently tasted like licorice. I can’t tell you how many nights in a year, I had to travel through the house with an officer, looking for evidence of a break-in. It took most of that year to figure out that our perpetrators were squirrels. When they weren’t eating the wire coverings, causing false alarms, they were setting off the motion detectors.
The real gem was when some of our student staff decided to play with a Ouiji Board during their lunch and coffee breaks. As communications director, at the time, as well as editor of The Herald-Gazette, I found a breaking ghost story, on my desk, written by a reporter for that week’s edition. We were a pretty conservative bunch on the Historical Society directorate, and this communicating with the deceased feature-story, looked like trouble. It was far more complicated than this but suffice to say we decided it was relatively harmless. “Ghosts speaking through Ouiji Board at museum.” What could it hurt? Right?
I just didn’t expect it would involve the word “kill”, “murder,”or the statement “Get out of the house.” I certainly hadn’t anticipated that the staff would turn their attention to an allegedly unoccupied family grave, found in a local cemetery. Next thing I know, a television crew was on its way to report on the alleged murder that might have happened on the upper staircase of the old house. Implicated in this was the family of woolen mill founder, Henry Bird Sr. It didn’t take long before the poop destroyed the fan, and the public relations director was in serious trouble, having to make apologies all round. How they linked it all into a concealed murder was beyond me but it was on the nightly news so.....according to most of the town’s population, it must have been true.
It wasn’t. Plain and simple. But the damage had been done. The Ouiji board was removed from the museum, and the staff was asked to take a more passive approach to drumming up business......until the controversy blew over.
It’s not that the house didn’t have its spirit-kind. It most certainly did. And we weren’t the only ones who experienced manifestations. To me it was a fascination more than a haunting, as such, and we took it pretty much in stride. I’ve written about this extensively on my Muskoka and Algonquin Ghosts blog site. I spent a lot of time alone in that house and I was never frightened by anything I encountered. It was a cheerful place to work, most of the time, and I looked forward to the special occasions we had planned for open house......such as the Christmas event. What great fund it was to decorate a Victorian home for the holidays. I used to play a tape recording of “A Christmas Carol,” while we worked.
I’d sit in Henry’s office, overlooking his former mill site, and write about my experiences with the museum. I wrote a lot at his former desk. It was a quiet, interesting office. Generally it was a calming, embracing old dwelling......and maybe it did have something or other to do with its octagonal design.
In the late 1980's, as the recession loomed, and I had three jobs and an antique business, on the go, two kids, and a new Gravenhurst residence, I couldn’t handle the same level of responsibility. I didn’t have the best working relationship with town council at the time, especially my liaison, and it seemed the perfect time to turn over the reins to someone with a better plan. I was happy to have been able to revitalize the museum annex, which was turned over to the Muskoka Arts and Crafts community, to use as a gallery.......a thriving centre still a going concern after twenty years. It was hard walking away from the museum and I don’t get teary-eyed often but a lot of my early family history was etched on this hilltop overlooking the Muskoka River. I didn’t get so much as a card of thanks from any one, including the town, and I assumed their opinion was “good riddance to Mr. Currie.” I think we all needed some distance and time.
Several moments ago, I submitted a note to the media, suggesting I’d be more than happy to assist the town or a new committee, to support the refurbishing of this wonderful old building which still possesses the strong spirit and intense character of Henry Bird, that I admired way back when........and what still compels me to come to its assistance. I’ve got good memories of Woodchester Villa. And although Suzanne and the boys still wince a wee bit, when I talk about the old days at the museum, we still get a chuckle about how our family album was so much different than any one else’s. Woodchester always seemed to be in the background of important moments in our budding family history. My mother worked part time as a tour guide in the late 1980's, and Ed would help out where he could......mostly looking after the boys when I had meetings and labors that didn’t allow for child-minding.
I don’t know if they’ll want my help or just rub a clove of garlic and make the sign of the cross when they find out I’m willing to rejoin the museum gang. I’ve mellowed over the years and I don’t bite any more. I hope other folks will offer help as well. It is a good cause. But a big one.
I owe it to old friend and former Historical Society President, Wayland Drew, to give it a try, at the very least......just as we did in 1978 and for many years thereafter
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011
LIFE AT WOODCHESTER VILLA AND MUSEUM - A TEST OF LOVE AND ORDEAL
A LOT OF ORDEAL
I got the bright idea, sometime in the late 1980's, to host a Canada Day Open House at Woodchester. The plan was to tap into the Canada Day fireworks at Bracebridge Bay Park, an easy walking distance to and from the museum. If we opened well before the fireworks began, we might be able to get two or three hundred visitors, at least, to climb the hillside above the falls. As I had before, and I do feel like a cad for asking, Suzanne agreed to make a huge cake out of four regular size pans, to offer our guests on their visit. We had lemonade and coffee to go with the cake, and of course a free admission to the museum.
On the way up the hill, on a windy July evening, the wax paper covering the huge cake (which had impressed somewhat in the icing on the drive from home) was picked up by a gust, twisted around (icing facing out), and blown onto my face on the way up the incline to the back door. I couldn’t get it off my face, with my arms outstretched with the cake. Andrew was killing himself laughing, and Suzanne had already gone into the building. The wind kept pushing it tighter around my head, by this point, and you know.....for a moment, I really thought a resident ghost of Woodchester, was letting me know it had a sense of humor. For about five minutes I couldn’t get up over the grade because I couldn’t see. I was covered in icing and wax paper, and the only hope I had, was Andrew relaying a message to Suzanne about my chagrin. It was one of those images, one of those strange special events as Woodchester manager I will never be able to forget.
On another occasion, staff and I came up with a plan for a Christmas in July celebration, in an attempt to bring in a little extra revenue. Back then, admittedly, I used my position as editor of The Herald-Gazette, and assistant to The Muskoka Sun, to promote Woodchester events. On this occasion it worked better than I could have imagined. Long past the days of the elaborate Strawberry Socials, on the lawns of Woodchester, we went for a seven day program instead, which would wrap-up with a large Salvation Army Band concert on the front lawn. All that week we had large and enthusiastic crowds. One day in particular stands out. We were offering a “Teddy Bear Picnic,” and some culinary demonstrations for youngsters. I thought it would be neat (as I did with the Canada Day cake) if Suzanne would assist staff to make butter as a demonstration of pioneer crafts. What I hadn’t expected was that my publicity for the event would attract several hundred screaming, running and leaping kids......many without parents in attendance. I watched a couple of parents, I’m assuming, stop their cars at the driveway, to let out a mob of kiddies........and I knew we were in deep trouble. It was a day to remember. Suzanne was supposed to be an advisor for staff, to make butter, not the actual butter-lady.
We had to abandon doubling-up for crafts to fan out amongst the children and teddy bears, and my mother Merle shut down the museum to keep the house ice cream and lemonade free. Suzanne, with Robert (now about six feet tall) in a snuggly on her shoulders, had to demonstrate butter making, on her own. I had to look after Andrew and keep the kids out of the trees. Robert would fuss up and flail his arms, knocking butter off Suzanne’s spoon.....and onto some kid’s nice white shirt. I got the dirtiest looks that day, let me tell you. There were no words, at the end of this day, covered in ice cream, butter, butter-milk and sweat, that could possibly have pacified her......other than possibly, “dear, I’ve run you a hot bath,” and “I’ll look after the kids this evening.....so you go ahead and lay down.”
Some times I’m delusional enough to believe that my involvements with community projects over the years, has given our family an exceptional, dimensional, experienced, positive sense of hometown pride. “What other dad would let you join in his great adventures.” If Suzanne even reads this, I’m a gonner. There hasn’t been a single major project, from the operation of the Sports Hall of Fame, in Bracebridge, the Crozier Foundation summer skating and hockey camp (we were the volunteer kitchen staff for five days of food preparation), the Muskoka Lakes Museum (when I was a director there) and Woodchester Villa, that hasn’t swallowed our family alive. When I told her last night that I had volunteered my years of experience, to help Woodchester at its time of need, she just stared through me.....very much looking for a fibre of soul to grab and wrench from my mortal coil. Yet she recognizes that I had given her ample warning before we got married, that getting hitched to a writer / historian / antique obsessive-compulsive, was going to be an odyssey of poverty, wealth, poverty again, and many, many excesses. I’ve delivered on my promises. Not just run of the mill adventure either. We’d be like Hope and Crosby, always “on the road again.” To say she’s been a good sport is of course demeaning, and I won’t do that.....even though it’s true in the sporting sense. Life with me is sort of sport, you know. I just finished Paul Rimstead’s book, ( I just bought an autographed copy for my collection), and the good news.......I’ve never been quite as adventure-laden as the Rimmer. Suzanne still lives here, at least.
Andrew used to come home from school nearly in tears because his teacher challenged some story or other that he had presented to the class. It wasn’t unusual at all, for a teacher to suggest he must surely be fibbing, to claim, for example, he owned a hundred model planes. I can remember taking one of these teachers to task, asking whether or not she would like to come and visit our home, to count for herself. I said, actually, “he’s got 125 models in his collection, so he underestimated.” We weren’t bragging although he may have been. That’s a kid for you. But he wasn’t fibbing. He didn’t have any reason to. At one sale I probably bought him thirty unfinished model planes still in their 1960's packaging. You see, the teachers didn’t have much idea what Andrew’s parents did besides writing for the local press and teaching at the school down the road. So I decided that we should have a little preamble meeting, with any new teacher in advance of the school term. The advisory was that if either boy, Robert or Andrew, claims to have a thousand vinyl records in their collections, they weren’t being boastful or inaccurate. We saw a lot of chins on chests in those days. But it was hard for our boys to represent their childhoods, as did their contemporaries, because their parents happened to be eccentric antique dealers, who started building their kids’ future professions early in life. Visit their music shop on Muskoka Road, and then tell me I’m fibbing.
Maybe it was their early immersion at Woodchester, surrounded by a wonderful array of antiques, from stuffed birds to vintage toys. Consider this the privilege of being a museum manager. Andrew was allowed to sit and play with the toys in the children’s room, at the top of the stairs, at the Villa. I was always in the vicinity, at the time. Robert was too young then to play without potentially damaging the Victorian era play-things, so he stayed with me. The funny thing about this, is that Andrew just loved to sit on the wood floor, and play quietly for hours with toys you’d expect would be half as interesting, as the Dinky Toys and Hot Wheels he had at home. These were neat items that deserved to be played with. I agreed. Any kid who wanted to touch or play with these toys, was welcome to, if I happened to be the tour guide. There is a famous full length color photograph, on the front page of a Herald-Gazette Christmas edition, featuring Andrew on the Woodchester Villa rocking horse, with a young girl at his side. It was in the pre-online period of newspaper circulation, so less than 6,000 papers made it to print. I think Suzanne hung onto about 1,000. The point is, we immersed our lads in many of our adventures in history.......even with my research work on the Tom Thomson murder mystery, up on Canoe Lake. Andrew and I paddled to Mowat on a number of occasions, visiting the many points on the lake Thomson fished, painted, and traversed. From the mid-1990's we all became Thomson and Algonquin Park zealots, and we mixed research and discovery with some great camping adventures we still hold near and dear as memories.
Woodchester was kind of a turning point for us as a family. It was the beginning, in many ways, of an immersion style of involvement we’ve practiced ever-since, whether it’s Andrew and Robert designing an Irvin “Ace” Bailey, or Roger Crozier showcase exhibit, at the Bracebridge Arena, or working with many of the music world’s performing legends.....as they have been here in Gravenhurst and Bracebridge. They still have folks who disbelieve them.....(judging them by age not experience) when they say they’ve worked with particular music stars, or sold them guitars, drums, accessories, or vintage vinyl from their store. We don’t worry too much these days whether they believe our stories or not. We really don’t use any of our experiences or connections as a bragging right........but forgive us if we’re just really proud of having participated in life, as relatively poor sods, in the many adventures that have.....for whatever reason, come our way. Maybe, if you ask, they’ll tell you about handing out the first issues of “Muskoka Today,” during a Christmas Parade in Bracebridge, while Hugh Clairmont and Wayne Hill (plus Mark I believe) played trumpet and drum in back of a pick-up truck. Then there was the time Roger Crozier (my boss at the time) asked both lads to join a summer-time parade in Bracebridge, to give out candies. The candy was loaded into Guy Waite’s vintage car, and the boys were in and out of it for candy refills for about three kilometres of parade route. You could see in Guy’s eyes, “watch the paint boys, watch the paint.” Guy is always quick to volunteer a ride for a good cause.
It’s also true we never forced them into any summer job.....and offered them good remuneration for helping us sell antiques at a wide variety of venues, or assisting us otherwise with many projects from parades to exhibitions, butter making to cake eating.
We’re not special people, and we’re not rich. We are folks who give our word, and stick to it. And now when we work to help out the local Salvation Army Food Bank with fundraising, by golly, it sure feels GOOD to immerse in a GOOD cause for a GOOD hometown.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2011
WOODCHESTER PRESENTED CHALLENGES FOR THE ROOKIE DO-GOODER
The problem with funding Woodchester Villa and Museum, in Bracebridge, was an unrelenting issue. It was the reason we couldn’t advance in normal museum cataloguing and program development. We couldn’t get enough money annually, from grants etc., to benefit from a curator. We could muster staff for touring and general maintenance of the property, but what we really needed was a full time curator. It wasn’t financially viable during my time serving with the museum in the 1980's.
Every year we were forced to spend hours and hours filling out the paperwork to apply for an Operational Grant. Our deficit situation was that we couldn’t meet the governing agency’s demands......in large part because we didn’t have the leadership of a curator. I became the first “president / manager / curator.” I was part volunteer, part paid staff at the end but in no way a worthy substitute for an experienced, well educated curator. But it was what we had to work with unfortunately. Not having full time staff killed us every time we applied for a grant.
From the beginning we had to deal with moisture problems. As we had drainage issues around the building, and a concrete structure, there was a percolation of moisture from the ground up the wall, gradually turning the cement into a mush. At one point I could gouge out portions of the cement with my bare hands. Measures were taken but a lot of the damage was done already. We couldn’t stop the high moisture readings in the house, there was no money to do anything more than patch and watch, and the operational grants, because of these nagging shortfalls, couldn’t be successfully completed with these deficiencies.
The day to day stuff at the museum was mostly positive. There was an occasion when staff or volunteers, had taken one of the Victorian wedding gowns, from a cupboard, and placed it on the bedstead of the master bedroom. I remember getting a frantic call, one night, about something I wasn’t familiar. “We’ve had a blow-back Ted......a blow back.....we’re in big trouble.” The caller had my attention. “What’s a blow-back.” I asked. “A soot blow-back......from the furnace.....there’s soot everywhere through the house.” I’m trying to appreciate this new and troubling reality, from an obvious malfunction of the oil furnace. “Ted, it’s awful. There’s a covering of soot on everything.” “Everything,” I asked again. “Everything,” was the answer. Then, at that precise moment, the caller and I uttered the same words; “wedding dress!” It was a black dress now.
It took a long, long time to repair that dress. I had to send it to a national heritage restoration operation, in Ottawa, where it remained for years. Think about the intricate lace on such a dress, and how minuscule particles can get between the fibres, and multiply that by the trillions. I think we got it back within the years of my management but I’m not sure of this. I am sure that a soot blow-back is a nasty event. Even after years of cleaning, I was still finding black blotches around the house that hadn’t been previously detected.
With a tight budget, even in a good year, we lived in absolute fear something or other was going to happen, that would require an expenditure. We purchased everything on the cheap. Even the toilet paper. Discount lightbulbs. Paper towels. I often had to bring my own lawnmower to do the lawns in the early years, after the museum’s mower broke down. We eventually did get the town to assist with funding lawn cutting. But this constant chase for financial stability, and having to live with so many shortfalls, for so long, meant that directors were in a perpetual mission to fundraise. This became a drag on us all. It sucked the fun out of being involved in a museum. There was so much we couldn’t do that would have enhanced the place. By far, the biggest problem we had, and it did limit our visitations, was that Woodchester Villa was on a peak of land......that while wonderfully scenic, was somewhat more difficult to get to......(especially on hot summer days), than most other community museums in Ontario. While we got car loads of visitors, the fact we didn’t have a front entrance, and that guests had to come in off side-streets, and through a residential neighborhood, definitely confused tourists. It was a mistake at the beginning, that we didn’t have a proper front parking lot, and a more gradual walkway up to the museum. We got very little walk-in business. It hurt us. Even though we were in close proximity to the cataract of the Bracebridge Falls, visited by thousands of tourists each year, Woodchester’s out of the way position, always worked against us. And as we needed every dime of revenue, and fifty percent more, it was like running in the three legged race, blindfolded, with arms bound as well as feet, and expected to hit the finish line first. When we tried to explain this to town councillors, we got nods and grins, a few shaking heads and that’s about it. It’s a thirty odd year problem with museum design and strategy.
What we found out over the years, was that despite our convictions, (which really didn’t mean too much more than pig-headedness), there wasn’t a great need, or more than a thin desire, to visit a no-frills Victorian era museum. We were faced with this same problem, when I was director of the Muskoka Lakes Museum, in Port Carling, which has an even better, more convenient location. There was a huge need to recognize the interests of the public....not just the interests of the historical purists.......with the crusty, tired mantra “if we build it, they’d better come.” It just doesn’t fly. The advantage in Port Carling is that they have been able to employ a long-term curator, which does guarantee stability and compliance with funding agencies. They have become a far more vibrant operation than they were during my period of participation.
If I had to do it all again, and I hate to admit this, but I would have pitched a brand new museum building be built instead, somewhere on the straight and level, where there is a good daily traffic flow by the front door. A building that is equipped with proper climate control and adaptable to all kinds of uses and set up, in advance architecturally, for the ease of future expansion. Most of us knew that the restoration of an 1880's house was going to be a money pit, yet we embraced it none the less. It hasn’t been a lost cause because we did save an important architectural relic in North America. Attached to this, of course, was the subtle acknowledgment that, as it is a jewel, it was going to take a king’s ransom, each year, to maintain. It’s no different than many other historic buildings in Muskoka. The Gravenhurst Opera House comes to mind. The Town will get a real eye-opener one of these days, about the cost of serious new restoration. It’s the cost of owning and operating any old structure. As far as architectural conservancy, the problem is always the same. Money. Constant availability of money. Stages of restoration, versus big, expensive ones, when it’s found out deterioration is greater than anticipated.
Spending half a million dollars, or more, on Woodchester Villa’s restoration, is something to worry about.....because it won’t end there. Unless there is a serious plan to keep a large reserve fund for annual physical upkeep, ten or fifteen years from now there will be a similar dilemma. At a tough economic time, it will be a serious drain on finances.......but that’s not what was intended when so many kind citizens pooled together, and worked so hard, to make the town museum a reality. We just didn’t set down a good working relationship with the town until the late 1980's, when for all intents and purposes, the museum was already on a downhill slide......money and volunteers were in ever-declining numbers.
As one of the founders, I’m sure that I will upset some of my contemporaries, when I suggest that the late 1980's stressful decision to divide the property, to allow the Muskoka Arts and Crafts community, to take over the museum annex as a gallery / administrative centre, was not only the right move then, but potentially the right move now to expand their operations into a much larger arts resource centre. I took a huge amount of flack from directors and Historical Society members, when, with the town’s backing, I initiated negotiations to diversify the property use. The Chapel Gallery is a huge success story, and one I’m proud to have been involved with from the onset. I think there is a good potential for expanding their operation, and making that picturesque hillside into a much larger gallery, workshop, resource centre.
I expect a similar outcry today, as it happened in the late 1980's. I think that to justify the expense of restoring Woodchester Villa, a better-use plan has to be developed, that will guarantee more visitor traffic to the site, and be an even better town attraction over four seasons. The museum, as much as I love it, and helped operate it over many years, is not enough of an attraction to make much difference to traffic flow on that hillside. I think it may be time to look at a further diversification, and a reduction or removal of the museum collection, to be replaced by an arts related use.....gallery, resource centre, workshops, with an artist in residence potential in exchange for housekeeping services rendered. The possibility of getting access to art centre funding may be more successful now, than getting museum operational funds......because it won’t happen without a full time curator. Muskoka Arts and Crafts has the stewardship situation well in hand, and I think they would be appropriate users of the entire Woodchester property......if indeed they could see the future potential for themselves, and an expanded resource centre and gallery.
I recognize this is presumptuous of me. Forgive this friend of Woodchester Villa, for writing on its behalf. I’d love to see it have a great future potential, but as a renewed museum, I think the move would be futile, unrewarding and expensive, as an examination of its history over three decades clearly shows.
As an historical purist for much of my life, I have become a seriously concerned ratepayer of Muskoka. And I realize that critically important questions were not raised in 1979-80, about long term museum operation and restoration contingencies......and that inevitably determined we would reach this point of decision sooner or later. I think Bracebridge should have a new library with a museum attachment, in an accessible area of town, where the community’s heritage can be displayed and used in a modern, climate controlled, easy to maintain, modern structure. It’s worth waiting for.
I can see myself, visiting my old friend on the hillside, (I always talked to Woodchester as if it was a living entity), sharing memories of the good old days, the labors, the trial and error, and the laughs, and feeling good about the bright new use for an historic building of its acclaim. I wouldn’t feel at all bad, to see the property being used like it should be.......and frankly, I think having more use would please many of us, who do feel bad it has fallen on hard times.
The arts community has very much improved life and times on the Woodchester hillside. I didn’t have a doubt about their success, when I opened that Pandora’s Box......and despite a rough patch of dissent, even the critics would have to agree, it gave Woodchester a few more years of viability.
Only an idea.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2011
ARRIVAL OF MUSEUM.....A GLOWING ACHIEVEMENT
WOODCHESTER HAD IT ALL - OR SO IT APPEARED
When Wayland Drew called me one evening, and asked if I had time to meet with him, regarding the idea I had recently proposed (in the local press) for a Bracebridge Historical Society (circa 1978 I believe), I was thrilled to have a potential partner. The initial response had been slow. I didn’t really know who Wayland (Buster) was, at that point, until my girlfriend at the time, Gail Smith, told me about the book he wrote on Lake Superior. I found out quite a bit about the good Mr. Drew, before I attended the meeting at his Bracebridge house. Here I was, a snotty nosed recent university graduate, with the ink still wet on the diploma, and I’m having an intimate meeting about Canadian and regional history, with an author of considerable national acclaim.
I wasn’t in that meeting five minutes, before I knew we would come to be good friends, and something terrific would happen up on that Woodchester Villa hillside. He had such a gentle, calming influence over a scared kid, who had just then, been happily, but politely put in his place. I was delighted to be his underling. And that never changed through many years and quite a few challenges. We didn’t always agree. Wayland and I got into a terrible fight over the removal of huge trees, that lined the steep lane up to the Bird house. He was trying to protect the century old pines and I advocated cutting them down. I was wrong. I told him so later. By then some of those trees had been removed. I won the initial argument, siding with the town, but it was no victory when I realized I’d crushed my partner.....a keen environmentalist who cared so much about the heritage of nature.....
Wayland may never have known this, because I certainly gave the appearance of being an unflinchingly independent, arrogant son-of-a-bitch, but he became one of the only mentors I’ve ever had. I read everything he’d put his pen to, and I thoroughly enjoyed his company for those early Historical Society evenings. He was an important man but you’d never know it, being in his company. It’s at Woodchester now that I see him so clearly. Every time I visit the site, I think about our first tour up to the Bird House, all boarded-up and desolate in early 1978. Gail and I walked around the property with him.....and despite how desperate the situation to reclaim the building, he had confidence something construction could happen here. And it did. He called his friends. Those friends called others, and it kept going and going, until there was a battalion of volunteers. I spent a lot of time in Wayland’s company, usually with my chin stuck against my chest, in absolute awe how he did what he did!
While to many Bracebridge citizens today, Woodchester Villa isn’t even a blip on the community radar. Why would it be? It’s just a museum. It has become largely a tourist-only venue, in its own thirty year history, although that was never the intent by those who faithfully tended the restoration. There is something important here that has been lost....just as much in need of refurbishing as the building itself. It’s the attitude we nursed along for that first decade, trying to make Bracebridge citizens as proud of the museum as we were. It was the exceptional show of citizen action, the diverse backgrounds and accomplishments of folks who worked on that restoration......, and set-up the museum, that inspires me even today about the power of a hometown to attain incredible milestones. I think now about the thousands of hours spent on paper work issues, negotiations for the Alvin Kaye collection, gardening, decorating, painting and trimming.....not to mention work spent on so many elaborate fundraising events in those early years. To many weary folks, exhausted from exquisite Empire Dinners, and both Blueberry and Strawberry Socials, that took so many, many hours away from family, home and business responsibilities. It did result in family stresses. I was threatened with divorce many times during my years of near-residence on-site. Yet, at the end of every event, at closing time every day, sitting on those steps of the front verandah, it all seemed worth the effort. It seemed so very relevant to Bracebridge.....and it’s true that all the work, and blind faith in what we were doing, tended to blind us to the reality many citizens still had no interest in visiting.....even when we suspended admission charges. We just didn’t have the money to invest in promotion and counted on the generosity of two local newspapers to help us out. But that was running into opposition as well, by the late 1980's, as their publishers decided the free-ride was over. It was a back breaker but they were right. We should have been able to pay for and profit from promotions. It didn’t happen that way. Then came the recession. Change was imminent.
When it comes to a thorough examination of Woodchester’s future, I will have no hesitation whatsoever, barking out in a loud, clear, and arrogant voice, about my very great pleasure in life, to have been associated with the grand effort of the Bracebridge Historical Society, the Bracebridge Rotary Club and the Town of Bracebridge, in a hometown partnership that produced a really fine museum. What might now be considered a nuisance expense, and a civic burden, was once considered the hallmark of citizen action. It was not just the “who’s who” of Bracebridge who rebuilt Woodchester, but a mixture of casual acquaintances who became friends; good and lasting friends.
The last time I spoke with Wayland Drew, it was at an outdoor literary event, sponsored by “Muskoka Ink,” held at Woodchester, long after we had both retired from the Historical Society. Quite ill, by this time, I remember him walking across the lawn to shake my hand, after I’d read a short paper about former Toronto Sun columnist, Paul Rimstead, a former Bracebridge lad. I didn’t know it prior to this, but Wayland and I were both Rimstead fans. He let me know I’d written an excellent tribute piece. From him, it was a moment to be cherished. The fact that he acknowledged my writing at all, was a great honor. We stood for awhile talking about the old days at Woodchester, all the work, the frustrations, anxious moments, and successes we both felt had been achieved on this beautiful hillside, overlooking the Muskoka River. It was such a perfect, warm and memorable evening. We shook hands, made the same trustful eye contact, we had on our first meeting, and wished each other well. And I knew this would probably be our last meeting. It was.
When it comes to making a decision about the property, there are many who should be consulted about its fate. There’s a lot more to this old building than what appears to the eye. It is very much a monument to so many people, who had the best intentions for the site.......but if they can be at fault for anything, it was a general misunderstanding of grants and revenues, long past those first five years of operation. The fact so many of these people were elderly at the beginning, meant an ongoing need to bring aboard enthusiastic young folks to carry the burden. It didn’t happen with the same vigor as it had begun. As the town debates this site’s future, I hope it will consider its history with some sensitivity and compassion......because to dismiss it casually, or disregard its storied past, would be unforgivable to all hometown values.
Let Town Council know what you think. They know my opinion!
THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2011
WOODCHESTER VILLA WAS A SPECTACULAR VENUE FOR MANY EVENTS
Out on our weekly antique hunt, one pleasant Saturday morning, I found a large piece of local art, awkwardly positioned against a table of masking tape-priced vases, jars, pottery and general bric-a-brac. It had been painted by an artist acquaintance of mine. I won’t include his name because no artist wants to hear or read about their art work showing up at flea markets. This particular sale was an institutional event, selling off some art donations, to put funds raised back into a recreation fund for residents.
The large framed watercolor was more than just a tad familiar. I called Suzanne over and asked if she could identify the scene depicted. She actually took less time to identify the subject, than it had taken me on my first, second and third return-glances. “It’s a Strawberry Social at Woodchester.” Of course it was, and for old times’s sake, we decided it would have to come home with us. When we look at it, to this day, we can catch the scent of cake and berries, hear the social chatter of hundreds of guests and helpers, feel the excitement of another successful event on the museum hillside, and judge by the contented looks on the faces of patrons, that these same folks would be back for many more events after this. And we can look at this painting, and feel exhausted, as if we have just then finished the hours upon hours of preparation and service to the typically large crowd.
I love the painting but it does serve as a reminder just how hard it was to earn this level of appreciation from citizens.....the folks we needed at Woodchester regularly, to make the museum viable. But it was the unending work that made volunteering at the museum
more like a job than a for-fun, helpful recreation. As lovely as the events were, and profitable, there’s no one who worked on-site as a volunteer helper, back in the 1980's particularly, who wouldn’t feel exactly the same emotions staring up at this thought-provoking work of art. A spirited interpretation of good times but having that aura of imposition, that was so exhausting for the cause of local history. It’s calming at first then quite unsettling, and it’s as if, at any time, Carol Scholey, the master of the really big events at Woodchester, is going to come whipping around the corner, screaming for me to come back to the kitchen for yet another load of something or other. Suzanne winces at the thought because Carol was a taskmaster, and to her, there was no shortcut ever, no slacking-off, and absolutely no job too tough to meet, hand to hand, shoulder to the grindstone. She was a hard worker, unflinching, stalwart but we were just not up to her speed. No one was. So she’d do the work of four. But eventually, even Carol started to tire of the fundraising demands of the little museum on the hill.
Thinking about Woodchester over the past week or so, I have recalled many highlights and a few lowlights. One of my fondest recollections, was when the Board of Directors, took advantage of an offer from Gravenhurst’s Muskoka Festival, to bring a “theatre in the round,” event to the museum lawn. I think it was entitled “Paper Wheat,” and was held a few times that summer season, each time enjoyed by large crowds. With the historic theme of the play, and the interaction with the close-by audience, and the sundry other sounds of train horns, a waterfall, infants crying, folks laughing, and the sun’s diamond sparkle in the overhead canopy of leaves, this was a perfect venue for such open air events. It wasn’t just the museum we were benefitting from, it was the amazing property with its picturesque view of the river. What we worried could be an attendance disaster, became one of the best attended events other than the annual socials. The only other event to shatter expectations, is when we held a Christmas in July event, in the late 1980's, and had the lawn full of chairs, lawn chairs and picnic blankets, to hear the large provincial Salvation Army Band. It was fabulous.
The downside of our success, for this event, was that Suzanne and I had both been sick for most of that Christmas in July week and it wasn’t until the Sunday afternoon concert, that things got worse. We also had to look after both our wee lads at the same time. They were fine and full of that vim and vinegar that makes parenting of toddlers so special. We had to get to Woodchester about two hours before the event to set out the chairs, get the museum up and running, make-up lemonade for hundreds, line up rows of drinking glasses, and cut the large cake into small portions. Suzanne set up the front porch with glasses for the lemonade, and we pulled up a table for the cake and cookies. I worked in the downstairs kitchen, making large quantities of lemonade, half asleep, while Andrew played with his dinky toys on the conference room table. When I got up stairs, Suzanne, with a pounding headache, had fallen asleep in the porch rocker, with Robert contenting himself with two cookies pulled off the tray. It was like that for the rest of the day. Trying to rest-up here and there, without looking too obvious about slacking-off. I woke up once, sitting in a chair up by the fountain (now re-situated to Memorial Park), and it wasn’t until Andrew pinched my nose, to get my attention, that I awoke with a start....wondering where I was......and how the hell these people had got into my yard. It was an easy mistake to make because we spent so much time at Woodchester that it did seem, at times, like a second home. We had staff on for the day but not enough volunteers to free us up. There was no way we could have stayed home or the large event, that gave us a near record attendance, would have had to be cancelled. It wasn’t an option that sunny Sunday in July. The museum needed the money.
I remember getting home later that afternoon, covered in cake residue and sick of anything that smelled like lemon, and both of us hitting the sofa at about the same time. We rested comfortably for several moments, until the calls came from the museum,,,,,,, staff facing some conundrum or other......like who got the leftover cake and lemonade. That was a no brainer. “Take as much as you want.....we insist.”
It always took about three to four days before we could even consider a recently held event, no matter how well attended, or profitable, a success in our own honest appraisal. We were harsh critics of our own work. But we also recognized that in order to get to that stage of accomplishment, where every event was done to perfection, would take many more volunteers than we could muster at that point in the museum’s own history. While we could get a mob up that hillside for a special event, which took every resource to operate, the meat and potatoes, day to day fare, left us without the confidence we could drop or decrease the more labor intensive fundraising events. This realization, more than anything else, was the “bitter sweet” side, we see in this painting of the Strawberry Social. We couldn’t make money on admissions alone without major events being run on the property. With large-scale events we needed at least ten volunteers plus staff working in the two museum buildings. When a director suggested to us, “well, then close the museum when you have these events.....to free-up staff to help,” it was the contradiction of operation that became the obstacle we couldn’t bypass. The whole purpose behind the special events, was to bring people up to an “open” museum, as an association-themed-outing, to put strawberries, cake and history together. It would serve no long term advantage to have folks not be able to attend the museum at the same time. But it was a clear reminder just what the future of museum operation, and perpetual funding shortfall meant to all volunteers left standing.
The painting serves as a poignant reminder, just how much of all our lives, in those years, was dedicated to making Woodchester Villa work.......as it should have.....as we believed it could. So it is with some disappointment that I look at this charming painting and still ponder....what if?
TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011
WHAT THE WOODCHESTER EXPERIENCE DID FOR US?
The same young lads who chased each other tirelessly, on the shady hillside lawns of Bracebridge’s Woodchester Villa, and played everso gently with the Victorian era toys, strewn about in the child’s bedroom, now have surrounded themselves with history as a matter of lifestyle and profession.
From their early-age involvement at Woodchester, they’ve seen fit today, to buy, repair and sell vintage musical instruments and nostalgia. They both admit that being surrounded by history for so many years, at the museum and at home, seeped pleasantly into their respective souls. Andrew and Robert are curators of music heritage, and loving every minute of the experience!
Of course it was the privilege of having parents, who were part of the museum intimacy, you might say, and able, without the actual cost of admission, to spend hour upon hour immersed in family and community history. As I helped launch both the Historical Society and the bid to restore the octagonal Bird family house, (Woodchester Villa), I also worked long and hard to convince Suzanne, my bride, to join the museum volunteers. I was devilishly cunning back then. A few years later, and well, the kids had no choice. We spent so much time at Woodchester, in the late 1980's, from tour-guiding to lawn maintenance, program creation and operation, that it was necessary, a lot of the time, to keep the boys with us. So they adapted to Woodchester as if it was a second home. It was immersion, no doubt about it. But it worked to infuse history into our daily lives in a sort of crazy perpetuity...... of chasing and reclaiming all things old. We’ve got a house and shop full of this evidence of historical connectedness.
When I walk into their mainstreet Gravenhurst music shop today, located by the way in the former Muskoka Theatre building, (which is a nostalgic hoot), I can’t help but think those Woodchester days made an early, solid imprint. While it’s also the case that, as antique dealers, we are surrounded by old stuff daily, those years in the museum business, taught them an early respect and reverence for the value of old stuff generally. The only time either one would touch anything in the museum, or house, was when they had our approval. Such was the case in the allegedly haunted child’s room, on the second floor. They had too much else to think about, in that room, beyond what some guests believed was a spiritual occupation.
Years later, working for Roger Crozier, and then the Crozier Foundation, Andrew and Robert were pivotal players in the arrangement of displays and the handling of the valuable memorabilia for the sports hall of fame. Even before I was afforded the showcase, at the Bracebridge arena, paid for by the Foundation, the boys had assisted with the creation of a huge hockey display, during a summer antique show, honoring Crozier’s career in the National Hockey League. We did it strictly as volunteer curators and it was a blast.
When we changed exhibits in the Sports Hall of Fame, I let Andrew and Robert assist with arrangement of the sports relics, trophies, equipment and photographs. When we finished, we’d stand back and admire our handiwork. Every two to three months over twelve years, we’d show up to make the changes, and it was always neat to be able to handle all the history on display. It was a carry-over of Woodchester, where they learned early, about being responsible stewards of history.
Suzanne asked me the other day, after my recent letter to the editor ran in the Bracebridge Examiner (about the future preservation of Woodchester), what those years really meant to me. By this point I’d thought about nothing else for a week. Finding out that it could take, in excess of $500,000 to repair Woodchester Villa, re a front page article in the same paper, had inspired some serious recollection......as you can gather from the blogs written on this site during the past week. The only answer I had for Suzanne, was what I wrote about in the first paragraph of this blog. I felt our boys had benefitted most of all by the exposure to history all those years ago. My parents had taken me to just about every historic site in Southern Ontario, before I hit my twelfth birthday. It kind of rubbed off but I’m pleased they took the time to expose me to our country’s heritage. It’s helped me greatly over a lifetime..... my contenting days as both an historian and antique hunter. I credit them for my long-sustaining passion to preserve our heritage. When I walk into the boys’ music shop now, you can tell in an instant, Andrew and Robert feel the same. Mom and dad don’t lift a finger inside their shop, or make any suggestions about interior decorating or the inventory to stock the shelves. They are young antique hunters, musicians, entrepreneurs and good stewards of our past. I don’t know how many damaged vintage instruments Andrew (the restorer) has saved, but it must now be in the mid-hundreds. Both boys appreciate the old-time, quality sound of a vintage, time-traveled, worn-down instrument, brought back from the brink of the dumpster. And they’ll demonstrate for you, how in many cases, a cheap guitar of fifty years earlier, can sound better and richer than a top of the line, expensive modern-era creation......made from “sort of wood.”
When I think back to our family’s involvement in the operation of Wodchester Villa and Museum, it is a warm and fuzzy reminiscence, especially knowing that the boys don’t hate us today, for what we had to do then, mostly as volunteers, to keep those museum doors open. Their admiration of antiques and collectibles is immeasurable, and ranges from art appreciation, to the three pump organs we’ve saved from demolition. When I first began writing about my early days at the museum, the clearest recollection, was the long, labor-intensive days that beat-up a lot of good hearted volunteers in those lean days of museum life. There were a lot of aggravations and frustrations that I carried about, and it did impact my family. Over the years however, we found a way of incorporating family life and museum operation. It didn’t alleviate or even reduce the daily work load but it was no longer a burdensome responsibility. Those memories of the kids bouncing across the freshly mown lawns, falling and laughing, is still so vivid and contenting, And when we talk about Woodchester today, and weigh over its precarious future, we are sincere about our concern for its welfare. How could we not be? The immersion at Woodchester, for those years, has very much influenced how we live and work today. I can’t find a single negative in what we have long believed was a strikingly positive relationship.
As for the stewards of this property now.....what to do, what to do? I can’t really expect they could possibly possess the same connection to the site, as we enjoyed. So it’s a more “matter of fact” relationship that must prevail. It’s a municipal matter. I don’t expect my opinion will be of any consequence whatsoever, to the future of Woodchester. And that’s all right. I’ve had my say.
