A Modern Perspective About Those Who Preceded Us
There are a lot of folks out there who don’t care much about history at all, except possibly the recognition of family photographs on the livingroom wall, or when it comes to reminiscing with family and friends at some seasonal get-together......just for the sake of conservation and a wee folly of nostalgia which we all love in some proportion. I respect this and understand that for a lot of people these days, it’s living in the "NOW" that counts. Especially in this economic downturn it’s certainly understandable that one needs to be acutely aware of what’s happening in front without the weight of the past hanging overhead. The same for antique collecting. I know lots of friends who can’t stand anything older than ten years and wouldn’t put a rare Victorian side-chair in their home if they were given it as a gift. They don’t understand me and I can’t understand their purposeful distancing from the beautiful past. No one’s right and no one’s wrong. I’m pleased to be in close proximity to history. Some need to be contemporary and futuristic to get through a day. We agree to disagree.
Every once and awhile, Suzanne and I will take a little stroll through one of the beautiful little cemeteries we pass, while on a motor trip through Muskoka. My favorites are the cemetery in Ufford where Suzanne’s relatives are buried, and the United Church Cemetery abutting Annie Williams Memorial Park, in Bracebridge, where many of my friends and acquaintances rest in peace. I confess to having been at the Anglican Church cemetery only once, but happily finding many former friends and neighbors..... but I have never been to the Catholic Cemetery or to the Municipal site on District Road 4. I hope to correct this shortfall of experience in the very near future.
Even if I didn’t have a shred of passion for material history, and had no particular interest in regional heritage, a trip through a cemetery would always be a humbling experience. As you look about the tombstones, some so covered by lichen and mosses that they can’t be read, it’s impossible not to ponder the contribution these folks made to the communities of 2009 from their lives spent 100 years, 50 years, 20 years ago.....by the building and sculpting work they did in their respective time periods. As a cocky historian with a lot to say about a lot of things, caustic to a fault, stepping from plot to plot makes me feel remarkably shallow and unworthy. These were the brave front-runners in a small struggling community in the Canadian hinterland, some from the 1800's, other from only several years ago, yet it is the amalgamated spirit here that truly defines, for me at least, what it means to be a hometowner.....a Muskokan. I’ve researched and written about many of Muskoka’s pioneers. When I stand on their graves I do feel the connection and I am in awe each time, particularly when I think about what they’ve all accomplished in their respective roles as the part of yesterday’s citizenry. Whether they were politicians, lawyers, doctors, farmers, trappers, home-makers, dress-makers, or clerks from the local dry goods shop, they helped build these roads, these old neighborhoods, the main streets, the local hospital and parks, all that are still fully occupied and expanding this new century. All of them here, beneath the modest flowers and tiny shrubs, the freshly cut grass, on this windblown terrace above the sprawling lawns of Annie Williams Memorial Park, are biographies of people we need to know.
There are times when I inadvertently step on the grave of someone I knew very well in life, and feel as if I have been pulled that way by some spirit-to-mind connection. And I will acknowledge them with a sincere "hello," and identify how I enjoyed our time together. There are other occasions when I will stumble upon a particular plot that beckons like no other, as if for recognition of the almost erased inscription. Possibly the grave of a child beckons, or the half crumbled stone on an overgrown plot that requests the kindness of a few moments acknowledgment. While I don’t believe souls dwell in cemeteries, accept sundry ghosts who are frequently sighted in strange moonlit revels, I have always found these hallowed grounds so spiritually restorative to the living. When I get frustrated or angry about the progress of some historical project I’m working on, I will frequently travel to a cemetery to refresh my context of heritage.....and there is no better place to seek consultation than the inspiration one can find row by row in the evergreen-wreathed acreages so symbolic of Muskoka. These people were the history makers. They were the ones who carved this habitation out of the thick and inhospitable regional woodlands. They built the bridges, roads, and first shelters on the embankment of the Muskoka River, overlooking the cataract of the Bracebridge Falls. They are the names imprinted today on neighborhood streets, and you can reference many of them while casually reading through one of numerous local histories, as business owners, builders, government officials, feed-store operators, blacksmiths and coopers. I want to take tours through these cemeteries because of the true history it all represents.
While it’s true that an overwhelming majority of residents today have little if no interest in local history.....although it pains historians to know this, it doesn’t make it any less true. We can write about history, and sell a modest volume of books on the subject of local heritage but sales are never truly what we might suppose is an acceptable, profitable circulation. The "live-for-today," celebrate "the moment" contemporary, "run everywhere-do everything" lifestyle, must for the sake of efficiency deal with the rigors of actuality. Worrying about the well-being of historical record doesn’t really come up all that often, except if the matter is raised by some half-crazed historian running up and down the street with a placard touting the importance of preserving this park, this old house, this dilapidated old building etc. etc. etc. As you’re swerving out of the way, to avoid taking-out the historical zealot, possibly you might give a moment’s thought to the issue of heritage conservation. Maybe not. Truth is, historians generally don’t attract crowds of eager onlookers.....unless we’re naked and speaking in tongues.....which would of course only be a ruse to get your attention. We’re a cunning bunch you know. We have to be promoting something pretty incredible to fill a hundred seats at a local venue. But tell me, did you look forward to history class in school? Did you ever fall asleep mid text, mid lecture, and wake yourself up by whacking your nose down onto the desk? Hell, don’t feel bad, so did I! There’s no shame in that. When I told a former history teacher that I had gone on to seek a degree in Canadian history, as I watched him, his chin really did hit his chest. "No way....you....why, oh why would you ever want to take history in university?" Well that’s the puzzler. After I graduated high school in Bracebridge, I unexpectedly turned on, at about the same time, to estate auction sales and bottle digging at old homesteads across the region. When I started it didn’t feel much like history...... just relic hunting. I had a huge enthusiasm then for vintage glass which I still maintain as a collecting interest today. What being involved in the antique enterprise taught me, was a new and significant respect for history generally. I narrowly got past the course of instruction as curriculum set down in school, only to opt for a backdoor approach later that allowed me to see history in a much more useful and practical light. Speaking of a practical light, ironically I collect and utilize antique oil lamps, one of my all time favorites illuminating this keyboard now, wafting the scent of spent coal oil that I absolutely adore.
I find myself very grounded, as a matter of some irony, when I wander the peaceful surroundings of a community cemetery. I feel the calm and solitude of a work force at final rest. There is an aura of satisfaction here, that what has been created actually has worked and progressed since their time. Many of their offspring still live in the community and are part of the modern day enterprise of building a more diversified and dynamic economy. And while I don’t expect my invitation to you to visit a local cemetery will overcrowd the grounds any time soon, I do feel it is the one place,.... a confluence of lives and lives once....., where non-historical types and lovers of history can casually agree about the significant influences of old upon new.....and that one day we will be pushing up the daisies ourselves, trustfully also resting in peace, observing from the afterlife I’m sure, that we had also made a lasting contribution to the qualities and quantities of our enduring hometown.
As a parting note, in my many strolls through area cemeteries from one end of the region to the other, I frequently generate interest from neighbors and self appointed protectors. At the United Church Cemetery, in Bracebridge, I had been making my usual copious notes from tombstone inscriptions to accompany some feature story I was writing for the local press. While I was immersed in my copying, I didn’t hear anything coming from behind, and when I felt a hand on my shoulder I very nearly collapsed with shock. Now imagine what you’d think under similar circumstances. I looked behind to find an elderly woman to my right, who seemed to be staring right through me......and just when I started to think that I had come across a pretty good example of a graveyard ghost, she said, "Mr. Currie, what’s that bird over there?" Of course she was looking right past me.....at a bird she hadn’t seen around the town for years, had apparently come to roost on a nearby stone. With the heart rate now of a marathoner having just crossed the finish line, she said "I didn’t mean to startle you....I was just coming over to see what you were doing in here....making those notes.....working on a story I guess." I did know the woman in question, once I was able to focus outside the grip of fear and panic, and as it was we had a nice visit amidst the graves....admiring the bird I couldn’t identify, and chatting about so many of our old chums buried beneath.
Don’t be afraid to visit a local cemetery, any cemetery. You’ll be amongst the names of our founders.....good friends of history.