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Make museums great again
I will not talk about Donald Trump. I will not talk about Donald Trump. I will not. How about those County Museums, folks? Have you hugged one of our museums recently? We’ve got five sites! Something for everyone. I know many of y’all have never been to any of the County Museums. I know it. For those of you who sorta think you know me, and the handful of you who really do, I am a museum enthusiast. I have been historic-site-crazy since 1959. LOML and I included Upper Canada Village in our honeymoon trip. But back to 1959. That was the year my classroom teacher took us on a bus trip to visit the Schmidt-Dalziel Barn north of Toronto in the village of Vaughan. It was a long trip for a bunch of Toronto kids. Many of my fellow classmates couldn’t have cared less about the settlement of rural Ontario, let alone the beauty of a historic site. It was a day away from St. John’s School. It was eating lunch on site. It was tasting apple butter and savouring the scent of bayberry candles. It was an eye, and heart, opener for me. I loved every single moment of it. Ironically, years later, I worked with a woman who was a Dalziel. It was her family’s home that we had visited that day on our class trip. It’s a small, divine world.
As a first-generation Canadian, it was interesting to meet the Dalziel Family. Many years later, it was interesting to move to this community in Prince Edward County. Here, the family lines are long and enduring. It is in a community like this that the true meaning of “keeping it in the family” abides. The family farm, the family home and the family business. If you happen to be speaking with a dyed-in-the-wool County person, you truly have to be careful about the range of your “unrestrained” chatter. Chances are, the person you’re speaking with is related to the person you might happen to be speaking of. And so it goes. I find it wonderful that the older houses have “family names.” We live in the VanDusen house or they live in Dorland House or, more recently, a McFarland home. We give directions to visitors based on who lives in the house on the corner of the street. We find our way around by the same method. While I can’t claim a deep, familial connection to the County, I can say there is a connection being created for generations from now. LOML and I have been here for 44 years. Recently, someone referred to our house as the La Rose house. Slowly, we are becoming attached and connected.
And so it is I am well and truly a Friend of the Rose House Museum. It is a site with deep roots in the pioneering settlement of the North Marysburgh section of the County. Walking around the site and through the house, I feel a deep connection to the family who spent generations making a life and a living from the abundance they found and created around them. I have never felt like an outsider at this site and thank the Rose family for this. If you’ve got time on your hands, or feel like you want to be involved in the preservation and presentation of local history, visit our beautiful museums. Speak to the staff about volunteering. Did I mention the five sites by name? Rose House, Mariners Park Museum, Macaulay Heritage Park, Wellington Heritage Museum and Ameliasburgh Heritage Village. Get out and show your heritage some love! Museum Friends don’t let friends complain about being bored.
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