HERE’S OUR OTHER SUPPORT FOR THE GRAVENHURST FOOD BANK - BUT DON’T FORGET OUR “NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS” FUNDRAISER AT THE GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE, DECEMBER 18TH, 7 P.M.. WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU!!!!

As our own family commitment to the fundraising and awareness campaign for the Gravenhurst Food Bank, and the Salvation Army, and the great assistance they provide our community twelve months each year, I have begun a 12 part series of feature articles, published in “Curious: The Tourist Guide,” (available at select shops and online) profiling the life of a woman from Victorian times, by the name of Ada Florence Kinton.....a tireless worker with the Salvation Army, in Toronto, who had a particular affection for the District of Muskoka. Her family were pioneer businessmen in the community of Huntsville back in the 1880's. She did spend some time in Gravenhurst, as is referenced in her journal, but she was on a traveller’s schedule of trains and carriage (sleigh) travel.

I have worked on Ada’s biography since the mid 1990's, and it has been published three times previously in the local press, as a series of articles, focused primarily on her art and writing work in Muskoka. On this occasion, I’ve delved into her efforts, street level, helping the less fortunate at soup kitchens and street-outreach in Toronto. Each of the 12 parts is dedicated to the staff and volunteers of the Gravenhurst Food Bank, in her memory, with an attached request, each column, asking that readers support food banks in their own community, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. I’ve been tremendously inspired by this gentle-woman, since I first discovered her book, “Just One Blue Bonnet,” back in the early 1990's, while hunting for old books at a Bracebridge second hand shop. She rests today in a tiny pioneer cemetery in Huntsville. But her spirit is very much alive, and hopefully you will find something inspirational as well, in the columns re-printed on this blog-site over the next year. The year-long series will be submitted, on completion, to the National Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario archives, pertaining to her contribution, in Ontario, to both art and art instruction. She taught art in England and in Ontario, and was a highly competent painter who captured many Muskoka landscapes.

These are chapters about the goodwill of man toward others. We see it all the time. But sometimes we take it for granted, that it will always be there when we need it! As for need, I can’t imagine the hardship that would be caused if the Food Bank closed it’s door due to low resources. What would be wonderful, is if need declined. Unfortunately in this precarious post-recession period, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Hope you enjoy this little piece (2 columns, November, and December 2010)

Merry Christmas to one and all. Hope to see you at the concert.

ADA FLORENCE KINTON AND I HAVE A DATE THIS WINTER, IN SUPPORT OF THE SALVATION ARMY FOOD BANK

Since I began working for the local Muskoka press, back in 1979, first from a news desk at the Georgian Bay-Muskoka Lakes Beacon, in MacTier, up to and including my years with The Herald-Gazette, Muskoka Sun, Muskoka Advance, The Muskokan, The Examiner, The Banner, The Wayback Times and currently Curious; The Tourist Guide (online), I’ve amassed a rather significant collection of feature articles, some that ran over a few months, and several that ran monthly over a year. Point is, I’ve always got a bin-load of feature articles and local histories to update and re-write for today’s audience. If I was in a musical group, I suppose you’d say, “I’d be my own tribute band.”

There’s one biography I’ve returned to twice before, because I have a deep devotion to the subject. And I’m not really sure why. I’ve worked on many compelling and emotion-laden stories in the past. This one however, was as if I’d been touched by something divine......as one might expect from an audience with an angel. On the day when we found each other, she was alone in the corner of a book shop, and I was a writer without a muse. She was the subject of a 1907 book, entitled “Just One Blue Bonnet,” and I was the book collector with just enough coins in my pocket, to make this biography my own.

It was in part, you see, a regional Muskoka text, as a fair component was set in the Huntsville region, well before the turn of the century. As my job was to ferret-out good local histories, this looked like a gem. And it contained a personal journal regarding her stay in the district, with many observations about the settlement, the inhabitants, local customs and the hinterland surrounding the pioneer encampment, with accurate descriptions of the flora and fauna, and wildlife beyond. You might say Ada Florence Kinton, and I, were kindred spirits even though we were more than a lifetime apart.

Ada Kinton was a member of the Salvation Army, as referenced by the “blue bonnet,” and she wrote for the publication “War Cry,” when not working as a personal assistant to Booth family members, while on international missions. Before she was a member of the church, she was an accomplished artist and teacher, and as well, became a talented writer. She made many pioneer era sketches and paintings, while residing in Huntsville, with her brothers, who were amongst the early settlers and business founders in the hamlet. When she arrived in Muskoka, following the death of her father, in England, the transplanted Miss Kinton was deeply homesick, and worried about her future in a new and barren land.

The story, in a nutshell, is about devotion, sacrifice, and compassion. I visited her grave recently, tucked into an old, treed cemetery in central Huntsville, and felt a gentle comfort standing above her tombstone, as if she was pleased in spirit, her biographer had finally paid a visit to her final resting spot.....which was a beautiful plot in a quiet place, surrounded by family members, and despite the din of daily life in a thriving town, there was a prevailing solitude. She passed away, early in the 1900's, on a porch not far from this gravesite. In those final days, her sister helped her onto the porch, so she could watch the comings and goings of her adopted hometown. She had been greatly fatigued by her missionary work, and had suffered numerous debilitating illnesses, contracted in tropical climates. Ada was still a young woman but appeared much older and feeble, in those last days residing in Huntsville. Despite being in constant bodily pain and being weak from fever, she was contented with the days of her life, and the people she had come to know in so many walks of life. One would think that a great writer like Charles Dickens or Washington Irving, would have celebrated her as a character in one of their memorable novels, had she been known to them. Her work amongst the poor in England and Canada was legendary, and it was this compassion that drew people to her side, whether it was the destitute, the intellectual crowd, or her art students, looking for her leadership and advice. Many of her art school graduates, both in England and Canada, became highly accomplished painters.

This is just a wee introduction to a 12 part series of articles I’m now preparing for Curious; The Tourist Guide, which will run over the coming year. It is online so you can read it there if you can’t find the publication.....which is available at select shops in Muskoka and Southern Ontario. The column is dedicated to the Salvation Army’s Food Bank, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, my hometown.......and my hope is that readers will be inspired to make a food or cash donation to a food bank in their own community. My first column on Ada Florence Kinton will appear in the November issue, and there will be a special Christmas-themed column in December of course. You can access the article by searching “Curious; The Tourist Guide.” As I am writing this feature series, as an exclusive for this publication, it will not be published on my blog-site.

Please keep the Food Bank in mind this coming holiday season. They could really use your help......it’s the neighborly thing to do. The folks in need, well, they are our neighbors!

PLEASE HELP YOUR LOCAL FOOD BANK THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON -

ADA FLORENCE KINTON SAW HOPE AMIDST HUMAN TURMOIL

By Ted Currie

This is part two of the story of Ada Florence Kinton, an accomplished artist and teacher, a writer of considerable acclaim, and a stalwart worker on behalf of the Salvation Army, in Canada and abroad, from the late 1800's, until her death in Huntsville, Ontario, shortly after the turn of the century. The series is dedicated, in her memory, to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the kind folks of the Salvation Army. If you can, please donate to a food bank near you this Christmas season. Ada Kinton would been delighted by these many acts of kindness.

The reader of Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol," huddled cosily at hearthside, enjoying the crackling fire within, undoubtedly would have found the story of Scrooge’s spiritual rekindling, both remarkable and comforting at this time of the rolling year. Yet in the 1870's, a young British girl, familiar with the work of the deceased author, knew well that no matter how compelling a good story, there were pockets of the good old city of London, where there seemed no visible comfort or enveloping compassion. The bright light then as now, was the steadfast work of the "kindly," who, just as today, offer assistance where and how they can. A good ending to a story was uplifting, as literature, but the real world didn’t follow the author’s dot of an "I" or feel compelled to attain a higher moral standard. Despair was indeed that vicious circle that seemed impossible to impede by normal course.

Ada Florence Kinton was profoundly influenced, as a child, by what she saw of the poverty and immorality in the city she adored. Confessed to her sister, some years later, Ada had one day, in her youth, followed a curious trail of tiny footsteps along a dark city lane. In the author / artist’s1907 biography, entitled, "Just One Blue Bonnet," Ada pens the following description of the scene she witnessed in this poor section of London.

"Once long ago, in this writer’s earlier days, a trifling incident chanced that was fated to leave my senses, ever keenly on the alert, to the presence of evil abounding in the child-world. In one of the poorest streets, of London, a little way past the archway’s entrance to a slum, so bad and vile that it was known to all the neighborhood around as ‘Little Hell,’ there suddenly appeared a small half-clad urchin, shoeless and with a pale face, who came painfully limping along, for a careless step on some shattered fragments of glass (maybe a drunkard’s bottle) had gashed the poor little foot, cut through the coating of dust till it left an open wound." Ada writes, "Then as I watched, I saw the trail went down toward ‘Little Hell,’ and there vanished away. But the memory remained, and from that day the thought of the small, blood-stained footstep, trodden in vivid brightness on the dull, cold, grey of the stone-paved streets, haunted and followed me until it conjured up a vision; and troubled fancy dwelt long amongst a multitude of neglected children, whose feet run to and fro, the streets of every town and city and leave no trace or sign to tell the tale."

Even in the 1870's the young Ada Kinton had made her turn toward charity, and the ceaseless mission to help the poor. Even though she had a promising career as an artist herself, and was in demand in England, and later in Canada, as an art teacher, she could not devote herself to either, when in her mind, there was so much suffering around her. A trip to Canada in the 1880's, and then several years later, after her father died in England, gave her a good opinion about new opportunities closer to family, who at the time were amongst the earliest pioneers of Huntsville, Ontario. When she was not working on behalf of the Salvation Army, on missions abroad, working on the streets of Toronto helping the poor, she found solace wandering the countryside trails in Huntsville, writing and sketching.

But admittedly, she was most content, helping at the soup kitchens, with a particular sensitivity to the underfed, under-clothed children without home or sustenance in the cruel winter climate. When she began writing, some years later, for the Salvation Army "War Cry," she penned a particularly poignant piece, that as a biographer, has always allowed me to visualize this tiny, warm soul, reaching out to the desperate, to offer if nothing else, a warming embrace of compassion. By lamplight she wrote the following passage, a memory of once, a child saved from the cold.

"On the last night of the three days we passed down Yonge Street, two or three people stood round a tiny news-boy, who was gasping out sharp sobs. ‘Can’t keep himself warm? Then let him die,’ was the surly comment of a man with him. But we could not ‘let him die.’ So grasping the swollen purple hand, we ran him along so fast as the stiffened child could move, past the gathering crowd on the Temple steps, standing, shivering, waiting for the door to open, and down through the back door into the warmth of the fragrant, coffee-scented soup kitchen. No wonder he could not ‘keep himself warm.’ There had been a slight thaw at noon but as the sun went down, the frost renewed its power, and the wet snow that soaked his boots, was beginning to freeze them to his feet, in the stinging, biting wind, and only with considerable hot coffee and rubbing would the circulation be persuaded to move again. ‘It’s all ready now,’ said the superintendent of the coffee-tins.

"Withdrawing ourselves into as small a space as possible, on top of a biscuit-barrel, with our little charge, now quivering and panting with the reaction of returning warmth, we watched from our vantage while doors were opened, and six hundred people jammed down those steps in one solid human lump, so terrified were they that there would not be enough for all. It was a scene never to be forgotten; we were powerless to move to help, though in the crowd we saw, among many things, a white-haired old woman, with her old clothes, half torn from her, and a basin of hot coffee poured down her bent back, and a child half crushed, when a pair of strong arms seized him and uplifted him above the seething mass of heads. In an incredibly short space of time the abundant supply of food, crackers and loaves, and coffee, had vanished, and the crowd moved out wiping their mouths and laughing. ‘Me and my children must have starved but for this,’ said a woman as she edged past our barrel, with a bonnet knocked sideways over a grateful face. ‘Shan’t I owe the Army a lot when I do get work again,’ said a tall man quietly. A man came hurrying down the steps with his eyes on the coffee tins. ‘Too late, my boy, your coffee’s all gone."

The man had walked the cold snowy streets for hours to get to this sanctuary, only to find there was nothing left. It was this evidence of constant need that kept Ada Kinton on the job, even when it was obvious her own health was being sacrificed in the charity of helping others. The need was always there, the cases dire but Ada Kinton, as so many others, devoted themselves to doing the best they could, despite the circumstances, the shortfalls, and the necessity that seemed to increase weekly.

As the ghost of Dickens’ Jacob Marley bellowed angrily at Scrooge, when commended for having been a good man of business in life, reminding the covetous old sinner that "Mankind was (is) our business," one might pause momentarily and imagine Ada Florence Kinton, hovering faithfully over the poor and destitute, hoping against hope to save one more life.

For many years Ada Kinton was a familiar face on the streets of Toronto, and in the mission, where the hungry and cold found sanctuary. Her story is but a tiny fragment of the triumphs of human spirit, and fortitude, we see and hear about so frequently..... the generosity of folks like you, willing to share with the less fortunate.

From our family here at Birch Hollow, sons Andrew, Robert, my wife Suzanne and myself, with of course greetings from our seven rescued cats, so pleasantly huddled by the cracking fireplace, and dog Bosko, at my feet, have a wonderful Christmas holiday and a celebratory New Year. Drive safely while traveling throughout the region, and if you drop into the shops, antique malls, bed and breakfasts, and restaurants noted in this publication, please let them know you read about their business in Curious; The Tourist Guide.

Merry Christmas. See you next year with more on Ada Florence Kinton.

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