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.