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.