WHAT THE WOODCHESTER EXPERIENCE DID FOR US?

The same young lads who chased each other tirelessly, on the shady hillside lawns of Bracebridge’s Woodchester Villa, and played everso gently with the Victorian era toys, strewn about in the child’s bedroom, now have surrounded themselves with history as a matter of lifestyle and profession.

From their early-age involvement at Woodchester, they’ve seen fit today, to buy, repair and sell vintage musical instruments and nostalgia. They both admit that being surrounded by history for so many years, at the museum and at home, seeped pleasantly into their respective souls. Andrew and Robert are curators of music heritage, and loving every minute of the experience!

Of course it was the privilege of having parents, who were part of the museum intimacy, you might say, and able, without the actual cost of admission, to spend hour upon hour immersed in family and community history. As I helped launch both the Historical Society and the bid to restore the octagonal Bird family house, (Woodchester Villa), I also worked long and hard to convince Suzanne, my bride, to join the museum volunteers. I was devilishly cunning back then. A few years later, and well, the kids had no choice. We spent so much time at Woodchester, in the late 1980's, from tour-guiding to lawn maintenance, program creation and operation, that it was necessary, a lot of the time, to keep the boys with us. So they adapted to Woodchester as if it was a second home. It was immersion, no doubt about it. But it worked to infuse history into our daily lives in a sort of crazy perpetuity...... of chasing and reclaiming all things old. We’ve got a house and shop full of this evidence of historical connectedness.

When I walk into their mainstreet Gravenhurst music shop today, located by the way in the former Muskoka Theatre building, (which is a nostalgic hoot), I can’t help but think those Woodchester days made an early, solid imprint. While it’s also the case that, as antique dealers, we are surrounded by old stuff daily, those years in the museum business, taught them an early respect and reverence for the value of old stuff generally. The only time either one would touch anything in the museum, or house, was when they had our approval. Such was the case in the allegedly haunted child’s room, on the second floor. They had too much else to think about, in that room, beyond what some guests believed was a spiritual occupation.

Years later, working for Roger Crozier, and then the Crozier Foundation, Andrew and Robert were pivotal players in the arrangement of displays and the handling of the valuable memorabilia for the sports hall of fame. Even before I was afforded the showcase, at the Bracebridge arena, paid for by the Foundation, the boys had assisted with the creation of a huge hockey display, during a summer antique show, honoring Crozier’s career in the National Hockey League. We did it strictly as volunteer curators and it was a blast.

When we changed exhibits in the Sports Hall of Fame, I let Andrew and Robert assist with arrangement of the sports relics, trophies, equipment and photographs. When we finished, we’d stand back and admire our handiwork. Every two to three months over twelve years, we’d show up to make the changes, and it was always neat to be able to handle all the history on display. It was a carry-over of Woodchester, where they learned early, about being responsible stewards of history.

Suzanne asked me the other day, after my recent letter to the editor ran in the Bracebridge Examiner (about the future preservation of Woodchester), what those years really meant to me. By this point I’d thought about nothing else for a week. Finding out that it could take, in excess of $500,000 to repair Woodchester Villa, re a front page article in the same paper, had inspired some serious recollection......as you can gather from the blogs written on this site during the past week. The only answer I had for Suzanne, was what I wrote about in the first paragraph of this blog. I felt our boys had benefitted most of all by the exposure to history all those years ago. My parents had taken me to just about every historic site in Southern Ontario, before I hit my twelfth birthday. It kind of rubbed off but I’m pleased they took the time to expose me to our country’s heritage. It’s helped me greatly over a lifetime..... my contenting days as both an historian and antique hunter. I credit them for my long-sustaining passion to preserve our heritage. When I walk into the boys’ music shop now, you can tell in an instant, Andrew and Robert feel the same. Mom and dad don’t lift a finger inside their shop, or make any suggestions about interior decorating or the inventory to stock the shelves. They are young antique hunters, musicians, entrepreneurs and good stewards of our past. I don’t know how many damaged vintage instruments Andrew (the restorer) has saved, but it must now be in the mid-hundreds. Both boys appreciate the old-time, quality sound of a vintage, time-traveled, worn-down instrument, brought back from the brink of the dumpster. And they’ll demonstrate for you, how in many cases, a cheap guitar of fifty years earlier, can sound better and richer than a top of the line, expensive modern-era creation......made from “sort of wood.”

When I think back to our family’s involvement in the operation of Wodchester Villa and Museum, it is a warm and fuzzy reminiscence, especially knowing that the boys don’t hate us today, for what we had to do then, mostly as volunteers, to keep those museum doors open. Their admiration of antiques and collectibles is immeasurable, and ranges from art appreciation, to the three pump organs we’ve saved from demolition. When I first began writing about my early days at the museum, the clearest recollection, was the long, labor-intensive days that beat-up a lot of good hearted volunteers in those lean days of museum life. There were a lot of aggravations and frustrations that I carried about, and it did impact my family. Over the years however, we found a way of incorporating family life and museum operation. It didn’t alleviate or even reduce the daily work load but it was no longer a burdensome responsibility. Those memories of the kids bouncing across the freshly mown lawns, falling and laughing, is still so vivid and contenting, And when we talk about Woodchester today, and weigh over its precarious future, we are sincere about our concern for its welfare. How could we not be? The immersion at Woodchester, for those years, has very much influenced how we live and work today. I can’t find a single negative in what we have long believed was a strikingly positive relationship.

As for the stewards of this property now.....what to do, what to do? I can’t really expect they could possibly possess the same connection to the site, as we enjoyed. So it’s a more “matter of fact” relationship that must prevail. It’s a municipal matter. I don’t expect my opinion will be of any consequence whatsoever, to the future of Woodchester. And that’s all right. I’ve had my say.