Final Words On The Mavety Collection From The Circle M Ranch of Kleinburg

Snapshots as part of the Mavety Collection of Photographs from The Circle M Ranch in Kleinburg. There was obviously movie filming going on at this time and these images were taken by a curious bystander and were not professionally taken for film promotion.

SOME FINAL WORDS ON THE MAVETY PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION

WE DON'T DRINK, HAVE ANY DESIRE TO GO NIGHT-CLUBBING, AND WILL NEVER CLIMB MOUNTAINS FOR THE THRILL OF IT!


     Give us boxes of old photographs and the reason to research them! The reason being, there's something important to discover and uncover to enhance the integrity of the subject collection. I call that "fun and profit" at the same time. An identified collection is always worth more than the same one without names and locations attached. I've got thousands of those, and they are only worth what we can garner from their background and foregrond of scenery. We wish the names, locations and dates were included. Facing facts, there are more unidentified photographs, by a thousand to one average. As I posed yesterday, how many of your own family photographs are clearly identified with a captions, or have the names of the subjects printed-on? Even if the collections stay in the family following your demise, how will offspring be able to identify distant cousins, aunts and uncles, even close friends, without captioning?
     I remember the evening my offer to purchase a large family photograph collection, was accepted, by the individual responsible for settling a local estate. It was unbelievably exciting, particularly because it had a large percentage of images, taken in Muskoka, and most of these, were of the 1940's and 1950's, from the shore of Browning Island in Lake Muskoka. We have many incredible negatives of Muskoka Lakes steamers, lashed together mid-lake, in order to exchange freight, luggage, trunks and even some passengers, all in the focus of Reverend Ewing Reid's camera lens. We were able to acquire the photographs of a hugely ambition camera-toting family, and we had months of entertainment, sorting through the original prints and negatives, some of them being glass, finding specific details in some of the images, that helped us infill other historical research we were working on at the same time.
    Although a much smaller collection, the Mavety photos, taken at Kleinburg's famous "Circle M Ranch," were a great acquisition for folks like us, who find it rather recreational, to spend hours upon hours, trying to identify subjects in the vintage photographs. For this venture, we knew ahead of time, that the Circle M Ranch had played host to hundreds of Hollywood actors, and country musicians, known throughout North America, and we had it on good authority, that some of the celebrities were identified rather helter skelter through the paperwork, as a rough but acceptable starting point. One being country legend, Wilf Carter, known as "Montana Slim," the other being former Canadian heavyweight champion, and actor, Eric Cryderman, who once fought American champion, Joe Lewis. Both these gentlemen had autographed and inscribed their photos. It was a little more difficult to apply names to photographs, from the autographs contained in the collection on their own. We are still working on finding the photograph of musicians like Tex Ritter, and Gene Autry. This week we identified quite a few, including the young Roy Rogers, actor, Chuck Connors, who would one day play "The Rifleman" on the television show of the 1960's. Connors was also a wrestler and professional baseball player. We estimate at least another fifty hours or so, to do as much as we can, to connect the last thirty or so names, to faces that appear in the graphics. It's good we enjoy this stuff, right? Getting it done, will create an historically responsible archives collection, and yes, the value will be in the thousands of dollars if we connect all the dots. We're still in the hundreds right now, but according to preliminary evaluations, as related to collectables on the open market for each celebrity photographed, we have quadrupled our investment in only four days. Some smart alec asked me one day, how historians make any money. I answered with a clear amount of facial glee. "Well, we double as antique dealers, and winter in the South Seas." Gets them every time. I'm only kidding by the way. We double as antique dealers, but don't vacation south of Muskoka. We are quite happy with our recreations here in God's Country.

A LITTLE COMPANION NOTE TO LAST FRIDAY'S BLOG, ABOUT THE DECISION TO CLOSE DOWN BRACEBRIDGE'S UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

     In my opinion. Just mine. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise! Maybe just offer a different perspective, because these days, there's a shortage of counterpoint, and what I used to know as investigative journalism, on stories with deep roots.
     I used to write editorials for all our news and feature publications, under the ownership of Muskoka Publications. After that, I worked as Editor of the Gravenhurst Banner and assistant editor, of The Bracebridge Examiner. I know how editorials come about, and why management agrees to take hard line positions, on certain community issues and debates. I wrote them in the late 1970's and 1980's, so I do have some background in this regard. I wrote a letter to the editor of one local publication, and it was pruned like an old cedar hedge, presumably by the editor, who must have thought I used too many words to get my point across. Heaven forbid I was in the least controversial. To a veteran writer, yes, it was insulting. But it's happened before, and yet I'm crazy enough to think that one day, they will give me my due respect, and leave those few extra lines in the copy as submitted. I have to live with the outcome, and hope the point got across with few words. I've been an editor and writer too long, to like interference. Then don't write for them ever again. Point taken!
    I thought I was being brief, because in the analysis of Bracebridge's Woodchester Villa and its future, as a founder, damn right I have a lot to say, and I was holding back a typhoon of critiques I wanted to offer the Town of Bracebridge, for their own past management of the site; which has been closed since architectural problems surfaced in 2009, after a collapse of the second-story wrap-around verandah, after an early season snowfall quadrupled what would be considered a normal amount. Even though I volunteered, shortly after the collapse, to help the town in anyway possible, to conserve the collection, or raise community dialogue about the site, in a public appeal, the town didn't want my input. I have a pretty good idea why, and it most likely had to do with my vigorous public protest, and editorial campaign, a few years before this, regarding the Town's decision to sell Jubilee Park for a token fee, to be used as a university campus. I was highly critical of the way the town was ramming this project through, and I was quite happy to take-up the protest by local residents, who wanted the park to remain a park. I'm only guessing here, but then offering to assist the town, to help protect the artifacts inside the octagonal heritage site, I helped create in the first place, obviously didn't appeal to council, or staff responsible for Woodchester. I get it, and dropped the issue. I didn't surrender by own personal history connected to the museum on the hill, just the part about trying to convince the town I was still a good spokesman for the heritage site. I was a trouble maker with a good heart. Trouble maker status trumped whatever good I could have generated. I have a bad reputation for being unspoken in person and in print. I've even scared off associate historians, one recently, who take a more conservative, gentle approach to recording and interpreting local history. I am a rogue, and of this status, I am regularly reminded when I am ignored as an information source, and a willing partner on a public project. I will not change my protocol, and I can live with being snubbed, as long as it doesn't mean I'm going to get a punch in the nose. I just won't open the door if I suspect this might be the outcome of being neighborly.
     So I didn't appreciate the editor of this publication cutting apart my letter to the editor. But if I was to call and complain, I would be told that it was the publication's privilege to cut-at-will, and I should be happy it was published at all. I didn't run our papers this way, and the only reason I ever cut a letter was if it was considered a legal liability, on advice of our lawyer. I never received a hugely long letter in eleven years in an editorial capacity, and I'm pretty sure mine didn't need to be trimmed of a single sentence, judging the content of the paper otherwise. Hey, it's a professional disagreement I'm going to have to live with, or perish of spontaneous combustion, the result of frustration with others.
     There was an editorial comment that sprung forth, this week, that hit me in the face like a limp Muskoka tuna. I could not believe, I mean it sincerely, that the editorial position of the publication, suggested, the present debacle of the university campus in Bracebridge, wasn't the fault of that period's municipal council. Afterall, the university in question had provided quite a tempting array of benefits, for the town in its future. Seeing as I was a lot closer to this story than the editor, and management of said publication, and I carried the protest placard, and was up close and personal at every public meeting that was held, believe me, it has a deep root back to the unanimous decision made by those councillors, to move this project ahead; seemingly without any reservation about what they were inflicting, or taking away from the residents of that area of the Hollow neighborhood. It wasn't a council vote, as much as it was a statement of mission, with no dissenters, except those of us who found it disgusting, that a small parcel of urban open space, an historic park named after the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, could be dumped at council's discretion, without even one councillor objecting on the record. At this time, the only constituents who were of concern, were those in favor of the sale, and the establishment of a university campus. The councillors of that day, and those who carried on to this day, as elected officials, must face this current crisis, and the potential closure of the campus, knowing they played an enabling role in taking away town parkland that they were supposed to protect, and provide ongoing stewardship, for the welfare of future generations. So honestly, I do heartily disagree, with letting any of those councillors off the hook, simply because the deal from the university, seemed too good to resist.     Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.