Part 4 Beatrice Scovell's, "The Muskoka Story"

PART FOUR

A Wee Glimpse Into the Past Courtesy Beatrice Scovell's "The Muskoka Story"

     "The Muskoka Story" is by far, one of the most neglected source history texts in the district. Part of the reason for its obscurity amongst those researching the District of Muskoka, rest in the fact it is hard to find on the open market, because it had a small initial printing, and never really made it to the book stores, at least with the volume most would expect of a local publication. While libraries were given copies of the book by Beatrice Scovell, most who would have benefitted from its content, had no idea it even existed. I was in the same building where it was produced, in the early 1980's, and it took until this summer to actually own a copy. Mine was the result of a local librarian deciding it had over-stayed its welcome, and that made me mad. This is a book in such short supply, that it should never, ever have been put out for sale. But I'm also glad it was put into a fundraising sale, because it found owners who would enjoy and use it for many years to come, as part of our own Muskoka archives collection.
     It feels good to be able to share some of the folk tales included in the hardcover copy. I knew the Scovell family from my own days at The Herald-Gazette newspaper in Bracebridge, where it was edited and printed by Muskoka Graphics circa 1982. Better late than never, as they say, so here are a few passages from this fine, folksy, family oriented book, that took a lifetime to compose. Thank you Beatrice Casselman Scovell.
     The small chapter is entitled "Mental Telepathy," and in her wonderful folksy way, she writes the following explanation of her paranormal experiences:
     "One night I woke up. A thunder storm was raging. I had been dreaming of a fire burning somewhere. Then I thought I could smell something burning. It was so real, I got up and went to tell my parents about it. We went all round the house to see if we could find something on fire, and found nothing. We were standing at the front door when the lightning struck the big frame building next door. At that time, the 122nd Muskoka Batalion was in Huntsville and the house had a number of soldiers in it. We used the phone to call the volunteer firemen, and as the hose at the tap on the front lawn was still attached, I was sent to turn the water on. The volunteer firemen took some time to arrive, and also the bell in the town took some time to get going; but the fire did not spread. By the time the firemen arrived it had been isolated in one corner of the house.
     "No-one in the town was told that I dreamed about the fire in the house before it started. The only one to be told was Dr. Hart, and he would keep my secret. It was after I was four years old that my parents realized I had inherited the mental telepathy of my grandmother Casselman and my father. When we moved to the house on Main Street, Jane and Martha Booth, who lived in the big frame house between us, and the Gledhills, often used to come for me to take me for a walk. One day I came into the dining room and asked 'Am I ready to go for a walk when Martha and Jane come for me?' Then I went to the dining room window and waited until the girls came. No-one knew they were coming except me. Things like this had been happening from time to time.
     "For instance, I came downstairs one morning and said "Mrs. Armpy (Armstrong) from Thornbury is coming to see us today. Could I go to the train to get her?' It was to be a surprise visit because it was my mother's birthday, and no-one was to know anything about it. Mrs. Armstrong had lived next door to the house my parents lived in when they first came to Huntsville. She had often looked after me while my mother went to the Huntsville Hospital to help with the patients' meals."
     Beatrice Scovell adds to her biography, regarding her ability to dream future realities, stating that "As I grew older, I often used to dream of things that were going to happen, or of things that had already happened but that no-one at our home knew about. One day we went to see an elderly lady who lived alone. Mother took a couple of jars of crabapple jelly for her, and promised to bring some other jellies next time we came. During the night following this visit, I dreamed I saw her. I was looking in at the window and she was lying on the floor beside the stairs. My mother knew that many of my dreams came true, and she sent me back there with another jar of jelly and a bunch of flowers from the garden. If I saw her on the floor, as I had in my dream, I was to go next door for help. Sure enough, I saw her on the floor. I rapped on the window to let her know that I had seen her, then I ran next door and they phoned for a doctor. She said later that she had been praying all night for someone to come and help her, for she had several broken bones. But we did not tell anyone about my dream."
     "Another time, I woke up and ran into my parents' room, hoping my father would be there, and told him, 'Get up and be ready. Someone is hurt and they are coming for you.' We went downstairs and stood at the open door. I heard horses running along the road, although my father could not hear them, he said, 'Yes, now I hear them. They have come over the swing bridge.' We went inside and shut the door. Immediately there was a man out front with two horses. He said, 'I have brought an extra horse for you. You will not be able to use the road into the wood camp. A bridge has been broken. We need help for a man at the camp, who has become quite ill in the night. 'Indeed, there was no way a horse and buggy could get to the camp. My father went on horseback. He look ed so funny, for he was six foot four inches tall, and his extra long legs hung down on each side of the horse."
     She writes, "When I married and went away from home, away from a Doctor's home, I hoped that my mental telepathy would leave me. But that was not to be. The first year we lived in Espanola, I woke up, one morning, having had a horrible dream about a very big  building on fire. My father was with the people who had been in the burning building. I recalled the time he had seen a farm house on fire. He had been coming home in the night and had gone into the building to get the people out. Some of them had still been asleep. My husband said that if there had been a big fire, it would be in the papers when they came out, and he would find out.
     "When the papers came, we read that the Wawa Hotel, on Lake of Bays, had burned to the ground. I had to wait to hear that my father had not actually been in the fire. He had been asked to stay in town. The railway company sent a special train to take the injured people to Toronto, and my father was to be ready to make the trip with them, for he was a railway doctor. He said it was a terrible ordeal, for they did not send enough help with the train. He had to get everyone's name and home address, and not let anyone leave the train without writing down what hospital they went to, or who had come to meet them and where they had been taken. So he was not at the fire, as I had dreamed, but the ordeal of looking after the people, visitors and help, who had been in the hotel, was so great that he was actually sick with nerves, and his heart was giving him pain. He went into hospital. He died in 1927."
     Please join Suzanne and I for another chapter of this most interesting Muskoka history, courtesy Beatrice Scovell. If you've missed the previous chapters, you can archive back to Part One published on this facebook page.