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+ ¥ 19] 3 5 £ E ! i i 3 4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, October 25, 1988 "I hope this book will tell us a lot about Canada and ourselves"---Bill Graham History of Reach off the presses soon For the past eight years, W.H. (Bill) Graham spent most of his time living in the past. Whether delving deep into old documents and records at the Onta- rio Archives, scanning page after page of old newspapers, or writing in longhand in an easy chair in the book-lined study of his farmhouse south of Greenbank, Bill was to- tally absorbed in the task at hand. What started as research into the history of his farm, Belleview, which he bought in 1958, soon expanded into a scholarly work of history, some 320 pages, 100 il- lustrations, full bibliography; a detailed look at the times and many of the people who lived in Greenbank and Reach Township. "Greenbank, Country Matters in 19th Century Ontario" has gone to press at last, and the book will be available in stores early in December. The author has planned an of- ficial "launch" of this book No- vember 9 at the Scugog Public Library in Port Perry. "Greenbank" which is the short title of the book, looks at most aspects of life in rural Onta- rio from 1835 to 1935 by inter- weaving the stories for four pio- neer families: the Beares, the Iansons, the Blairs and the Craigs. Though scholarly in nature and intent, the book is far from dry and stuffy, spiced with fasci- nating anecdotes and colourful de- scription which make it highly readable and entertaining. In a lengthy interview with the Star at his home last week, the author talked about the work a what it meant to him person- y. "I hope this book will tell us a lot about Canada as it was, and aiso a lot about ourselves. "For me, it has been a very liberating experience, made me re- alize all the constraints we lived under," he said. - The 77-year old author went on to say that he "grew up in a very colonial atmosphere (in Win- nipeg) where we were told that nothing of importance ever hap- pened in Canada, everything of importance outside. "Through this book I have found that what happened in Reach Township was just as im- portant as what happened any- where in the world. And the land- scape in this part of the country (Reach) is just as beautiful as any place in the world. Except nobody has told the story before." Eight years in the making, Bill said he set no deadlines for completion of the book. For good reason. As a former executive and partner with MacLaren Advertis- ing, "I spent my life working to deadlines and I was bound and de- termined not to do it now." He found through the research several facets of life that both sur- prised and fascinated him. Rural Ontario was not violent in the context of today or even in the "shoot-outs in the street" man- ner of the American West, but Bill believes it was a dis-orderly society. Fighting was common-place as were the shouting of insults and obscenities. The return of con- viction lists showed many court trials for reckless driving in the streets with carriage or sleigh. When two settlers met in car- riage on a single pathway, the re- sult was often a fist-fight to deter- mine who yielded the right of way. Con artists with scams of eve- ry sort and description were part of society, preying on farmers who were both gullible and largely il- literate. Though it may be fashionable today to belicve that our forefa- thers and mothers put much stock in education, in fact the reverse was true. Up until 1870 when education - became mandatory for all children, going to school was largely some- thing to fill in the time when there was nothing else to do. Teachers were very poorly paid, so poor in fact, that they were forced to "board around" among village families, and the physical condition of early school houses was very poor. One early school is described as having such large wide gaps be- tween the logs that small students could easily slip out when the teachers back was turned. And contrary to popular be- lief, early school houses were not places of strict discipline where dutiful students kept their noscs to the academic grindstone. Often, teachers were physical- ly assaulted by the big , strong teen-age boys who were bored with school and the endless teach- ing by rote. One teacher in Green- bank routinely had to flee the classroom-in haste for the neigh- bouring farm and convince the farmer to make an appearance and keep the boys in line. A large section of the book is devoted to the temperance move- ment of the 1870's and 1880's, a movement which was especially strong in the hamlet of Green- bank, and indeed throughout Onta- rio County. The Sons of Temperance, Dis- trict 41, Greenbank was a force to be reckoned with. Strangely, according to Bill, his research found that the temper- ance movement never really caught hold in Port Perry, likely because this community was a staging area for transient men heading north to work the forests in Victoria County. The many ho- tels catered to these men and good livings were made on the sale of alcohol. If there is a recurring theme throughout the book, it is the harsh ethic of evangelicanism which dominated society's atti- tudes towards alcohol, entertain- ment and sex. Bill said there are some as- pects of pioneer life for which the research materials offer little or no clues. One is the attitude towards sex. It simply wasn't talked about, let alone written down or recorded. Researching court cases and the huge number of convictions for shouting obscenities, Bill said he never read anywhere just what the obscenities were. "Just what kind of curse words did they use," he asks. And he said there appears to be a lack of documented informa- tion about personal wealth, how much money pcople had in bank accounts. Bill wonders just how much truth there is to the old saying that "Ontario County farmers lived poor and died rich." He admits that no amount of research will fill all the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of that period in history. Bill Graham was born and raised in Manitoba, had a distin- guished career as an officer during World Ward 2, and later became a partner and executive vice presi- dent with MacLaren Advertising. He sold his interest in that * firm in 1971 and retired to Belle- view Farm, just south of Green- He started to research the his- tory of his own farm for the Womens Institute, and "things just snowballed from there." But he said the idea for look- ing seriously at Canadian history many years before. I have always loved and en- joyed history. But I came to real- ize that I had read a great deal about the Elizabethan Period, the American Revolution and so on, but I knew virtually nothing Sout my own grandparents," he said. About 20 years ago, he com- pleted a book about the settling of western Ontario called "The Tiger of Canada West: The Biography of William Dunlop." It won an University of Brit- ish Columbia award for popular biography. For someone who has spent the last eight years delving emo- tionally into the nooks and cran- nies of life in 19th century rural Reach Township, it is somewhat surprising to hear Bill say that he would not have liked to live dur- ing that period. For most, he says, it was a grinding, boring life. Work, of- ten, 16 hours a day seven days a week, hung over people all the time. Reading after sundown was nearly impossible. One's social life evolved around either the church or the "grog shops," as the local watering holes were called. While life may have been bor- ing in 19th century rural Ontario, the way Bill Graham has recorded it is anything but. "Greenbank. Country Matters in 19th Century Ontario" is edited by James T. Willis of Prince Al- bert, soon to be published in hard and soft cover by Broadview Press, Peterborough. Elwood Jones, professor of history at Trent University wrote the following about the book: "Bill Graham has spun a fascinat- ing and absorbing tale; this is an incredibly readable, entertaining and useful book." oF sa ' REIL S) PRODUCTS and SERVICES for the BUILDING INDUSTRY * Residential Design, Drafting and Bluepnnting Services « Roof Trusses * Kitchen Cabinetry + Doors and Mouldings + Windows + Steel Cladding R.R. 4, UXBRIDGE, ONTARIO Durham Road 23 at Conc. 9 (416) 852-7722 RONALD D. BRIDGEWATER, BA. LLB. 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