Glengarry Pioneer Museum curator, Jennifer Black, has asked me to give Dunvegan residents a heads-up: a social gathering is planned for this coming Saturday, October 10th on the museum grounds. The occasion is a family celebration of the marriage of Alyssa Zappa to Bradly Trepanier. The son of Greg and Nicole Trepanier, Bradly (and his sister Meagan) grew up in the little house two doors east of the Dunvegan Recreation Hall. Before the Trepaniers bought it, the cute little building was home to Betty Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy was the Glengarry News ‘Dunvegan’ columnist for many years.
Jennifer tells me the young couple has organized the event so that it meets all the current Covid-19 restrictions for public gatherings. They have also consulted, and received a green light from, both the Township and the Eastern Ontario Health Unit. So please don’t call the authorities to report a Pandemic Infraction. Saturday’s gathering has the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Congratulations to Bradly, Alyssa and their respective families.
Why Dunvegan?
Unfortunately, last week’s drone video shoot of Dunvegan had to be postponed because of poor weather. The aerial photography is needed for a tribute to Glengarrians who died in foreign wars that’s being produced for the Glengarry Historical Society by Gabrielle Campbell, Scott Campbell and Robin Flockton.
As I mentioned, one of the fallen recognized by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was Seaman Donald Cameron Young of the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve. Seaman Young joined the RNCVR in May of 1944 and was discharged as medically unfit in September of the same year. It appears he was immediately admitted to military hospital in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, where he died on March 1, 1946.
The twist to this story is that Seaman Young was subsequently buried in Dunvegan. I’m intrigued as to how this service man ended up in Grave 1, Lot 4 in the “New Section” of the graveyard beside Kenyon Presbyterian Church. What was his connection to Glengarry in general, and Dunvegan in particular? At the time of his demise, his parents, Victor B. and Florence Young, resided in Montreal. My supposition is that his father, or mother, must have grown up here or had relatives in the area. If you have any information on Victor, Florence or their son, Donald Cameron Young, please contact me.
As for the aerial photography of Dunvegan, it’s hoped the drone will be able to get airborne sometime this week, before wind and rain completely denude the trees of their fall colours.
Skye School Days
With the pandemic-driven emptying of urban hotspots to the Canadian countryside, you could almost stick a cardboard box by the side of a country road and sell it the next day for substantially over the asking price. And Dunvegan has not been exempt from this real estate boom. Even tiny plots of undeveloped land that have been on the market for decades have been snapped up as soon as the stakes of fresh For Sale signs were driven into the ground.
We recently looked at one of these listings in the September 9th column: the former S.S. #2 Kenyon (Cotton Beaver) schoolhouse on County Road 24. The distinctive blue school building was willed to Claude Taillon by his Uncle René in 2005. In my email discussions with Claude, he proudly told me that he was a product of the one-room schoolhouse system so prevalent in rural Ontario until the mid 1960s. While his father attended Cotton Beaver as a lad, Claude’s alma mater was Skye School: S.S. #5 and #20 Caledonia and Kenyon on Lot 6 of the 9th Concession, Caledonia.
Claude attended Skye School from 1957 to 1964. It was 1.1-mile walk from his home, which he remembers as a “whole lot of steps for six year-old kid.” On his very first day, he arrived at school in tears. When the teacher asked what was the matter, Claude — who knew very little English at the time — reported that a “guy-up” had hurt him. One of the other kids explained that he’d been stung by a wasp or guêpe, in French. As he recalls, the teacher gave him a red pencil as a distraction.
From 1962 to until he graduated in ‘64, Claude also took over the position of school caretaker, in addition to his studies. Like his brother John before him, Claude was responsible for bringing in the day’s firewood, lighting a fire in the box stove and sweeping the floor with the aid of Dustbane. He still can recall the distinctive aroma of the green-coloured, oil-soaked sweeping compound he used to minimize dust.
While doing his caretaker chores, he would listen to CFRA on the school radio. As proof of the power of a good advertising jingle, he still remembers one sponsor’s ads: People’s Credit Jewellers. Founded in 1919, Peoples Jewellers was the first company in Canada to sell jewellery on a time payment plan. It’s still in business today. Claude isn’t sure exactly what the caretaker position paid, because it was his parents who received the money. His best guess is that it was around $35 for the whole school year… about $300 in today’s dollars.
A typical day at Skye School started with the singing of God Save the Queen. (Can you imagine the lawsuits that would explode if one asked students to do that today?) The teacher would then hand out the day’s assignments to the older students, who sat on the right hand side of the room, facing the teacher. Then the teacher would work with the younger pupils while the older kids studied on their own. Just like today, the morning was punctuated with a recess. For lunch, they ate what they brought from home, while sitting at their tables. Claude told me that the afternoon was devoted to reading and the handing out of homework assignments.
When I asked what was the most memorable day during his years at Skye School, he barely hesitated before declaring, “the assassination of John F. Kennedy.” He and his fellow schoolmates were outside at recess when Isabel MacLeod, their teacher, burst through door and announced the sad news. (We know what Ms. MacLeod was doing during recess; listening to the radio.) Obviously, the dream of Camelot had even reached as far as Dunvegan.
Today, Claude is semi-retired and lives with his wife, Lucie, in their lovely home on a wooded lot on a back road just over the border in Roxborough Township. I admit I forgot to ask Claude if he and Lucie missed their former home on Lot 4 of the 9th Concession. However, one thing I know they probably don’t miss is the marginal Internet service many Kenyon residents endure. Even though their bungalow is smack dab on the rural side of life, they are in Roxborough Telephone Company territory. As a result, they have fibre-optic based telephone and Internet service. We only wish.
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