In recent winters, St. Columba Church in Kirk Hill and Dunvegan’s Kenyon Presbyterian Church have held joint services in the months of January and February. And this winter is no exception. As Cemetery Committee Chair Audrey MacQueen explained it to me when we met last December, it’s a cost-saving measure for both congregations. Only one space needs to be raised to a habitable temperature each Sunday. To further add to the savings, when the Dunvegan church is the host, the service is held in their small, and far more cozy, church hall. There’s even an antique pulpit stored in the hall for when services are held there.
This year, Kirk Hill won the coin toss and will go first. So, in January, the Sunday service for the combined congregations will be at 11 am in St. Columba Presbyterian Church. Come February, the combined service will move to Dunvegan. At 11 am, I presume. Interim moderator Rev. Jim Ferrier also asked that I convey the following message from the Dunvegan – Kirk Hill Pastoral Charge, “our hopes and prayers are for a blessed 2022 and beyond.”
Dunveganite makes good
As I mentioned above, I recently met with Audrey MacQueen. In her role as the Church’s cemetery record keeper, she kindly offered to help me with research on a former Dunvegan resident from the 19th century: Donald Fletcher. As I quickly discovered through my endeavours, there were a goodly number of ‘Donald Fletchers’ in the Dunvegan area over the years. However, the ‘Donald’ that had piqued my interest was born here in 1873, moved to Montreal as a young boy with his family and ended up as mayor of Côte St. Luc. Dane Lanken, who was raised in Côte St. Luc during 1940s and 50s brought the late mayor to my attention.
Côte St. Luc is a small city that borders the Town of Hampstead where I grew up. Incorporated in 1903, Côte Saint-Luc expanded quickly by attracting German-Jewish, Scottish and British families. Unlike Hampstead, Côte Saint-Luc was not just a bedroom community. It had an industrial zone in its north end. It also had many apartment buildings, shops and even a strip mall, a relatively uncommon amenity in the 1950s. And according to the background material Dane sent me, Donald Fletcher from Dunvegan played a principal role in the town’s (and subsequently, city’s) growth.
An engineer by profession, Fletcher served as Alderman from 1929 until being elected Mayor in 1939, a post he held for twelve years. Over his 20+ years in office, he was instrumental in developing a Town Plan that strived for harmony between residential and industrial forces, and was focused on the growth of single-family dwellings. Mayor Fletcher died in 1962 at the Montreal General Hospital. He and his wife Agnes had two children, Grace Fletcher and Jean Hazel Brown (nee Fletcher). The two daughters both died in 1994, within two months of each other, Grace in Montreal and Jean in Vancouver.
I’ve tried to find more information on Donald’s early days in Dunvegan, but had no luck. I suspect his grandfather was John Fletcher, a Dunvegan farmer who was documented in the 1851 Canada West Census. There was also a Duncan Fletcher in the 1851 census and I’m guessing he and John were brothers. Both lived on Lot 13, one in Kenyon Con. 7 and the other in Con. 8. And both had sons by the name of Angus. However, subsequent censuses suggest that Duncan’s son remained in the Dunvegan area and raised his family. But I have yet to find John’s Angus in a later census. So he might have died.
Mayor Fletcher’s obituary is frustratingly short on detail of his early life. There is no mention of his mother’s or his father’s name. Nor have I been able to unearth a record of Donald’s 1873 birth, although it may have been noted in the Dunvegan church’s year-end report. Audrey is kindly looking for the Annual Reports from that period. And it may be that diaspora from the Dunvegan Fletchers may read this and help fill in the blanks for us. An article reporting his death did appear in the February 15th, 1962 edition of the Glengarry News. So the News staff at the time must have thought some of their readers would be interested.
Course offers hope
If yours is one of those lucky families where no member struggles with a mental health condition, please feel free to ignore this item. However, if the stresses of two years of Covid lockdowns and the associated isolation have had a negative impact on the mental health of someone you love, you might want to read on.
I’ve written in the past about my involvement with Cornwall & District Family Support. In addition to advocating for improved mental health services in this region, CDFS hosts support groups every two weeks for family caregivers dealing with a mentally ill loved one. Like so many activities in these difficult times, our meetings have had to move online. And while there was a concern, at first, that the technology would interfere with groups’ effectiveness, in no time at all even our members with little computer experience were comfortable with meeting virtually.
In the past, we have also offered an in-person Family-to-Family Education course that, because of Covid, had to be suspended… until now. However, I’m pleased to announce plans to deliver this life-changing eight-week course — online — starting sometime in late January.
Developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in the United States, the course is taught by trained volunteers with first-hand experience. The weekly 2-1/2 hour classes will use the Zoom platform. Both the course and the Zoom software are free. However, it’s strongly recommended that you attend using a tablet or a desktop computer.
This course is not intended as a support group. Its aim is to provide family members and even close friends with the knowledge and tools needed to help a loved one struggling with depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or other serious mental health problems. In the information-packed sessions, you’ll learn: how to deal with feelings of guilt; about treatments, medications and side effects; how to handle crises and relapses; how to take care of yourself — and much more
Because the interactive course is being held online, the class is very limited. So I’d advise reserving a spot as early as you can. Contact me via email or call 613-527-1201 and leave a message. Please note that this course is NOT intended for persons suffering from mental illness themselves. It is only for their family members and close friends.
New Year’s Hop?
To put a bow on 2021 before tossing it in the trash can, I spent a few minutes looking at how Dunveganites celebrated the momentous occasion 100 years ago. To my surprise, tiptoeing through the December 23rd and 30th issues of the 1921Glengarry News, I could unearth none of the frantic hoopla that has surrounded New Year’s Eve in the years leading up Covid.
About the closest thing I could find was a small box ad that read: “A GRAND New Year’s Hop will be held in the HALL, FOURNIER on January 2nd, 1922. An excellent orchestra in attendance. Tickets $1.50.” The advertisement was simply signed “DUNVEGAN YOUNG MEN.”
Interestingly, the dance — which cost about $25 per ticket in today’s money — wasn’t even held on New Year’s Eve. In 1921, the big calendar flip was on a Friday, just like this year. This means Dunvegan’s New Year’s Eve blowout was held on a Sunday. Which might explain why it was held out of town… and the ad was effectively anonymous.
Striking out there, I thought I’d check in with Ken McEwen, our Blackburn Hamlet stringer and ask about the big day when he was growing up in the area in the 1930s and 40s.
“New Years Eve was just another long winter’s night in the 7th concession,” Ken wrote me in an email. “My recollection is that for New Year’s Day we cooked another rooster. Later turkeys were available, but as we always had poultry in the early days (we bought a 100 day-old chicks every spring,) roosters were the bird of choice till turkeys arrived on the scene. I believe we did raise turkeys one year, but they were inclined to be a bit dumb. Didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”
And there you have it. I guess it wasn’t until after the war that New Year’s Eve fever took hold in rural Ontario.
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