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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1977-01-19, Page 2WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1977 8.4"a 1: Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean Bros. Publishers, Limited. Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and• Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association *CNA Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $8.00 a year. Others $14.00 a year, Single Copies 20 cents each. f olowillaNN am Brussels Post REMEMBER WHEN? — There was a Grand Trunk Railroad station in Brussels and Anderson Bros. ran a livery and bus to and from the station. The photo is from a postcard loaned to the Post by Geroge Flewitt of 110 Whiteloack St., Stratford. It's postmarked Brussels in what looks to be 1923 and bears a two cent stamp. Anyone who remembers the horse drawn bus is welcome to share their memories with Post readers. Please tell your story to Ev Kennedy at the. Post. Amen by Karl Schuessler How they used to keep warm They're pioneers It's hard to believe, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, but there were a few pioneers elected to councils and school boards in Huron County The pioneers are women. Yes, one half the human race and probably more_ Than half of the county's population managed to get a tiny handful of their sex elected to office. More women weren't elected probably, because very few of them ran for anything. The lack of represenation of women in political life in Huron is a shame. Ah, but they are represented by the men who were voted in to office, you say. Yes, they are ... but and it's a big but. The low proportion of women on area councils gives believability to the idea that women aren't really up to or interested in the really big things in life. Oh, they keep our homes together and our families fuhctioning smoothly, they run offices and work in stores, but there's really no need for them in the big business of government. They don't really care about how our towns, townships and schools are run, the critics of women's equality can say. Most women are quite content to leave that part of life to the men who know best, the men who recognize that, after all, it's a man's world.. There have only been two women, ever, on County Council, the late HelenJermyn of Exeter, and Minnie Noakes of Hensall. Tuckersmith, McKillop, Morris and Brussels have never had even one women on their councils. Seaforth has a woman mayor, Betty Cardno and had a woman councillor, Jean Henderson, several years ago, but no women except Mrs. Cardno even sought local office here} this year. Grey Township had two women councillors, Barb Dunbar and Leona Armstrong but Mrs. Dunbar didn't run this year and Mrs. Armstrcing will be the lone woman there. Goderich has two veteran women on council, Elsa Haydon and Eileen Palmer who will be the only woman on County Council, following her election as deputy reeve. Exeter has two women councillors, Lossy Fuller and Barb Bell. Hensall has no women on council now but Minnie Noakes served there for several years. Bayfield has Milvena Erickson, a veteran councillor. Cli nton's new council will have one female member, Rosemary Armstrong and two women served there during the last term. The Huron County Board of Education gained a total of one woman mernber in the December 6 elections. Veteran Seaforth trustee Molly Kunder was defeated but two new women, Dorothy Williams and Shirley Hazlitt, were elected. They'll join Marion Zinn and Dorothy Wallace, both veteran trustees, who! were acclaimed to office, to make four women on a 16 person board. The Huron Perth Roman Catholic Separate School has no women trustees, and they have never had any. A visitor from outer space, or even from Scandinavia or England where women have traditionally been quite involved in politics, looking over the list would have trouble believing that women make up more than fifty percent of our population. A visitor from outer space might conclude that Women were a sub caste here in Huron CoUnty, allowed a few token representatives, but certainly not entitled to equal decision making `rights with men; But that's not the way it is Is it'? I bet the only thing you thought I'd talk about this week is the weather. Fooled ya. I'm not going to mention one thing about snowbanks and ditched cars and whiteouts. I'm not going to tell you all about the 14 year old Van Hevel twins, Don and Ron, who rescued me and my car from a snowbank with their tractor and snowmobiles. None of that. But I am going to tell you all about my neighbor Marie Meyer. She's living all alone this winter for the first time in her life-, in the family homestead farm. • I can't get much sympathy out of Marie when I complain about howling winds arid drifting snow. "You haven't seen a thing", she shakes her head at me, "If you think this is bad, you should have been around 50 years ago." Marie out to know. She's weathered over 65 years in this snowbelt country. And, she insists, the snow was much higher and the' temperatures much lower. I think M arie figures we're all a bunch of pantywaists - with our warmed up cars, driven down snow plowed roads, all salted and sanded for our convenience. Back in the old days, the folks not only talked about the weather, they did something about it. They knew how to keep warm. And that meant in sleighs and cutters, too. Take Katie Hinz. She warmed up three Eaton's catalogues in the oven; And when she got in the cutter to go to town all by herself -- Marie always remembers that Katie went alone--that woman was a good teainstress-- when Katie did get into the cutter, she sat down on two of the heated catalogues and she put• the other one 'on the floor to keep her feet warm. And then when she got into town, she'd drop off her cool catalogues at her relatives' house. And when she was ;ready to go back, she'd pick up her warmed over Eaton'S and make the six mile trip back home. Smart Katie! And so were all the others. They might not use catalogues, but some used warmed-up' bricks and sand. Others heated salt and put it in a bag and placed that on the floor of the cutter. Some had fancier footwarmers -- long metal ones' you'd fill up with hot water. You'd put the flat side to the 'front of the cutter and. underneath and the curved side you'd rest your feet On. Or y ou could use little- pig warmers. They Were made from stone jug ware—round and about a foot long. On.one end was the screw cap for the water arid on the other end was a knob — to hang on to it, so you wouldn't burn your fingers. But this was only keeping your feet warm on the outside, You had to begin with warm feet, So you started with woollen long underWear. It may tickle and prickle but that's better than sneeze and freeze. It sorta seemed a shame, but every wife thought it was her duty to coax her husband out of his dirty underwear. "Bu t it's not dirty enough," insisted Papa Meyer after a two week stint of warming it up and breaking it in. "Yes, it is," said Mania Meyer and she proceeded to pull the lkittom drawers out of her husband's pants. Mind you, in those days, suspenders held up not only pants but bottom underwear drawers as well. And if you were lucky to own the one piece kind of long johns,'you just may wear them day and night. And mama couldn't tear you out of them so easy. A lucky man might wear them for a whole month and even luckier ones--the bachelors? -- all winter. Marie says that' warm bodies need warm hands. So-out came the fin- muffs for the ladies and woollen gloves for the men. Marie has them still in the house --a pair of her father's gloves with wide cuffs going six inches up the arm. Gauntlets --she calls them -- fur gloves you can stick your coat sleeves down into, so the wind won't draft in. And the fur? Dog fur from the family pet who gave his hide--skinned and tanned—so Papa Meyer could teamster into Mitchell With warm hands. "Only trouble is, says Marie," When my Dad had them made up, he didn't order the palms wide enough. They were a bit too tight for him. But they fit me real good.. "And Uncle Fred from out West sent a hide of a black cattle beast to as. My Dad had it Made 'into a .13uffalo robe. My "folks were big, people, and they, needed something big to, wrap= around their legs and kriees.",and lap *Wen they sat in the cutter." • Marie says that in the beginning these cutter blankets may have been made out of buffalo,' but she only knew them as that black cattle ".beast hide or, woollen ones They were red wool', underneath, a leatherette inside and a green or brown wool bn top. But y ou needed more than that for a Sleigh ride. You could well take along a huge umbrella. The Meyers had. .two of them--strong and heavy canvass to set against the wind as you trotted along. And one other thig:•The meOftiffed a dickie under tbeWcoats. "It was really like a huge woollen bib"; says Marie, "It Was held on by a dome in back on the neck." The dickie covered three quarters of their chest and kept the drafts out of their coat fronts, The women kept the cold out with their high fur collars that stood. Up around their ears; Their fur caps of seal and persian lamb sat down oiter thir foreheads, so only their eyes peeked out. e They often wound a scarf or shawl around their neck and head, "And keep the scarf over your nose," Says Marie, "That's stilt good'advice on how to keep Warm today." • tell Sicka all of Marie's secrets, so can keep ',warm this Jitiniary,Wook; futc feathers and Eaton CatalOgtres. Remember, you heard it here first ftben Mane Meyer. - . „.•