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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1980-10-16, Page 13Bell. sow trill ...gone Part oli e history&sappears remember how the mill dam used to be their favorite swimming hole up to 10 years ago. Edith Hell said she still remembers her daughters taking their binoculars to try to catch a. glimpse of the skinny dip- pers, And several people remember the mill as the place where they went for their Sunday School picnics with Carmel Presbyterian Church in. Hensall, The Bell mill carries with• it a great history - one that will not easily be forgotten, ORIGINAL SAW — Above the fireplace in Edith Bell's home are same treasures of the old saw mill. The first saw blade used in the mill was refinished with chrome and kept through the years. Also on display is the steam whistle which was used to indicate dinner and supper hours. The Bells also saved the ruler from the mill which was used fp measure the boards: Staff photo RE-ENACTING OLD SCENE -- Pauline Bell shows how she used to help her father in the mill by sawing lumber into firewood. Staff photo CARDING MACHINERY -- Mrs. Edith Bell stands beside what is left of the machinery in the car ding mill. The carding mill, which is adjacent to the saw mill, ceased operation about 40 years ago and what was left of the machinery was sold at the auction sale.Staff photo A FAMILIAR SIGHT -- The old saw mill building on Stewart Bell farm, west of Hensoll, brings back memories to many local people. The building is all that's left of the old mill after the recent auction sale. Soon it may be torn down. Staff photo Ey MARY VAN ESSEN Part of HeaSail's history has been threatened by the recent sale of the eql4Pment from the Stewart Bell saw west of Hensall. Al Crerar from Hensall, who used to work at the mill, said it's the last water- powered saw mill left in the area, Several people have ex- pressed regret that it wasn't conserved as a "whole. Instead, the saw mill has been sold in three parts and the adjacent carding mill sold in two. All that remains of the mill is the building that housed it. Lloyd Mousseau, a distant relative of the Bell . family from Zurich, said, "It's to bad the mill wasn't restored and kept. When you sell something the way it was Sold, it's just gone and forgotten about." But owner Mrs, Edith Bell, wife of the late Stewart Bell, didn't want to turn it into a tourist attraction and have people all over her property. And moving the mill would mean losing some of its history. When first settled, Hay Township was a heavily wooded area and the wood products industry was an early one, The Stewart Bell mill was built around 1846 by Patil Doig-Bell. His brother Daniel built another saw mill on an adjacent farm to the west. Paul and Daniel were the sons of Robert Bell who came to Canada from' Kippen, Scotland, with his wife Margaret Doig in 183a and settled in Kippen. Paul developed an interest in the timber business from his father who in 1940 took ever a sari 1110J Which was bniit by the Canada Coin. pa ;ay, The Bell 'brothers took advantage of the fact that a creek wound ALS way through their property and decided to build darns and use a water wheel to power their mills. BLit Paul soon found himself in the middle of a law suit filed by eneighbour whose farm was flooded by his. dam. Se he had to un- dertake the massive job of moving his mill downstream about a quarter of a mile, Al Crerar said that the timbers from the original location can still be seen upstream from the old mill. In the early years, the Bells enjoyed almost a monopoly on the saw mill business, the only other mill being located south of St, Josephs. By 1862 there were two More mills in existence in the area. But 'by 1879 the population of Hay Township had greatly increased and the timber business became More active, Mill yards were constantly overflowing. The Bells received more com- petition from people such as T.J. Wilson, Hensall, who built several saw mills in the area, After noo the sawmill business became less prosperous as the supply of timber was depleted. But Paul Bell's mill continued to operate under hii son William and then William's son Stewart entil six or seven years ago. In the 1940s, Stewart Bell remodelled the mill because the dam was' deteriorating. , Water power was used up until the 1950s, when he changed over to a diesel tractor. aYj 121:ax VOC & North Lanibton Since 1873 Althettgli Stewart Bell WAS a farmer, he made more• money out of his hobby of sawing. He used to do custom sawing, and loads Pf timber Went out by the truckload to places as far as. Quebec, His mill could square timber up to 36 feet long. The floors and paneling in the Stewart Bell borne are made from wood sawed at the mill. Many barns in the areawererepaired with wood from the mill. Although Stewart had no sons, the two Bell daughters, Pauline and Troyann, made up for it, Edith Bell said that they used to work hard in the saw mill. "When they, were seven years old they could put a log through as good as any man," she said, According to Edith Bell, the saw mill was eIosed down because of too many government regulations, one being that you had to have flush toilets in order to operate the mill with a hired hand, Paul Bell also started up a carding mill which was attached to the saw mill. He raised his own sheep for their wool. The carding mill has been closed for about 40 years now and some of the equipment was taken to a musetim. in Detroit years ago. The rest of it was sold at the auction sale. The Belts still have some pure wool blankets that were made, from wool carded at the mill. Edith Bell decided to put the contents of the mills up for sale last fall when ap- proached by three neigh- bours - Robert Caldwell, Ray Ingram and Wayne McBride - who volunteered to do all the preparatory work in- volved in the auction. About 250 people from as far as Brantford, Ontario, came to the sale which lasted from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on August 16. "Everything was sold but one log," Edith Bell said, She gave it away. Most of the contents of the Serving South Huron, North Middlesex pg:..vwcw.:', • Mmem ther; „ latan .;" azoon$1,.„„ign<*ammz.. , October 16, 1980 TraMPORNOM saw mill went to Phil ftVit7:at, Gemeinhardt, Bayfield, who Page1A also bought the antique water wheel. After finishing the massive job of • dismantling the mill, he Controversy -over restratnts„,- „ . DISMANTLING SAW MILL -- Phil Gemeinhardt; Bayfield, bought the main portion of the Stewart Sell saw mill at the recent auction sale and is shown dismantling the carriage which supported the logs as they were cut. Staff photo Erect more stop signs in Huron Park area intends to set itupagain at his home. Gemeinhardt already owns a similar saw mill in Bayfield which is run off of electricity. But he said it only saws logs up to 24 feet long and he requires a mill that will saw logs up to 36 feet. Although the contents of the mill are gone, and Edith Bell intends to eventually have the building torn down, many precious memories of the mill will never die. Several local people still Centralia Centennial Community Centre com- mittee will be allowed to continue with its own treasurer and bank account. Council will be looking for an alternative central an- swering service for the Huron Park fire department. Fire calls are now handled by the Huron Park central heating plant but that facility is being discontinued within the next year. A Municipal Board hearing will be held in Crediton on Tuesday, October 21 at 10 a.m. to act on proposed planning change from agriculture to corn- inercial for the Southcott property at part of Lot 5, Lake Road East Concession. Six tile drain loan ap- plications totalling $60,200 were approved. For the upcoming municipal election, deputy returning officers and poll clerks will each receive $35 per day and rental for a polling booth is $40. of the Govers municipal drain at Lot 8, Concessions 5 and 6. In a reverse decision, the Okay pact Middlesex County board of education's 375 elementary school teachers have ratified q new one-year contract that will raise a senior teacher's salary about nine per cent to a new high of $32,210. Both men and women teaching groups met at Parkview Public School in Komoka on Tuesday night to hear details of the contract and give it an overwhelming vote of confidence. The pact is the second the teachers have signed with the board this year. They signed a 1979- 80 contract in May after prolonged negotiations. The new agreement -- costing the board an extra $936,081 -- closely parallels a pact signed by the board's secondary school teachers in June. Stephen township council has taken steps to slow traffic in two areas of the Huron Park residential area. Road superintendent Eric Finkbeiner has been in- structed to place stop signs at the north end of Empress avenue and at the east and west ends of the top of the T road north of the southern access to the park from County road 21. An agreement has been completed with Grand Coves Estatesfor snowplowing of a small area of sidewalk in front of the aforementioned development in the township at the northern edge of Grand Bend, The engineering report of the John Smith-Carroll drain has been received and the report will be read at a special meeting set for October 23. Drain inspector Ken Pickering has been in- structed to repair a portion munities in which they live. Yet there is no significant provincial legislation which protects workers or com- munities from these situations or which holds employers sufficently responsible for creating them, or for alleviating their effects. We believe that three steps can and should be taken, and are preparing amending legislation to this end. (1) We must increase the period of notice that a company is required to give its workers before layoffs occur, and there should be a correlation between length of service and the notice given. (2) We must provide fair levels of severance pay for employees who are laid off. (3) We must make pen- sions a right, not a privilege for workers. have also ,had the effect of seriously undermining the medi-care program, The Liberal Opposition is in- creasingly concerned that the Ontario Government has so under funded our public hospital sector that it is no longer able to meet the community need. There is a crisis of confidence developing in this important social service area and the Legislature must im- mediately involve itself to' ascertain whether or not the quality of healthcare in the Province of Ontario is being, jeopordized. Sean Conway, M.P.P. for Renfrew North and 'Liberal Health critic has submitted a petition to the Legislative Assembly, asking that the Annual Report of the Ontario ,Ministry of Health be referred to the Select Committee on Social Development in order that an examination of the financing of public hospitals in Ontario might be un- dertaken immediately. Comments are certainly invited if you have any concerns with the medicare program in Ontario. The Opening day of the Fall Session of the Legislature had as a central theme an emergency debate on the subject of plant shutdown and worker layoffs. During the debate the Minister of Labour, Robert Elgie, indicated that he intended to request Cabinet to approve a variety of measures aimed at easing effect§ of plant closings on laid-off workers. The Minister stated that he considered the province's economic problems to be temporary and maintained that "responsible and af- fordable" programs are needed rather than sweeping changes. In his• view, ap- parently, the future of the provincial economy is en- couraging and the layoff picture is already im- proving. A few days earlier,Liberal Leader Stuart Smith, held a News Conference on the question of Plant Shutdowns and Worker Layoffs. He pointed out that almost 95 percent of all the new layoffs in Canada over the last few months have occurred in Ontario. With the growing pace of plant shutdowns and layoffs, We're seeing tore and more the hardship that these are causing for workers, their families, and the corn. IJW guests A total of 220 students and some of their teachers from 10 Ontario high schools will be spending Wednesday, October 15, on the University of Waterloo campus as guests of the faculty of science. Schools and students participating include South Huron District High School and Goderich District Collegiate Institute. The students will sit in on regular lectures and take part in lab sessions. They will take notes do ex- periments, ask questions and mix freely with 1.IW students. According to Prof. tteg Friesen, one of the organizers of the visits, they are intended to "give the high school people an ac- curate impression of a typical day in the life of a 1.1W science student." He says Waterloo has been operating its science day visiting program for 12 years during which time close to 36,000 Ontario high school students have had an op- portunity to spend a day on practice completely outside the government plan. This is the system which is presently being following in Quebec. Two of the studies com- missioned by Justice Emmett Hall were the Stoddart and Woodward Study and the Wolfson Study. Neither of these studies have been made public as yet. The Stoddart and Wood- ward Study showed the ef- fect of physicians extra billing on patients access to care and attitude towards the Ontario Health Care System. The sample of approximately 1800 people was drawn from the Ontario Counties of Simcoe, Perth, Halton and Waterloo in order to provide geographical dispersion, urban-rural variation and a high proportion of respondents who had experience with extra billing. The study concluded that extra billing Was not as serious a problem as some of the opted out statistics would seem to indicate but that where extra billing Was a problem it tended to be of a significant nature, deterring the elderly and the poor from appropriate use of the Ontario Health Care System. The Wolfson Study was commissioned by Mr Justice Hall to report on the current rate of physician's income. It concluded that doctors are at least as well off in relative and absolute terms as they have been for the post war period in Canada. In fact there is strong evidence to indicate that in the past two years, physicians' income in Canada has spiralled up- ward. Ilan recommends an abolition over a period of tithe of the premium system because premiums are now not only regressive but also because there is now evidence according to Hall, that premiums are com- promising the universality and portability of medicare. Hall found that the ad- ministrative cost to the administration of the Health Insurance Plan in Canada compared very favourably With the health ad- ministration cost of US Private plant. Hall also recommends a children's dental program as a priority Rent Another major recommendation was greater use Of nurses aS primary health care workers. Budget cuts to hospitals A FIRE DOHA — Nurses and staff members at south Huron Hospital participated in a fire fighting practice Tuesday afternoon. Shown putting out a blaze is Ahne Hirtzel.T.A photo in their sole discretion, it will, over the years, destroy the medicare program, creating in that downward path the two tier system incompatible with the societal level the Canadians have attained." Two recommendations by Hall are that where negotiations' between the Provincial and Medical Association fail and an impasse occurs the issues in dispute must be sent to binding arbitration by an Arbitration Board consisting , of three persons with an independentohairperson to be named by the Chief Justice of the relevant province and one' nominee froM the profession and one from the government. Once a negotiated or ar- bitrary settlement is arrived a t,Ilall recommends that Provincial governments must introduce legislation outlawing extra billing. Any physician who wishes to extra bill would then have to was submitted in the sum- mer of 1980 and some of the conclusions that Hall came to, after holding public hearings in every Province and the Northwest Territories and com- missioning a number of studies, are, most in- teresting. Hall concludes: "The practice of extra billing by doctorS is inequitable. Not only does it deny access by the poor but it also taxes sick persons who, besides paying premiums are already paying the major cost of the system through their taxes. Physicians have a right to be adequately compensated for their services "no more - no Iess". Hall' rejects totally the idea that physicians must accept what any provincial government may decide unilaterally, to pay. Hall states that if extra billing is permitted as a right and practiced by physicians JACK RIDDELL There has been con- siderable controversy about the effects that government restraint programs and opted out doctors have had on the health insurance plan in Ontario. Most people would agree that medicare is a most valuable public program which according to allegations is being seriously undermined and Which must be protected and restored to its earlier vigour. Justice Emmett Hall was appointed by the Federal Government in 1979 to review the state of health services in Canada. A report known as the Hall Report HOME ON WHEELS — Grade eight students of Stephen Central spent three days at Camp Sylvan recently, Shown in the entrance to their home away from home are back, Carol Smith and Debbie Zielman and Mabel Cook and Heather Rader, front. T-A photo