The Rural Voice, 2001-11, Page 211
lighting. Commonly, the windows
seen in Ontario were pointed, almost
church -like.
I noticed something else unique to
Ontario homes only after I traveled
across other provinces or into the
United States. I remember thinking
that they had a lot of wood -framed
houses. While that's how I thought
of it at the time, what I was really
noticing was the lack of brick houses
outside of Ontario. Being a practical
lot, Ontario's farm families have
always built from readily available
materials – whether that is Togs,
fieldstones, or quarried limestone.
We certainly had lots of clay.
But in the minds of our
pioneering ancestors that
first crude log home was meant to do
them only until they earned the
means to replace it with something
more "permanent". By the mid -19th
century, many families were either
covering the log homes with siding,
or happily tearing them down to be
replaced with more "improved" brick
versions. By the 1880s, some farm
families even felt liberated enough to
show a bit of their wealth with the
towered and ornamental brick homes
of the Victorian era.
Whatever the reason, to this day,
Ontarians still embrace the use of
brick far more than any of our
neighbours do. What has changed
are the colour choices available.
Older homes reflect the nature and
colour of the clay of the region —
yellow in some areas, buff or red in
others. In areas in between, such as
South Central Ontario, bricklayers
could display their creativity by
combining two or more colours.
As brick and framed houses went
up, the log house all but disappeared.
Yet, the log house has left its
permanence too. After all, it was
quite likely in log houses that many
of our ancestors experienced the
"simple pleasures of home". Perhaps
that explains a revival of the interest
in the openness and simplicity of the
log house. Luckily, a few pioneering
examples of these "temporary"
homes still dot our countryside.
Possibly, these jewels -in -the -rough
have become the Crown -jewel of
Ontario's historic homes.0
r
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NOVEMBER 2001 19