Clinton News-Record, 1987-02-04, Page 3Restoration work saves
CLINTON NEWS -RECORD, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987—Page 3
Clinton home's architectural heritage
These are two different looks at the Farran Rance house in Clinton that is being restored
by Dave Mustard. The first photo was taken in approximately 1900, and it is the photo Mr.
Mustard has used to aid in the restoration. The other photo is of the house as it now -
stands.
Bilingual teachers sought
for Huron -Perth schools
.,, $y Wilma Oke:' .
fn order to have an early choice in selec-
ting the best qualified bilingual French
teachers to instruct French beginning
September 1, 1987, the Huron -Perth County
Roman Catholic Separate School Board is
advertising now for the additional teachers
net'ded.
fit least two additional teachers must be
hired for the French immersion classes
taught at St. Mary's School in Goderich and
St. Aloysius School in Stratford. At least one
more teacher is needed for teaching core
French classes across Huron and Perth
Cc unties.
There is an expansion of core French in
Grade 4 resulting from mandatory in-
creases from 20 minutes to 40 minutes to
meet the new Ontario Advance Credit re-
quirements demanded by the Ministry of
Education. At graduation from secondary
school a student must have had a total of
1080 hours of French instruction.
Named to the hiring committee for selec-
ting the French teachers are trustee David
Durand, board chairman; Superintendent
Gaetan Blanchette and at least two school
principals.
Larry Cook of Dublin, co-ordinator of
computer instruction for the schools, spoke
to the trustees on his progress in
establishing a program. Ham said one
challenge is to have enough computers so
that each child has access to a computer for
thirty minutes a day; to have them in the
one secondary school in the system, St.
Michael in Stratford and to work directly
with the teachers to familiarize them with
the use of computers in schools.
The Farran Rance House is one of Clin-
ton's first and oldest historical houses.
Situated at 40 Rattenbury St. E., it has long
been a well known landmark of the town.
The house was built in 1882 by William
Wallace Farran. Farran was a banker, a
reeve, and finally mayor around the turn of
the century. Farran died in August of 1908
and the house was passed on to his wife,
Ellen Farran, and in turn was left to their
only daughter Eva and her husband Harry
Torr Rance.
Rance, born in 1864 was the son of S.H.
Rance and the grandson of William Ratten-
bury, the founder of Clinton and'also Ratten-
bury Streets namesake. During the first
world war, Rance served as Lieutenant-
Colonal with the 33rd Battalion.
The house contained 25 rooms complete
with • servants quarters and a coach house.
The architectural style is an Italianate style
which was very popular among the well to
do classes of Victorian England.
Some of its features inrlude wide
overhanging carnices, three tone designed
slate roof, cast iron cresting around the
widows lookout on the roof, and cement
keystones over the window. Inside there is a
large curved cherry staircase in the foray,
with large arched doorways leading off into
the different rooms. Other original features
include the unique shutters on the windows,
fully equipped with ropes and
counterweights, and there are also two
original black marble fireplaces.
Since a house like this is not practical for a
My Fair Lady's
FINAL CLEARANCE
on all Fall & Winter Clothing
• Dresses
• Skirts
• Blouses
• Slac;ks
•Suits
• Sweaters
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Thursday -Friday -Saturday
February 5-6-7
wellery
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Please note our
new store hours
for January and February
CLOSING FRIDAY
EVENINGS AT 6 P.M.
•
m
single family dwelling in this day or age, it
was adapted to a seven unit apartment
building approximately 30 years ago..
The building has changed hands several
times -in the past 30 years but is currently
owned by Dave Mustard of Brucefield.
Dave is in the Plumbing and Heating
business and started doing the maintenance
and repairs to the building about 10 years
ago for the owner at that time. The more
work he did in the house the more he fell in
love with it. About five years ago it was put
up for sale again and Dave bought it.
For the first four years he just did small
things to the building such as installing
separate thermostats to the individual
apartments, upgrading the plumbing and
wiring and lust the necessities.
This year Dave has taken on a few more
energetic jobs such as repairing the slate
roof. The slate is original and 105 years old
therefore some of them were getting crack-
ed and broken so Dave hired a slate contrac-
tor to go over it with a fine tooth comb and
replaced every slate that looked bad and
also repaired all the flashings on the roof.
The first place to preserve a house, says
Dave, is the roof so you can keep the
weather out.
Dave's next project was the verandah.
There was a 16 x 24 foot flat roofed verandah
thatmas getting pretty shaky and rotten and
was taking away from the appearance of the
whole house. He luckily came across an old
photo that was taken about 1900 which gave
him the design of the original verandah. He
copied it as closely as he could which is 8 x
24 feet with a sloped roof.
The next job is new replacement windows
throughout which is approximately 50 win-
dows. ,Presently there are wood sashed win-
dows with no kind of a seal and aluminurn
storms on the outside.
Dave is also going to put a new deck on the
windows lookout. That name came train
when the wars were on the ladies used to go
up on the roof to see if they could see their
husbands coming home. When Dave is up
there, he can see Lake Huron on a clear day.
The Provincial Government is making
this restoration.possible with some financial
assistance through a program called the
Low -Rise Rehabilitation Program which is
administrated by the Town. This program is
to encourage landlords like Dave to main-
tain his building instead of letting it go and
then subsequently be prematurely
demolished. They feel that because of the
shortage of rental units, they ( the Provin-
cial Government) don't want to lose any.
Dave says that you have to keep in mind
that this is a business venture and you have
to be careful that you don't get in too deep in
debt as restoring old buildings is a costly
affair.
Dave really enjoys the challenge of this
project and as each step is completed he
gets back his reward by just standing back
and thinking that this is his share of preserv-
ing Clinton's architectural heritage.
Crop insurance meetings are set
Final dates and locations are set for the
crop insurance review meetings,
Agriculture and Food Minister Jack Riddell
announced Jan. 30.
The public meetings are a first phase of
a review of the current c o insurance pro-
gram to be conducted by a 10 -member
review committee.
Former Ontario Federation of
Agriculture president Harry Pelissero was
named chairman of the committee. Other
members are Ralph Beamer, RR 1
Ridgeville; Roger George, RR 4 Powassan,
John Sikma, RR 2 Newcastle; R14t1j,Tobler,
RR 3 New Liskeard; Marcel Le u t, RR 1
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Wed. CLOSED; Thurs 10 am - 7 pm
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. Sun. CLOSED
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Queen St,, BlyIh; Ont,
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Moose Creek; Larry Wheatley, RR 1
Dublin; Pat Hoy, RR 4 Merlin; Greg Brown
of the Ontario Crop Insurance Commission;
and George Pikor, of Agriculture Canada.
One of the meetings will be held at the
Stratford Coliseum, Upper Kinsmen Hall,
on Feb. 26. Meetings begin at 10 a.m. unless
noted otherwise. Dates and locations are a,
follows:
As part of the review, the committee will
examine federal and provincial legislation;
protection farmers need in today's
economic climate; programs in other
jurisdictions; and a general review of the
current production guarantee concept.
The committee will also consider recom-
mendations of the Crop Insurance subcom-
mittee including recommendations of the
Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the
federal -provincial working group on
disaster relief and input from the public.
All interested individuals and organiza-
tions are invited to present written or oral
briefs at the meetings. Written submissions
will also be accepted by mail through the
Ontario Crop Insurance Commission office
until March 31, 1987. Background informa-
tion about crop insurance programs is
available from .the Ontario Crop Insurance
Commission, 5th Floor, 801 Bay St., Toronto,
Ontario M7A 187.
Mike Thomas—
and
Tillcan Financial Corporation
Invite you to attend
an informative....
"R.R.S.P. SEMINAR"
On -Wednesday;1 e1DT 'ary--`i1/'87
at 8 p.m.
CLINTON TOWN HALL
Committee Room
Contact:
Mike Thomas at 527-1539
Seaforth to confirm attendance
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