The Citizen, 1986-12-17, Page 5i
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1986. PAGE 5.
Book Review
Photos tell of rural life in Colborne history
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Shirley Hazlitt, spent many long hours with her committee putting
“Colborne Connections” together. They’ve been rewarded with brisk
sales and high praise for the photo history of the township.
Sallows' photos make 'Connections'
BY KEITH ROULSTON
If a picture really is worth 1,000
words, it will take you a long time to
read “Colborne Connections”
with its 1,250 pictures tracking
rural life over a century and a half.
No doubt the book is particularly
special to residents and former
residents of Colborne, one of the
oldest settlements in western
Ontario, but it is also enjoyable to
anyone with memories of Huron
county or rural life in general.
Much ofthecreditfor this goes to
Editor Shirley Hazlitt and her
committee’s decision to feature the
work of R.R. Sallows as the
centrepiece of the book. Sallows,
The International Scene
Countries go to hyperinflation and back
BY RAYMOND CANON
A few years ago Canada was
experiencing a bout of double digit
inflation at about the 13-14 per
cent level. Another way of putting
it would be to say that prices were
doubling about every five-and-a-
half years but, whatever way you
express it, Canadians were deeply
disturbed by it all and the
government finally had to weigh in
with some rather tough wage and
price controls to bring it under
control. At the present time it is
hovering around the four per cent
level and starting to make signs of
born in the township in 1855, is an
artist important not just to the
township, buttothe entire pro
vince,forhis recording of life in
Canada between the time he
opened his studio in Goderich in
1879 and his death from injuries
sustained in a car accident on his
way to a photographic assignment
in 1937.
Although he had gained a
reputation for his portrait work,
Sallows soon tired of waiting for his
subjects to come into his studio and
took his camera into the fields and
orchards of the county, and
particularly Colborne township, to
record people at work and leisure.
going up a bit but that is another
story.
An inflation rate of 13 per cent
may have seemed bad to most
Canadians but at least there was no
indication that the situation was
out of control. When that becomes
the case, we give it the name of
hyperinflation and I have been
looking atfour countries where
that is precisely what happened.
The four in question are Argentina
with 1000 per cent inflation, Brazil
with 275 per cent, Israel with 500
per cent and, the best example of
all, Bolivia with no less than 20,000
Oneofthe mostpopularitems
under the Christmas tree of many
people in Colborne township this
Christmas is likely to be a book that
was probably published in record
time but in a way, took 150 years to
Shirley Hazlitt, editor of “Col
borne Connections, 1836-1986”
says the beautiful 448-page book
probably set some sort of record in
the time it came together. Col
borne township council called a
public meeting in February 1985 to
discuss the sesquicentennial
(150th birthday) of the township in
1986. One of the proposals to come
out of the meeting was for
publishing of a book. Thinking
back, she says, nobody probably
envisioned a book as big as the final
project.
At the urging of J. Russel
Kernighan, Colborne reeve, she
got involved in organizing the
steering committee for the sesqui
centennial celebrations and her
interest in the book steered her in
the direction of that committee.
The committee of six put in a
busy few months collecting all the
photos and the information for the
books and getting it printed. Not
only were the committee members
hard working, but they came from
all areas of the township meaning,
Shirley says, that there was equal
representation given to all parts of
the sprawling township. Co-editor
of the book was Phyllis Fisher
Pitblado, and members of the
committee were Madeline Bean,
Shirley Dustow, Beulah Homan,
Gerald Lamb and Jean Prest.
After taking on the book, she
says, she sat down and tried to
think up a theme and her long
interest in the photographs of
Reuban Sallows came to mind and
she decided to make them the
centrepiece of a visual history of
the township over its 150 years.
Sallows, whose photography is
featured in collections by the
Ministry of Agriculture and Food
and the Huron Pioneer Museum,
recorded 50 years of life in the
township with his pictures of
Those pictures provide a precious
visual record of that 50-year period
from the 1880’s to the 1930’s that
gives us more understanding of
how our parents, grandparents
and great-grandparents lived.
Mostly the book tells its story in
pictures. A few paragraphs intro
duce new sections such as on roads
or sawmills, brief histories of
specific buildings or communiites
are included and there is a brief
one-page history of the township
itself, but for the most part the book
is loaded with sepia-toned photo
graphs showing the developments
from the earliest days to the
present.
per cent. The good news is that all
those countries have managed to
restore order out of monetary
chaos; itwasn’teasybuttheydidit.
Each of the four went about the
job a different way. However, since
Bolivia had by far and away the
largest rate of inflation in the
world, hyperinflation with a ven
geance if you will, the best story is
to be found there. This South
American country is one of the
poorest on the continent and has
had its share of coups d’etat but so
far the new president Victor Paz
has been able to get by without one.
people doing everyday tasks in
rural life.
Once the word went out that the
committee wanted Sallows pic
tures they just flowed in, she says.
Besides the many Sallows pictures
in the book, another 150 of his
photos which had been submitted
weren’t able to be fitted in because
the committee had to cover the
whole history of the township as
well. Nearly everyone in the
township has some Sallows photo
graph in the attic, she says.
One of the happiest things about
the book, Shirley feels, is the way
they were able to lead the story of
the township through its history to
the present day with pictures.
Despite the fact that Colborne
goes back to the very earliest days
of the settlement of Huron,
“Colborne hasn’t really done a lot
ofrecordingof its history,’’ she
says. There had been a couple of
very small histories printed over
the years but nothing to really
celebrate the important place the
township has in history of the area.
‘ ‘I hope it (the book) is a good start
to make people realize that we
really do have a lot to be proud of
and that we should take care of our
history”.
While people in the township
should be proud of their past the
book has also made them take a
look at the present, she says,
through the colour photographs of
present day attractions such as the
“LittleLakes” area. “Wehave
many beauty spots in the township
that people have driven past so
many times they probably don’t
realize we probably live in one of
the most beautiful parts of the
province”, she says. She credits
the success of the colour section to
Gerald Lamp who, with Shirley’s
husband John, took many of the
colour photographs.
But while the book is a celebra
tion of Colborne township it also
has a wider audience because of
the way it portrays rural life and the
changes in rural life throughout the
years. “Probably the highest
compliment I’ve received is from
people who have no connection
These are pleasantly arranged
and well captioned and through
much of the book are of interest to
people who have done little more
than pass through the township.
There are also photos that will
bring back memories for Huron
county residents, such as the
photos of the old steel bridges that
crossed the Maitland at Auburn or
carried traffic along Highway 21
entering Goderich. There are some
pictures that are more specific to
Colborne, telling the history of
families or the pictures near the
back about various school classes
that will hold most of their appeal
for people who lived there, but
Only a month after he entered
office in 1985, he announced his
New Economic Policy and stated
that he firmly intended to make it
stick until inflation was brought
down to manageable levels. At the
time there was controls on prices,
interest rates, exports and im
ports; he immediately dismantled
all of them. Because of the
hyperinflation there was a flourish
ing black market in all sorts of
things, including foreign currency.
Paz took the drastic step of
legalizing the foreign currency
market: he also let the exchange
with the township who buy the
book and come back to say how
much they enjoy it and how it
brought back memories to them of
their own past.”
The book has been sent into
every province but Newfoundland
aswellas into the United States
and will be featured on sale at the
Ontario Agricultural Museum at
Milton when it reopens in the
spring. It was reviewed favourably
recently in the provincial farm
newspaper Farm and Country.
Of the 2,000 copies printed only
about 600 are still unsold despite
the fact the book was only first
made available for the sesquicen
tennial celebrations in July.
It was an expensive proposition.
The printing bill alone ran to
$44,000butvolunteer help held the
costs from escalating more. The
project was helped outby a $15,000
special grant from the Ontario
Ministry of Citizenship and Cul
ture. She says the committee felt a
heavy load of responsibility, not
wanting to saddle the taxpayers of
the township with a debt for the
project.
Itwas a relief then, when the
help of the grant and brisk sales,
the book proved a financial suc
cess.
In the end, however, if was often
small triumphs that stick in
Shirley’s mind as much as the big
ones. There was an old photo of
early loggers working in the
Shepparton area printed on linen
which she wanted to use but was
doubtful it could be printed. The
printer from Owen Sound who
produced the book, managed to
reproduce the picture in the book
more clearly than the original
photo. There was another photo
brought in which showed two men
from the township doing statuatory
labour to repair township roads in
the days before townships hired
people to maintain roads.
It’s these precious little dis
coveries of history that made the
book so special to the people
producing it and so special to the
many people who read it.
thereissomuchinthe book that
even without a special understand
ing of these pictures the book will
hold a fascination for most outsid
ers.
The book also features an
eight-page colour section that
gives a hint of some of the stunning
beauty of this township dominated
by the Maitland River and the
rolling hills on either side of the
valley.
‘Local histories have become
more and more lavish in recent
years and more and more expen
sive. But if you want a real inslight
into the ways of the past “Colborne
Reflections” is a real bargain.
rate of the Bolivian currency find
its own level. It dropped like a stone
to about seven per cent of what it
had been.
Finally Paz put a freeze on all
public sector wages removed the
subsidy on gasoline and watched
while the price of the latter went up
tenfold. He imposed a new wealth
tax and embarked on a novel way of
running the country’s finances.
Each day he asked to be told how
much tax revenues the govern
ment had been paid the day before.
He then decided how the money
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