Millinery at GS Munro’s in 1910

 

                                                               

                                 

                                

Today's post gives a glimpse inside the G.S. Munroe store in Reston, Manitoba in October of 1910. The impressive two story stone clad store would have been 8 years old and sold a variety of merchandise to the growing town. On this particular day, a display of the new hats for the fall season was being held. Pictures and descriptions of ladies' hats found in the Hudson’s Bay Catalogue 1910-1911 at the top of the page give us an idea how fancy the headgear was in those days.


October 6, 1910 Reston Recorder Page 8

 The opening days at Munro‘s on the 3rd, 4th and 5th, both from a standpoint of attendance and the sale of ladies’ headwear, were most successful. Miss Whitely, the popular milliner, and her assistant Miss Grace Shippam, had on display, a choice collection of ladies hats that brought them much deserved praise. The large sale that resulted was most gratifying.

A description of the new styles, in a short space is impossible, but the following points may prove of interest to our lady readers who have been unable to attend the display.

In the larger hats, for young or middle-age ladies is the “La Cloche” made in paon silk velvet, trimmed with black taffeta silk ribbon.

A stunning creation in a small hat is made with a sloping stovepipe shape and made in paon silk velvet. The crown is draped and a large wing poses on the left side.

A beautiful feather band turban the crown draped with shirred satin ribbon, with a large bunch of ribbon caught up on the left side was one of the creations that had a host of admirers.

Another popular hat is one trimmed with marabout and roses. The rim is of silk velvet and is faced with moire silk ribbon.

The most popular colours are royal blue, brown, black and white and catawba.

Many of the ladies, after inspecting the millinery display and choosing their season’s apparel, attended the demonstration given by the Gold Standard demonstrator, and received many useful hints regarding the use of Gold Standard Products.

Reading these old articles has me doing some researching to help me put a picture to their words! "Paon silk velvet" seems to be a term that has faded into history but ladies of the time knew it must have been special silk.  "Moire silk ribbon" has a watered or woodgrain type pattern on it.  "Marabout" trim may have been misspelled from marabou which is soft downy feathers of a young turkey, dyed different colours as decoration. "Catawba" coloured hats? What would I do without Google??  It is described as a medium shade of dark pink-red.  Huge hats like this were kept in place with hatpins, which have become collector's items. 

Trails Along the Pipestone 1981  has a photo on page 491 of the millinery department of G. S. Munro Store in 1920 featuring Miss Cutting and Miss Mabel Abercrombie set up on the second floor.  Other Reston milliners over the years include Miss Levers, Gilles, and Mrs. T.W. Boulton (her husband was a distant relation, I think!). 

Lottie Smith, daughter of Thomas and Maggie Smith of Sinclair, was another who learned the millinery skills. Her niece Pat Taylor tells me that she worked in Salisbury's Millinery Shop in Reston in the 1920’s. Miss Smith made and sold millinery, ladies clothing and operated an ice cream parlour in the little old butcher shop until 1927 when she moved to Winnipeg. She remained a spinster her whole life as did her sister Minnie.

The wife of Dr. Clark, Winnifred, sold hats above the drugstore and later the bank in the 1930's. Fashion hats were worn less and less during the Second World War and by the 1970's were almost never seen.  The Catholic Church no longer required head coverings in services in 1967. One interesting website says this was due to shorter hairstyles but often hats were also worn to keep the sun off a woman's face.  The British royals and the Kentucky Derby have kept hats and fascinators in the news recently but they are a niche market.  

Were your curious what Gold Standard Products were? Google searches didn't find much but this ad from Munro's store the week before the millinery event makes it sound like the beginnings of a Watkins type company with many products to flavour and simplify home cooking. How many in the crowd that day in 1910 came for the hats and how many for the baking demonstration? 

The New Fangled Egg Grading Machine 1948

Here's a little knowledge today to go with your Sunday morning eggs!

 A previous post about the Reston Creamery here does not mention another part of this business that included the sale and raising of eggs and chickens.  An Egg Pool had been set up in the basement of Berry Hardware and later in the Cates block for farmers to bring their eggs to be sold to locals without their own birds. With the opening of the Reston Creamery in 1946, there was soon to be eggs bought and sold there as well.   The following article from April 1948 in the Reston Recorder explains how an automatic egg grader works.  So many things that had been done by people were being taken over by machines and the citizens of the times seem amazed. 

Recently installed in the Reston Creamery is an automatic egg grading machine. The machine, which speeds the grading of eggs by fifty percent, is practically fool proof, does everything but lay the eggs.

Operated by Jean Dooley and Marian Jezzard, the speed with which eggs are packed and graded is a sight to behold. Jean is in charge of the operations. She takes the eggs from the crates as they are delivered from the farms, candles them and separates them into A, B, craxs or rejects. "A" eggs are then placed on a inclined slot, where they roll down into the grading machine. There is another slot for B and a third for craxs.

Once placed on the machine amazing things happen. Rolling down the slot, the machine admits one egg at a time into the grading machine proper. In the A line up the first thing that happens is the machine prints each egg with a Canada stamp. The eggs are then moved forward by means of a moving trough. The first stop is the scale, the trough recedes and the egg sits on a miniature scale. If it is heavy enough, the scale trips and the egg rolls into a tray labelled A large. If it is not heavy enough for this classification, it moves forward again to a further set of scales, until it is finally deposited into the right classification tray. A eggs are classified into A jumbos, A large, A medium and A pullet. B eggs move down the other side of the machine. Here the same process as with the A grades is repeated. However there are only two scales on this side of the machine for B or C eggs. Also these eggs are not printed with the Canada Stamp.

The packing of eggs for shipment to the market is in charge of Marian Jezzard.

An interesting side note to this story is that Miss Jean Dooley from Hartney not only found work in Reston, she found love too!  Jean was married to Marion's big brother Frank Jezzard in April of 1949 and went on to raise a family and be a part of the community at Linklater and Reston.  

On the same topic but in another town, the above 2 Egg Statements were issued to my paternal Grandmother, Mary (Sinclair) Simms, at Oak River during the same time period.  Looks like B eggs were what her hens hens laid most of but if I'm reading the yellow one correctly, (and tell me if I'm not, Dad) Grandma received $5.76 for 24 dozen eggs! Crazy when I snapped up an 18 pack in the store last week because they were on sale for $5.99.   😲

Harper's Grove

http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/postcards/PC000876.html

Last week's post about Guthrie's Grove picnic spot has led to one this week about Harper's Grove.  Also, a recent blog post about the Reston Citizen’s Band mentioned a performance  put on by them at a Royal Templars of Temperance picnic at Harper’s Grove in 1909. I had so many questions! Luckily, blog reader and former Restonite Tom Dempsey messaged me with some helpful information.  More about that later. 

According to the Trails Along the Pipestone history book on page 814, SE 21-7- 27  was first claimed by J. McKinnon in 1885.  A. Wilson owned it next in 1889 but G. A. Harper owned the quarter from 1916 - 1947.  George Alexander Harper was born in Bruce County, Ontario and married his Scottish bride Isabella Farnie in Winnipeg in 1912.  He and Bella lived 2 miles north of Reston on the banks of the Pipestone Creek and were credited with clearing the picnic grove that bore their name and had a swinging bridge over the creek to access their land on both sides. Census returns over the years show they often had at least 4 people living with them to help work their land and with the housework. They garnered a reputation for being very generous and hospitable people over the 4 decades of their residence. A nephew of Bella, Arthur Kingsley Farnie came from Scotland to live with the Harpers while in school.  He later joined the Royal Canadian Airforce and was killed at age 20 overseas in 1942.  The Harpers had one daughter Lily who married a local boy, Jimmy Forman and they moved west to run the general store in Wells, B.C.  George and Bella held a farm auction sale in October of 1948 and moved to British Columbia themselves.  The sale ad is a large ones and includes everything - horses, cattle, poultry, equipment, furniture, the piano, home canned fruit, a buffalo coat and so much more.  

Next on the scene were newlyweds and locals, Thomas Leslie "Les" Dempsey and Frances May Pierce.  They farmed here for the next 2 decades. Their only son Tom was able to fill in some Harper's Grove details for me. He grew up on the farm and recalled the picturesque spot. 

The picnic grove itself was in the small "peninsula" of land, approx. 60 yards wide and 125 yards long formed by the Pipestone Creek, past the house, north, around the bend then south towards the barn and on eastwards to the bridge. When I was just a little fart, the anchor posts for the swinging bridge existed on the east bank of the creek approx. 80 yards north of the barn.

In June of 1967, the Dempsey family were honoured at their own going away event.  A clipping from the Brandon Sun tells the program included singing, recitations and duets put on by friends and neighbours.  They had been active community members in the church and curling.  Retirement in Kelowna were enjoyed for many years and both returned home, to be buried in Reston Cemetery.

Next to own the quarter was Melvin Watt who purchased the farm in 1969.  In 1971, he married Rosealine Ann Cop from Antler, SK and over the next several decades they both contributed greatly to community life with their work on various boards. Mel and Rosealine raised a family of two girls and a boy and grew pedigree seed for sale.  Their yard site was a showplace and you may recall seeing when it was featured on the Prairie Farm Report on TV. In 2005, the Watts had a partial farm equipment auction and semi-retired to spend more time in Arizona and doing things they loved.  They are gone now. Their family rents out the land and occasionally enjoy an afternoon relaxing along the creek as was done over 100 years ago. 

Each quarter of land can tell a story of its past residents and I've been glad to tell this one.  Any further details and photos are always welcome! 

Picnic Groves of the Past

https://www.virtualmanitoba.com/Places/C/coulterpark.html

Longer warmer days make us think about times ahead with a picnic lunch enjoying the sun.  Early residents were no different than us and almost 137 years ago, July 1, 1886 was the first at Guthrie's Grove according to Ellen Guthrie Bulloch in her book Pioneers of the Pipestone.  The Grove was on the banks of the Pipestone Creek on the south half of 26-7-27 W1. The picture at the top of this page was taken years later and miles south at Sourisford, but I picture the Pipestone version as looking much the same. 

My curiosity about the site came about with an article by David Braddell in a June 1968 Reston Recorder column. He laments that during a recent visit to the "Scout Camp", south of the Guthrie homestead he saw it had been partly cleared and planted to crop. Although he admits that with the high price of land, farmers need to make use of every acre but it was a loss to those who admire its natural beauty.  A couple of weeks later, the Recorder carried the following memories of Kate Lothian, spinster daughter of early pioneers William and Annie (Milliken) living in British Columbia.  

The Guthrie picnic – how many of us are left who remembered that outstanding summer event of past days?
Reading in the recent Reston Recorder of the ploughing up and seeding of the old picnic grounds has brought back these memories.
The picnic started with very few settlers of that day, scattered here and there in the different districts. The coming of the Lanark people to that district where the Pipestone Creek meandered through started the enterprise, Mr. William Guthrie giving the area mentioned in the Reston Recorder. The Lothian and Milliken brothers cooperated, and like a prairie fire, the news spread far and near and folks came in wagons and buggies and on horseback, old and young, to the Guthrie picnic.
Mr. James Lothian, notably, gave his time to helping to clear the ground and get things into shape. He it was who climbed the highest tree to hoist a flag, what a gala look it gave in the eyes of we children. A clearing was made for a long table set up and a stove and boiler for the tea. The first two or three years, everyone was welcome whether they brought food or not, but every year the crowds grew, so it was organized into a Basket Picnic. A sports ground was cleared where sports were gone into, and a platform under the trees where speeches etc. were indulged in! And prizes given for various projects, one being for bouquets of wildflowers, this organized by Mrs. Howard McGregor. The McGregor brothers also had a refreshment stand, and our first ice cream was made and served by them! No ice cream freezers, but made in the long cream cans of that day, and it really was as hard as brick, but we didn’t know their secret.
I remember only one day in many years the weather failed us. All day until noon it was threatening, and by afternoon turned into a real wet day, so the picnickers had to wend their way homeward, but never mind - it was grand for the crops.
And so the old order changeth, yielding place to new but some are still here who were children then and remember the great day in summer of the Guthrie Picnic. What it meant to have a gentleman like Mr. William Guthrie from Lanark Ontario, who gave that lovely spot on the banks of the little old Pipestone Creek for a picnic each year. God bless our pioneers at the going down to the sun and in the morning we will remember them.

William Reid Guthrie and his second wife Eleanor Harding moved to Pipestone in 1884 after he had spent several summers here working railway and construction and breaking his homestead. They raised 7 children while being early pioneers. He was an influential community minded man and served as the Reeve of the Pipestone RM from 1896 to 1898. Their daughter Jean Stewart Guthrie never married but lived on the homestead until moving into the Alstone Lodge. 

Bonnie and Kay shared the following quote from "The Story of James Guthrie and His Family" by Bonnie Guthrie Kuehl.  

The original W. R. Guthrie house was a two story clapboard building. A large barn was erected later with its lower walls of field stone. One section of it was reserved for harness repairing. The farm was bordered on one side by the Pipestone Creek edged with its growth of poplar trees and low growing brush. The Indians related that part of the W. R. Guthrie farm where the river curves to form a large point of land had been a famous buffalo hunting ground in earlier days. Many Indian relics were found in this area as the ground was broken up for planting.
Wild animals such as the red fox, prairie wolves, rabbits, badgers, and gophers were plentiful, also an occasional deer. Wild turkeys, geese, ducks and prairie chickens abounded in good number. Wild fruit grew in abundance. They all started their own vegetable gardens, growing large crops of potatoes in particular.
The first of the famous picnics held in Guthrie's Grove took place also in 1887 and became the chief annual event of each summer. A flag waved from the top of a large elm tree and below gathered everyone for miles around. The ladies brought baskets of food to provide both a noontime and evening feast. An afternoon program included singing, speeches, games and races for the children and baseball for the young men. It was a great time for good old-fashioned visiting among the ladies , of course, but also among the men. 

Such great descriptive writing!  Can't you just see it?!  Stay tuned for a second part of this post about Harper's Grove, coming soon!