Muskoka History Lesson

Cooper's Fall - Photo by Fred Schulz

A MUSKOKA HISTORY LESSON THAT HAS NEARLY BEEN FORGOTTEN

WHAT HARDSHIPS DID MUSKOKA RESIDENTS FACE - WAY BACK WHEN

     I CAN REMEMBER BEING HUGELY OFFENDED BY A MANAGEMENT INDIVIDUAL, AT THE FORMER HERALD-GAZETTE, WHO LAUGHED WHEN I SAID I WAS PREPARING A FASCINATING STORY ABOUT GRANNY  BOWERS FOR THE NEXT ISSUE. HE LOOKED AT ME WITH A SMIRK, AS IF TO SAY, DON'T BOTHER.

    "I HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT OLD GRANNY BOWERS IN YEARS," HE SAID, ''SHE HAD QUITE A REPUTATION YOU KNOW." CONTINUING TO HIGH STEP DOWN THE HALLWAY, I ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN, BECAUSE "HAVING A REPUTATION" WAS IN MY MIND, SUGGESTING SHE HAD SOMEWHAT LOOSE MORALS. ABOUT THE LAST APPRAISAL I WOULD HAVE AFFORDED THIS STALWART, GOD FEARING WOMAN, WHO SPENT MOST OF HER LIFE ALONE, DESPITE HAVING A LARGE FAMILY. HE JUST SAID SOMETHING LIKE, "SHE WAS WELL KNOWN IN HER DAY," FROM HER LITTLE SHACK ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD, IN BRACEBRIDGE. "SHE DID WHAT SHE HAD TO DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE I GUESS," HE ADDED, TURNING HIS BACK ON OUR CONVERSATION. I WAS STUNNED BY THIS STATEMENT, AND WANTED TO CHALLENGE HIM FURTHER, BUT BECAUSE I DIDN'T BELIEVE THE ALLEGATION, I JUST LET IT GO. WOULD HE AGREE TO RUN THE FEATURE? WHETHER HE AGREED WITH MY STORY OR NOT, HE DIDN'T SAY ANOTHER WORD TO ME ABOUT IT, AND IT BECAME ONE OF MY MOST COMPLIMENTED PIECES. HEARSAY CAN BE SO CRUEL. IMAGINE HOW SHE WOULD HAVE FELT, HEARING THE SAME KIND OF COMMENTS FROM NEIGHBORS WHO SHE THOUGHT WERE FRIENDS?

     AS I DID MOST OFTEN, I DIDN'T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT MANAGEMENT, AND DID MY OWN THING. TO THIS DAY, I'VE NEVER FORGOTTEN THOSE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE RECLUSIVE MRS. BOWERS, AND WHETHER OR NOT SHE DID WHAT THE MAN CLAIMED, DOES NOT ALTER MY OPINION THAT SHE WAS A SURVIVOR OF GOOD FAITH, AND A LOT OF SCHOLARLY FOLKS THOUGHT THE SAME. IN FACT, IT'S A STORY I WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU, FROM A BOOK PUBLISHED IN THE NINETEEN FORTIES, BY THE SOCIETY OF SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST, IN BRACEBRIDGE. IT IS A STORY ABOUT PERSONAL HARDSHIP IN THE MUSKOKA WILDS, AND FAITH IN GOD. IT IS ALSO THE HISTORY OF A LITTLE LOG CHURCH ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD, THAT GRANNY BOWERS HAD A HAND IN ESTABLISHING. THE BOOKLET IS VERY RARE AND MY COPY IS STARTING TO FAIL. IT'S A STORY I DON'T WANT LOST IN THE SEA OF NEW LOCAL HISTORIES, BECAUSE IT IS AN IMPORTANT SOCIAL AND MORAL HISTORY, AND A REFLECTION OF JUST HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS TO SETTLE IN SUCH ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES, WHERE THERE WAS MORE FOREST THAN OPEN GROUND FOR GROWING CROPS. HERE IS A START TO THE STORY OF GRANNY BOWERS. THE BOOK WAS PURCHASED AT A CHARITY AUCTION IN GRAVENHURST A FEW YEARS AGO.

     THE INTRODUCTION HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE SSJE, PUBLISHERS OF THE BOOK, AND THE FATHERS WHO CONDUCTED THE SERVICES AT ST. PETER'S ANGLICAN CHURCH, ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LITTLE LOG BUILDING, MAKE IT A POINT TO VISIT SOME TIME SOON. I'LL GET YOU STARTED ON THE GUIDED TOUR, BY FIRST VISITING THE BIOGRAPHY OF GRANNY BOWERS.

1942 BRACEBRIDGE

BY FATHER ROLAND PALMER, SSJE.

     "One day, soon after we came to Bracebridge, one of the Fathers was walking out to Purbrook, a Mission, about twelve miles away. It was snowing hard. Presently a team of horses and sleigh caught up with him. A pleasant voice called out ' Want a ride, Father?' He looked up to see Mrs. CPreriddiford, who drove the mail from Fraserburg to Bracebridge and back three times a week. With her was Mrs. Leslie Leeder, a neighbor. The Father replied that he would like a ride, but wondered where he could sit. With all their coats the two good women seemed to fill the only seat. The back of the sleigh was full of mail bags, lengths of stove-pipe, bags of flour and cans of coal oil for people along the road. The kind women pushed over and made room, so that. by putting a timid arm around one of them the Father could stay aboard.

     "We talked of many things as we jogged along, everything from cakes to cancer operations. Every now and then Mrs. Criddiford would blow and blast on her whistle and a youngster would run out from a farmhouse to claim the groceries that she had bought for the family in town. Presently we drew in from the road to a tiny one roomed shack. It was almost dark. The door opened and in the faint light we saw a dear little old lady with apple cheeks and a little round straw hat on her head. 'I haven't got anything for you, Granny, but I just wanted to be sure you were all right.' We drove on. That old lady is Church of England,' said Mrs. Criddiford.

     Father Palmer continues, "It did not take us long to get to know Granny Bowers. She had recently moved to the tiny shack after being burnt out of her home near Falkenburg (north of Bracebridge). She was a churchwoman and missed the services she had attended so regularly at Falkenburg. We began taking her the Holy Communion from time to time. You would arrive with the Blessed Sacrament, which she liked to receive at an early hour, fasting. She had no clock, so sometimes you would knock on the door and she would reply, 'Bless Me! Is it eight o'clock already? You'll have to sit on the step, my boy, until I get my clothes on.' She would dress and open the door. The one room contained a bed, two chairs, a table, a stove and an old cupboard. She spread her only cloth and took her seat at the North end. The Priest laid out the Communion things. Granny followed the service in her big Prayer Book. She read it all aloud - Absolution, Consecration, and Blessing. It meant a lot to her.

     "She depended on water from the roof or from the bottom of the gravel pit. A neighbor boy brought her a pail of drinking water each day. She had a neat little garden where she raised her potatoes and other vegetables. When her son was very ill she begged the fathers to go and annoint him. She had read about it in St. James Epistle. She often said, 'I wish there was a little church I could go to.' At that time no one else in the neighborhood was friendly toward us. 'I have an idea,' said Granny. 'That some day there will be a church on that there rock.' Only once did she get to go to Church. We took her to Vankoughnet for the Confirmation. She was most impressed at 'All those young things giving themselves to God.' She saw the Bishop's staff and asked, 'What was that there pole he carried?' One day dear Mrs. Criddiford, who is the mainstay of the United Church in Fraserburg, came to tell us that Granny was very ill. Father Serson hurried out with the reserved Sacrament. Granny's daughter, herself an old woman, who had come to care for her, said, 'I'm sorry, Mother cannot take the Sacrament. She don't know nobody.' But Granny could. As Father Serson gave her the Sacrement and a few minutes later she died. She knew we would come and she had waited for her viaticum, her food for the journey.

     "Only a few weeks had gone by after her death when quite suddenly the district opened up to us. Mr. Herbert Shire, offered his house for services. Soon a church had to be built. On Granny's rock a lovely little log building was erected and called St. Peter's. It cost very little, for it was made out of an old log stable that the men took down and moved. A generation of children had grown up in that little Church. Many of them are in the King's forces (Second World War) today. There is a very faithful congregation and a fine band of communicants. We believe that as soon as Granny saw her Savior she began to talk about 'That there rock. There should be a church on it.' And we think the Master said, 'Well, if the good soul wants it so badly, give it to her.'

     "We had often heard Granny tell of her experiences. Last winter (1941), her favorite grandchild came to live near St. Peter's. She produced an exercise book in which was written down Granny Bower's own account of her life." (Reverend Roland Palmer)

    Granny Bowers' biography in her own words, begins with the paragraph, "I was sitting here in my little cottage in peace and quietness, and I thought to pass the time, I would write my little story. My thoughts go back to my early life and I wondered if you would like to hear of my hardships, I had to endure in the early pioneering days of Muskoka."

    She writes, "Young people today do not believe these things and so I feel it's not much use telling them. But old folks like myself love to talk over old times together and I sometimes long to be someone of my own age for a really good talk. I am eighty-three years of age. I have six children living, about thirty grandchildren and twenty-five great grand children. I will tell you first about my father. He lived in England when he was young with his parents and one brother, and his father worked in the coal mines. When father was seventeen years old his parents put him to learn the lawyer business. He was three years at that when his boss was shot while fighting a duel and was killed. He went home then and remained there till he was twenty-one.

    The journal continues, "About this time his father died and the property was divided. My father took his portion in money and soon after crossed over to the state of Maine where he completed a course of learning in the doctor's business. Not long after this the Napoleonic War broke out. Father was called upon to offer his services and was with Lord Nelson when he died. In the year 1815 was the Battle of Waterloo and Father also was doctor there. It was not long then till England sent out a band of explorers to explore the North West and father went with them also. He was about forty years of age then and about that time he was married to my mother, a farmer's daughter. They lived there out West till the lower Canadian Rebellion broke out then moved to Quebec, where they stopped a short time. By this time they had twelve children.

     "From Quebec they went to Alliston and drawed farms. The remainder of their children were born there, having twenty in all, eight sons and twelve daughters, of which I was the next to the youngest. The four eldest boys soon were settled on farms of their own. Then father died in 1879 being 83 years old and mother managed the farm till her death eight years later. When she died the place went to the three youngest sons. As was stated in my father's will that any who left the farm, would forfeit any claim to the estate, so when one of the boys left, there was just two to share it. Father gave two sons property in Nebraska near Elkhorn City and one of the remaining boys went to them, leaving one on the homestead. He was married to a fine good woman and had seven sons and four daughters who were reared in plenty. The sons received good trades and two of the girls became high school teachers. Several of the boys went west and settled on good farms and were very thrifty."

     I will continue the biography of Granny Bowers in tomorrow's blog. Please join me for more of this remarkable pioneering story.