PUT YOUR HEART ON PAPER ~ STAYING CONNECTED IN A LOOSE-ENDS WORLD *
by Henriette Anne Klauser

"It only takes a few seconds to scratch out a message of care, yet such a simple act can have a long-lasting effect.  A friend who saved a note her dad sent her told me, 'It's like a conversation I can have over and over with him. It continues to give me solace and support fifteen years after his death...  He did not say anything more than 'you're the greatest.' "

*Bantam Books, 1995

In Memory of Our Parents,  Reta and Herb Melick
Married 25 September 1943, East Seneca, Haldimand, ON

Reta L.B. Turnbull (28 September, 1921 ~ 19 September, 2002)
C. Herbert Melick (7 August, 1920 ~ 9 September, 2005)



Her Majesty's Royal Chapel

 Mohawk Chapel Brantford ~ Open Wednesday through Sunday 10:00 - 5:00 until October 28

Approach from The Grand River



2012 Addition of Accessible Entrance

 

Joseph Brant's Vault

 www.mohawkchapel.ca

Photos:  lbwalker

"Annie" Button>Melick>Lounsbury>Trimble," when spoken quickly is a familiar childhood rhyme ~ as familiar as Hickory, Dickory, Dock!  Annie Button was our Great Grandmother and when Great Grandfather died, Grandma married two more times!  Growing up we often recited dear Annie's five names.

Her tombstone is in the Melick Cemetery in Canborough, along with Great Grandfather who died twenty-four years earlier.

Perhaps part of the intrigue was the unfortunate error on Annie's tombstone.  The engraver spelt her name PUTTON instead of BUTTON.  Until he passed away in July, 2010, Annie's Grandson, Earl Melick, kept the "B" prominently hand-painted.  It falls to our generation to ensure that Annie>Button>Melick>Lounsbury>Trimble's name appears correctly on her tombstone. 

A caution for genealogists.  "Etched in stone?"  Not always! Click on photo for larger image.  Note,  handwritten "B"

Ruthven Gatehouse

Ruthven Park ~ A National Historic Site

Indiana Cemetery

www.ruthvenpark.ca

Fall Colours on the Indiana Trail

Home and Friends

Oh, there's a power to make each hour
As sweet as heaven designed it;
Nor need we roam to bring it home,
Though few there be that find it.
We seek too high for things close by
And lose what nature found us,
For life hath here no friends so dear
As home and friends around us.

We oft destroy the present joy
For future hopes and praise them
While flowers as sweet bloom at our feet,
If we'd but stoop to raise them.
For things afar still sweeter are
When youth's bright spell hath
bound us,
But soon we're taught the earth
hath naught
Like home and friends around us.

~ Author Unknown

www.bellhomestead.ca for historical information and photographs

The Bell Homestead ~

Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Brantford, ON



Brian

"So much of the practical development of the telephone has been in the United States that I think the fact that the telephone was invented in Canada should be more widely known than it is ~ at least in the United States." *

~ Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922) inventor.

Brian, our tour guide today, ardently describes the scientific breakthrough that led to the invention of the telephone and points out the path to the banks of the Grand River where Alexander sat in a spot he called his "dreaming place."  (Thank you, Brian.)

Visit:  www.bellhomestead.ca for information and photographs.

* Address, "The Substance of My Latest Research," Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, 1 Nov. 1917.
~ Famous Lasting Words, Great Canadian Quotations, John Robert Colombo, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.
Photos:  lbwalker

Photos: lbwalker

 About Animals ~

 "...they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long,
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

~ Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) American poet, journalist.  Leaves of Grass, 1855, "Song of Myself."

Smile For Today ~

Ginger

"You may have noticed that a cat's first commitment is to himself.  Therefore, he is mainly concerned with pleasing himself.  If this pleasure should simultaneously please you, you might call it coincidence or even a gift."  A cat has innately solved one of the most important mysteries of life by using all his energy to make himself happy.  Since a cat devotes his whole being to whatever it is he desires, his returns are multiplied."

~ Carole C. Wilbourn, Cat Therapist, Cat Talk, What Your Cat Is Trying To Tell You, MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1979.

Local Fall Fairs ~

Caledonia: September 27 to 30
Theme:  "Remember When"

Norfolk County Fair & Horse Show: (Simcoe) October 2 - 8

www.caledoniafair.ca
www.norfolkcountyfair.com

Photo:  lbwalker

"Authors should, and usually do, appreciate the fact that one of the editor's most crucial challenges is to be able to articulate, clearly and appealingly, the signal virtues of a given book.  From editorial reports on through catalog copy, jacket flaps, and publicity releases, it is the editor's initial core descriptions that implicitly explain why the book has been chosen in the first place and explicitly set the tone for how a book will be perceived both in and out of the house....

"...the role of editors, like everything else, is bound to change.  Corporate pressures for economies in overhead and benefits are likely to lead to more outside free-lance editing and diminished house staffs.  It's a toss-up question as to whether more or less editing in general will be needed.  On the one hand, entropic degeneration of the language, diminished devotion to accuracy, and word processor bloat all cry out for increased editorial ministrations.  On the other hand, the legions crying "Who cares?" show no signs of fading away either."

~Alan D. Williams (Two decades at Viking Press among other editorial positions) Editors on Editing, edited by Gerald Gross, 1993

Key to Friendship ~

"Friendship is based upon
What we give, not what we take,
And it steers its kindly course
For a special friend's own sake."

~ Edith H. Shank, The Gift of Friendship, 1995, Ideals Publications Incorporated.  Editor, N. J. Skarmeas.

NEW ~ WAR OF 1812 - 14 Native History by Zig Misiak

www.realpeopleshistory.com

Available at The Neat Little Bookshop,  $29.95.

I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing

I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing,

All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,

Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,

And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,

But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it,

and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight of my room.
It is not needed to remind me of my own dear friends

(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them),

Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary

in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,

I know very well I could not.

~ Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)  American author, poet, journalist.

Smile For Today ~

"Brahms*, who enjoyed his food, was distressed when he became ill and his doctor prescribed a strict diet. 'But this evening I am dining with Strauss and we shall have chicken paprika,' he protested. 'Out of the question,' said the doctor.
'Very well, then,' said Brahms.  'Please consider that I did not come to consult you until tomorrow.'"


~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES, Clifton Fadiman, 1885
*Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) German Composer.

"In his old age Brahms announced to his friends that he was going to stop composing music and enjoy the time left to him.  Several months went by without Brahm's writing a note.  But there came the day when a new Brahms composition made its debut.  "I thought you weren't going to write any more," a friend reminded him.  "I wasn't," said the composer, "but after a few days away from it, I was so happy at the thought of no more writing that the music came to me without effort."

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES, Clifton Fadiman, 1985.

"The War of 1812 - 14 determined that Upper Canada would have a different destiny than Texas.  It also put an end to large-scale American frontier migration into the province.  By the 1820s, however, still larger numbers of new settlers were arriving from Great Britain itself, across the sea.  Wherever they came from and wherever they took up land, the new settlers built churches.  The spiritual life of the local church in Upper Canada was a long strong arm in a rugged and sometimes grim new environment.  Happily, some of these  churches remain standing today ~ in tribute to many now forgotten pioneer struggles of the Ontario past."

~ Elizabeth Luther, Pioneering Spirit, eastendbooks, Toronto, 2000.



St. Paul's Anglican, Middleport, ON



(Photo:  lbwalker)

Doors Opened in Haldimand ~

Thank You to All who Made the Day a Success

Melick Cemetery, 8069 Canborough Road

Ten year old Martha, daughter of Peter and Elizabeth Melick, was the first person to be buried in this cemetery in 1830. Land for the cemetery was originally donated by one of Peter and Elizabeth's sons, Joseph.

(Click on Photos for Larger Images.)

Haldimand County Museum, Cayuga

DOORS OPEN SAT., SEPT. 15 ~ 10am - 4pm

Nicholas Log Cabin, Cayuga

For a complete list of the sites participating in the 2012 Doors Open Haldimand, visit www.doorsopenontario.on.ca

After the death of Major General Sir Isaac Brock, at the Battle of Queenston Heights, "hostilities became sporadic and confused, with several failed American attempts at invasion.  When the Yankees briefly occupied York, in 1813, the troops seemed more interested in plunder than power." ~ Charlotte Gray, Canadian author.

Except from Penelope Beikie letter to her Brother, John MacDonell,York, May 5, 1813:

"Every house they found deserted was completely sacked.  We have lost a few things, which were carried off before our faces; but, as we expected to lose all, we think ourselves well off.  Will you believe it?  I had the temerity to frighten, and even to threaten, some of the enemy, though they had the place and me in their power...They so overloaded their vessels with the spirits of this place, that I am told they have thrown quantities of pork and flour into the lake.
"I really attribute this visit to the vengeance of heaven on this place, for quantities of stores, farming utensils, etc., sent from England in the time of General Simeon [Simcoe], were allowed to remain in the Kings stores and nothing of them did [the colonists] ever get.  Now, our enemies have them, to do with them as they please.  I think we deserve all we have got.  Keep up, your spirits, my dear John, for God seems to be on our side."
~ CANADA A PORTRAIT IN LETTERS 1800 - 2000, Charlotte Gray, Doubleday Canada, 2003.

Caledonia Building Bridges to Peace 1812 - 2012 ~

British Battle after dusk ~ Caledonia, Haldimand, for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812

Smile for Today ~

Rosie Has a Nap

One Eye Open

"It is probably true, then, that dogs don't think about art, the origin of the universe, or geopolitics." 
~ Roger A. Caras

~ A Dog Is Listening, The Way Some of Our Friends View Us,  Summit Books, 1992

Virginia Woolf wrote: 

"D'ya mean to say your silken phrases are dug for and sweated out?  I thought you dipped your brush and drew your stroke.  And as for me, I write everything except Orlando 4 times over, and should write it 6 times; and after a morning of grunting and groaning have 200 words to show:  and those as crazy as broken china.
"These are sober facts; and then we, who live in the same age, and sometimes meet in the flesh, have these mistaken ideas about each other: What then is the worth of criticism?"

~In a letter to David Garnett (Dec.,1929) A Reflection of The Other Person / The Letters of Virginia Woolf 1929 - 1931, Editor N. Nicolson; Assistant Editor: J. Trautmann, Chatto & Windus Ltd., Clarke, Irwin & Co. Ltd., 1978.

Doors Open Haldimand ~  Sat., Sept., 15
Cottonwood Mansion will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00

Curator Jill Walters-Klamer and Clayton Spears

For a complete listing of sites participating in the 2012 Doors Open Haldimand, go to www.cottonwoodmansion.ca  (View a slide show of the mansion.)


Photograph compliments of Catherine Stidsen, Vice-President, Cottonwood Mansion.  Thank you Catherine.

Nicholas Log Cabin, Cayuga

DOORS OPEN
HALDIMAND COUNTY

Saturday, September 15

Focusing on the stories of the County's early Loyalist settlers during the War of 1812.

Cottonwood Mansion, Selkirk

For sites participating in this year's Doors Open Haldimand, visit www.doorsopenontario.on.ca  Most sites will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

"After the family and friends went home, after the receptions ended and the sun slid behind winter's gray shroud, what would linger over the city was the certainty of a single, seemingly inalterable fact:  The country was divided, and so Washington was divided, more divided politically than at any time since before World War II."
~ Barack Obama, January 4, 2005 on being sworn in as a member of the 109th Congress.

~ The Audacity of Hope,  B. Obama, President U.S. (b. August 4, 1961) Tree Rivers Press, 2006.



"The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung."



the apple tree


"...Were they pearls, What necklaces could be!"

SUMMER SHOWER  by Emily Dickinson

A drop fell on the apple-tree,
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

Dusty Road to James N. Allan Park

John Steinbeck in a letter to Elizabeth Otis* ~ Lao Gatos, October, 1939

"It's a beautiful morning and I am just sitting in it and enjoying it.  Everything is ripe now, apples, pears, grapes, walnuts.  Carol has made pickles and chutney, canned tomatoes.  Prunes and raisins are on the drying trays.  The cellar smells of apples and wine.  The berries are ripe and every bird in the country is here ~ slightly tipsy and very noisy.  The frogs are singing about a rain coming but they can be wrong.  It's nice.

"...Grapes* dropped from the head of the list to second place out here and about time too.  It is far too far when Jack Benny mentions it in his program.  Altogether may be some kind of new existence is opening up.  I don't know.  The last year has been a nightmare all in all.  But now I'm ordering a lot of books to begin study.  And I'll work in the laboratory...

"One nice thing to think of is the speed of obscurity.  Grapes is not first now.  In a month it will be off the list and in six months I'll be forgotten."  ~ Love John


*The Grapes of Wrath, 1939, won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
*Elizabeth of MacIntosh & Otis, literary agents.
Source:  John Steinbeck A Life in Letters, Penguin Books, 1975.  (b. 1902, d. 1968)

Cayuga Friends ~

Cayuga Gentleman ~ Rick Meesters

There are not many stories that Mr. Meesters has not heard ~ or told!

Most Cayuga residents know Rick for his winning smile and engaging personality.  For many years, he was Cayuga's barber.