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THE HOUSE AT EATON CORNER: CHANGES AND CHALLENGES $10 Quebec VOL 9, NO. 2 SPRING 2015 HeritageNews Radio Days Exploring the History of English-language Radio Black History Ernest DuPorte, Rosie Douglas, and Ray Brown Industrial Landscapes Drawing Cantley’s Iron Mine QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS Quebec CONTENTS eritageNews Editor’s Desk 3 H Drawing the line Rod MacLeod EDITOR RODERICK MACLEOD Letters 6 PRODUCTION Mystery solved, at long last David Gawley DAN PINESE MATTHEW FARFAN Finding a friend: another mystery Daniel Parkinson PUBLISHER Mystery Object 6 THE QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE HERITAGE NETWORK President’s Message 7 400-257 QUEEN STREET Knowing what we need to know Simon Jacobs SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC J1M 1K7 WHA Turns 70 8 PHONE Rod Macleod 1-877-964-0409 (819) 564-9595 FAX Curator’s Handbook 9 (819) 564-6872 No cats or cakes Heather Darch CORRESPONDENCE Restoring Historic Paul Holland Knowlton House 10 [email protected] Kathryn Lexow WEBSITES WWW.QAHN.ORG WWW.QUEBECHERITAGEWEB.COM Eaton Corner Museum 11 WWW.100OBJECTS.QAHN.ORG Changes and challenges in 2015 Kevin Armstrong PRESIDENT The Story Behind the Portrait 12 SIMON JACOBS Further F. S. Coburn intrigue Nick Fonda EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & WEBMAGAZINES EDITOR Walking Black Montreal 15 MATTHEW FARFAN The Sir George Williams Affair Ashlie Bienvenu OFFICE MANAGER KATHY TEASDALE Montreal on the Air 16 Sandra Stock Quebec Heritage News is published quarterly by QAHN with the support A Man of Many Firsts 20 of the Department of Canadian Heritage and Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture et Earnest Melville DuPorte Dorothy Williams des Communications. QAHN is a non-profit and non-partisan organization whose mis- Alfred Edwards and the Haycock Mine 21 sion is to help advance knowledge of the history and culture of the English- Wes Darou speaking communities of Quebec. Annual Subscription Rates: Champlain’s Choice 24 Individual: $30.00; Institutional: $40.00; Joseph Graham Family: $50.00; Student: $20.00. Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement Number 405610004. Ray Brown in Quebec 26 The forgotten years Bill Young ISSN 17707-2670 PRINTED IN CANADA No Joy in Mudville 29 Review: Agony to Ecstasy: The 1994 Expos Rod MacLeod Cover photo: Watercolour by Denis Palmer, The Village of Eaton Corner. Photo: courtesy of the Eaton Corner Museum. 2 SPRING 2015 EDITOR’S DESK Drawing the line by Rod MacLeod fter considerable hesitation, I ed in my mind – even though it’s deucedly a “safe space” for women on campus, and I will admit that I am Charlie. hard to take a stand on some of them with- had to wrestle with my instinctive hostility Hesitation? Let me explain by out being contradictory on others. But the at being seen as a threat – until I came to saying that over the past few process has been rewarding. realize the enormity of the male world we Aweeks I’ve been musing rather obsessively Let’s start with the Montreal Mas- live in. In the days following December 6, over strip searches, offensive humour, and sacre. The reminiscences from that shock- a debate raged over whether the massacre Western Civilization. More than I usually ing day, along with the discourse on the had been just the work of a disturbed nut do, I mean. And I never quite seem able to current state of feminism, made for good if (my view, initially), or whether it reflected draw a conclusion I feel comfortable with heart-wrenching reading that took me back a broader hostility towards the achieve- and end up envying those people who pro- to a seminal period in my own intellectual ments of women (a view I came round to, nounce on recent events with table-thump- development. A grad student in December after listening to the fears and frustrations ing certainty. 1989, I was already on a fascinating learn- many women expressed). I realized that, as What a season it has been! Quite apart ing curve regarding women’s history and a man, I took an awful lot for granted. from the murderous insanity in the Middle the importance of gender in history – Flash forward a quarter-century and I East and Africa (but inevitably listen as my 17-year-old daugh- connected to it), we’ve had two ter articulates, with at least as assaults on Canadian soldiers much passion as my former fel- on their native soil, one of low grad students, the vital im- which involved an attack on portance of feminism in today’s Parliament, a hostage taking in world. I see her despair for peo- downtown Sydney, and the in- ple, especially women, who dis- famous bloody commando raid miss the term as outdated, even on a satirical magazine in Paris intolerant. I cringe at her ac- followed by a massacre of counts of trying to establish pro- shoppers at a nearby kosher su- ductive working relationships permarket. On December 6, we with young men that do not in- marked a quarter-century since volve inappropriate contact, and the “Montreal Massacre” of 14 of what men say to her in the women at the Polytechnique. In street or out of the windows of February, a fifteen-year-old girl passing cars. I read, dutifully but was forced to take her clothes with much interest, the book my off by a school principal in a manner that notions which, until then, hadn’t played daughter has given me: Sally Armstrong’s the education minister declared was “re- much of a part in my training and which Ascent of Women, full of horrific accounts spectful. ran somewhat contrary to my liberal out- of the brutal oppression and degradation of Government is also thinking of oblig- look. By that I mean that liberalism ac- women around the world, though also of ing women who do not wish to reveal their cords everyone an equal chance and does heroic efforts by women to overcome these faces at a citizenship swearing-in to do so, not censor – beliefs that feminism chal- crimes condoned (and sometimes commit- while a local judge refuses to hear a lenges when it points out that the experi- ted) in the name of religion, culture, or, that woman’s case because she was wearing a ence of women in most societies is signifi- most slimy residue of the two, honour. Atti- hijab. We have legislation to crack down cantly different from that of men, and that tudes towards rape alone underscore how on terrorism and renewed calls for a charter on a so-called level playing field men very much of a man’s world it is, in much of the of values. An outspoken Muslim preacher often have a huge advantage because of world. has been refused permission to build a cultural expectations and physical pres- Of course, we like to think that we’ve mosque in east-end Montreal. A year-end ence. Equally often, men tell dirty stories made progress in our part of the world. review show features a white actor in and make lewd remarks and do other Surely we have. Surely the cases of #Been- blackface, which many find acceptable. things that can poison a working environ- RapedNeverReported and similar ordeals, Vandals spray swastikas on cars in NDG. ment for women. To see the situation from however much they may undermine com- And that’s just as of the time of writing. No a female perspective was (and is) to ac- placency regarding women’s rights and wonder I’m awake at night! knowledge the damage that traditional freedoms, do point to a kind of progress: It’s true that I’ve lumped a lot of is- complacent attitudes can do. Some of my we can talk about it now. The fact that sues together here, but they are all connect- fellow students were campaigning to create women are speaking out, that it would 3 Photo: Rod MacLeod. QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS seem to be harder to get away with abusive women. To me it was clearly no coinci- sion. Sigh. The producers of the show with behavior, suggests that things are better dence that the criminals’ fall-back attack the actor in blackface refuse to accept re- than they were a quarter-century ago, let was on a kosher grocery and that the vic- peated complaints from Black (and other) alone three or four centuries ago. At any tims were Jews, any more than it was a co- Montrealers that such material is deeply of- rate, we’re miles better than large parts of incidence that all the victims at the Poly- fensive. They invoke freedom of speech: the world where people value their own technique were women. Curiously, though, art is supposed to make you uncomfort- honour above the safety, let alone the hap- the 1989 voices denying that the massacre able, they say, although the argument piness, of their children. When you’d rather was partly the result of broader social prob- sounds like an excuse when it is uttered in see your daughter dead than bring shame lems were mainstream liberals uncomfort- defence of actions that seem wilfully in- on your family, you have a serious prob- able with putting the blame on anyone but sensitive. lem. You also have a serious problem if the lone gunman. Today, it is typically the The same is true, alas, for Charlie you condone the death of someone who in- people defending freedom of speech to the Hebdo. When I got around to looking at sults your faith. Several times now in re- hilt (a classic liberal position) who are the their typical output (if you haven’t yet, I’d cent years, we’ve witnessed the spectacle readiest to identify a social problem, name- advise against doing so), I was taken aback of violent protests leading to dozens of ly Islamic fundamentalism.