QAHN’S 5TH ANNUAL WINE & CHEESE AT THE MONTREAL’S HISTORIC CHÂTEAU DUFRESNE $10 Quebec HeritageVOL 12, NO. 2 SPRING 2018 News The Mechanics of Montreal The Atwater Library’s Heritage: the Early History and a Graphic Story Dream a Little Dream New Series on Fundraising from Heather Darch Stanley, I Presume The Biography of a Key Montreal Street QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS CONTENTS Quebec Editor’s Desk 3 Kevin, Christopher, and Sir John Rod MacLeod HeritageNews Letters 6 EDITOR RODERICK MACLEOD QAHN News Matthew Farfan 8 PRODUCTION DAN PINESE; MATTHEW FARFAN Don’t Forget the Passion Simon Jacobs 10 PUBLISHER Who Nose: a Query 10 QUEBEC ANGLOPHONE HERITAGE NETWORK Heritage in Brief 11 400-257 QUEEN STREET UNESCO: Arvida, astonishingly, awaits again Terry Loucks SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC The Craig Pumping Station Sandra Stock J1M 1K7 Two heritage locations rescued at last: Notman Garden, Snowdon Theatre Sandra Stock PHONE Some volunteer construction work now permitted in Quebec Matthew Farfan 1-877-964-0409 (819) 564-9595 Donors and Dreamers 13 FAX Building a Diversified Fundraising Program Heather Darch (819) 564-6872 CORRESPONDENCE Volunteering Matters 15 [email protected] The Blame Game: Dealing with Difficult Volunteers Heather Darch WEBSITES QAHN.ORG A Modern Temple of Learning 16 QUEBECHERITAGEWEB.COM The Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal: a graphic story Heather Kousik 100OBJECTS.QAHN.ORG PRESIDENT Prohibition in the Eastern Townships 18 SIMON JACOBS Part 4: The Public and Private Spheres Phil Rich EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Montreal: a Mechanic’s City 20 MATTHEW FARFAN Maureen Cant PROJECT DIRECTOR, “HERITAGE TALKS” The Rebellion that Succeeded 22 DWANE WILKIN Part III: The Institut Canadien Joseph Graham BOOKKEEPER MARION GREENLAY Montreal’s Stanley Street 24 HERITAGE LINE Robert N. Wilkins CORRINNA POLE Quebec Heritage News is published Reviews 28 quarterly by QAHN with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Places of Memory: Two Different Approaches Sandra Stock QAHN is a non-profit and non-partisan Richmond Now and Then: An Anecdotal History by Nick Fonda organization whose mission is to help Griffintown: Identity and Memory in an Irish Diaspora advance knowledge of the history and culture of the English-speaking Neighbourhood by Matthew Barlow communities of Quebec. Annual Subscription Rates: Morin’s Remarkable Legacy Sandra Stock Individual: $30.00; Institutional: $40.00; The History of Morin Heights and Surrounding Regions by Don Stewart Family: $40.00; Student: $20.00. Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement Number 405610004. Pictures into a Secret Side of War Sandra Stock Montreal: City of Secrets by Barry Sheehy ISSN 17707-2670 Cover photo: Château Dufresne. Photo: http://museesmontreal.org. PRINTED IN CANADA 2 SPRING 2018 EDITOR’S DESK Kevin, Christopher, and Sir John by Rod MacLeod nce upon a time I was short- had in fact left my sinking heart with This theatrical excursion was not listed for the Canadian His- nothing to land on. only enjoyable but entirely appropriate, torical Association’s John A. I then did something eminently sen- given that my father had dabbled as an OMacdonald Prize for “the sible. Slipping away from the confer- actor and stage hand in his youth – never best scholarly book in Canadian histo- ence’s lunchtime chaos, I got back in my seriously, not with a career in mind, and ry.” It turned out to be quite an car and drove out into the relentlessly usually for room-and-board rather than unsettling experience. flat landscape, finding myself an hour pay, but often in the company of dedi- I spent a portion of my long solo car later chatting to a nice lady at the Strat- cated people who were as professional drive from Montreal to the CHA confer- ford Festival box office who sold me as you could get in the days before the ence in London, Ontario, practicing my one of the few remaining tickets to that Massey Report. The summer of 1938, acceptance speech, something I assume encouraged by his sister-in-law Bea (a most Oscar contenders also do prior to stage director and drama teacher), he the big night. I may even have practiced joined the Forty-Niners in Whitefield, tossing off “it’s an honour just to be New Hampshire, and won everlasting nominated” so I could appear cool and fame under Bea’s direction for his deliv- collected in the likely event the prize ery of a total of four words (“Your taxi’s went to another writer. But my inner ready, ma’am!”) in Fly Away Home; the optimist had fingers crossed. fame consisted of a review in the New “Of course you won’t win,” an un- York Times, no less, which after much thinking colleague informed me next praise of the main players declared that day at the conference, following con- “Archie MacLeod as the taxi driver was gratulations on my having made the adequate.” Two summers later, prior to short list. My practiced suavity very beginning basic training, he travelled to nearly failed me as I gasped to utter Knowlton, where he helped design and something cheerily self-deprecating, ac- build sets for the Brae Manor Playhouse, knowledging the obvious superiority of the brainchild of Montreal Repertory the book I now realized had won the Theatre alumni Filmore and Marjorie jurors’ hearts. Inwardly, and belatedly, I Saddler; a high point for my father was recognized the truth: that a short list of to be cast as one of the leads in Blithe five should not mean that each con- Spirit, where he got to kiss the MRT’s tender has a full 20 percent chance; there Martha Allan on the neck (on stage, that are stars and favourites in academia just is). He returned to Brae Manor on at as there are in the Academy. Even so, it least one occasion after the war, but by was a bitter pill that I struggled to swal- evening’s performance of The Tempest. I the 1950s full-time employment as a so- low, there at the back of a University of was delighted at the prospect of seeing cial worker shifted his focus away from Western Ontario classroom with only a the great William Hutt in his last role be- the stage – except for occasional visits to warm Tim Horton’s coffee for lubricant. fore retirement (Prospero), but I did not New York, where he and friends (some- Admittedly, my disappointment was know until I arrived at the Festival times my mother) always made a bee- disproportionate to the situation, and for Theatre at 7:30, fortified by a very dif- line for Shubert Alley, as evidenced by a reason. I reflected that I had been us- ferent sort of coffee (and sandwich) the boxful of old playbills I have some- ing the remote possibility of winning the from Balzac’s, and found myself sur- where in my attic. prize as a diversion from what had occu- rounded by a red-carpet crowd in tuxes, My afternoon and evening in Strat- pied a much larger portion of the previ- gowns and heels, that this was in fact ford was also appropriate given my fam- ous day’s long solo drive: memories of Opening Night, and that there was some- ily’s relationship with the town and fes- my father, who had recently died. There thing of a dress code – fortunately, unen- tival. Three years earlier I had gone were triggers in every other song on forced. My discomfiture amid this finery there with my kids for the first time, co- every CD I played – many of them de- aside, it was an unforgettable evening, inciding with my theatrical aunt Bea, liberately induced, but all of them and I lapped up Hutt’s admission that who was marking her fiftieth season as a draining. I realized that, in sparing me our little life is rounded with a sleep loyal patron; she had applauded Alec false hope, my well-meaning colleague with the tearful sobriety it merited. Guinness as Richard III under a mere 3 Coffee at Balzac's, Stratford. Photo: Elena Cerrolaza. QUEBEC HERITAGE NEWS dark to my room in the student resi- Macdonald is to date the only Canadian dence, that it was indeed an honour just prime minister to resign in the face of to be nominated. And there would be scandal – in this case, accepting bribes other books, other chances at bat. It’s a to facilitate the railway’s drive across prize I still have my eye on. the west. That drive necessitated remov- By that hypothetical time, of course, ing “the natives” from the picture (hence it might not be called the John A. Residential Schools), just as had oc- Macdonald Prize. The Canadian Histori- curred at every stage of the European cal Association’s council has already colonial project in the Americas. moved to rename the award the “CHA But all that said, John A. Macdonald Prize for the Best Scholarly Book in was Canada’s founding prime minister, Canadian History,” and the final deci- which you’d think would count for sion will be made by the membership at something. We (it is our collective, this spring’s general meeting, in Regina. retroactive responsibility as Canadians, The problem with Sir John, you see, regardless of when our families arrived is one that school boards and other here, so I say “we”) elected him. We did groups across the country have been so four additional times after scandal wrestling with in recent months: turns forced him out. Flawed though the elec- out, he wasn’t the nice guy they thought toral system was (more than today, I he was. Institutions everywhere have mean), it put this man in office.