Articles: 1980's

1982

Date 8/1982
Linda Island Sold
Linda Island on the St. Lawrence River at Cape Vincent has been sold through Realty World Thousand Islands by Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. to Jim Aikey of Clearwater, Fl.
The seven acre wooded Island is improved with a four bedroom cottage and two-slip boat house. Wallace Paddon, the previous owner, donated the Island to Wheaton College in 1980.

NOTE: This Island was once owned by the BAMFORD family of Wolfe Island. It is mentioned in Irene Bamfords diaries of the late 1800’s. It was then called Linda’s Island.

Submitted by Thelma Moye
Transcribed by Jerry Vaughn
Thursday, June 10, 1982
Stepping-Stone
Ernie’s Diner
Really Popular
By Thomas J. Martello
Times Staff Writer
Wolfe Island, Ont. -- “Ah, a craft factory,” exclaimed three out-of-towners. “That should be an interesting tour.”
The grocery store clerk eyed the three Americans suspiciously, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Couched in the ways of tourism in the Thousand Islands, the three jumped into a Volkswagen in search of artisans making horse shoes and old women sewing together clothes for wooden dolls.
As the car rambled down the road, a heavy smell resembling milk left outside too long hung in the air.
Then, it sunk in: that “craft” factory was not so quaint after all. It was a Kraft factory, where they make cheese and other dairy products.
Embarrassed smiles appeared on the adventurers faces as the Volkswagen turned around and headed toward the ferry home. Somehow they expected something different from the largest of the Thousand Islands.
Stepping Stone: But you can’t compare Wolfe Island to its counterparts down river. Though short on attractions, this “stepping stone” between Cape Vincent and Kingston is rich in history and popular with those who enjoy its bountiful fishing and hunting.
You won’t find brochures filled with tales abut rich 19th century industrialists who ruled from island castles. You won’t find tour boats or souvenir shops catering to the tourist.
Wolfe Island winters may be hard to endure, but with a ferry leaving every hour, you can’t compare it to the winters on Grindstone Island where the folks really have to fend for themselves.
What you will find on this island is an interesting mesh of lifestyles unlike any other on Lake Ontario or the St. Lawrence.
The Wolfe Islanders don’t fret about the lack of nightlife here, the first run movies, clubs and restaurants of Kingston are a ferry ride away. So is the art, the universities and the culture of that Canadian city.
At home, there is the life of the tight knit rural community where everyone knows everyone else. To some, it is the best of both worlds.
“I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world,” declared 67-year old Antoine LaRush, who lives in the oldest house on the island. “I don’t think you can beat it.”
Antoine had just finished soup and two hardy looking hamburgers at one of the favorite places on the island Ernie’s Lunch. Families poured into the diner, which has checkered floors, several high chairs for youngsters and plastic flowers on its brown paneled walls.
On those walls you can see several maps of the island, including one dating back to the 19th century which features the names of every property owner.
Baseball Club: Antoine pointed to another hanging photo of the 1921 Wolfe Island baseball club which won the inter-county championship.
“Only one of those guys is still alive,” he said.
Ernie Allen walked out of the kitchen carrying an envelope filled with old photos of the island.
A visitor, who wound up at Ernie’s after his sneakers caused the fellow at the highly-touted General Wolfe Hotel to suggest that he get a burger at the bar, mentioned that this diner seemed to be really popular.
“Oh, that’s for sure,” said Antoine. “Ernie’s got lots of friends.”
Ernie, who has run the diner for the past two decades, nodded.
“Are you open all year round?” the visitor asked.
“Yes, I am.” Ernie answered. “We open at 5 a.m. and close at 10 p.m.”
“You don’t work all that time, do you?”
“Oh no,” Ernie said with a straight face. “I take a ‘half hour off for lunch.”
Outside, the street was filled with cars and pedestrians piling off the ferry from Kingston.
The ferry. To many, one cannot say “Wolfe Island” without adding the word “ferry” after it.
They’ve been running the boats to Kingston for 180 years now, linking the rural island with the local Southern Ontario center of commerce. The Horne ferry, which carries visitors to and from the United States each summer, has been in operation for the same number of years on the other side of the island.
The ferry is why you can’t find many shops on Wolfe Island: the ferry is why Wolfe Island has that interesting mesh of lifestyles.

Submitted by Thelma Moye
Transcribed by Peter Rogers
A 162-year Ferry Tale of Beauty and Service
September 1982
Up on the St. Lawrence River some folks claim that the Horne ferry won't start unless there is a pretty girl aboard.
If the tale is true, you couldn't begin to count the beauties it has transported from Canada's Wolfe Island to New York's Cape Vincent and back again.
And there must be a multitude of gorgeous females in that neck of the woods because the ferry hasn't missed too many trips in the past 162 years.
This year's service is winding down, but it should include close to 1900 trips when the service ends October 19. On that evening, the William Darrell 10-car ferry will ease into the Horne Point home dock to hibernate until Memorial Day Weekend next year.
It may be one of the smallest and grandest traditions on the North American continent.
Thomas Horne started it all in 1820 when he used rowboats to transport fishermen and farmers across the mile of open water to the U.S. mainland. This is where the St. Lawrence River begins; the south channel of Wolfe Island, the biggest of the 1000 islands, is most frequently buffeted by west and northwest winds that have swept the full length of Lake Ontario.
One of those typical storms claimed Thomas Horne in 1884 but not until he had run the ferry business for 64 years. In the 1860s he began using sailboats to move people back and forth. Rowers from Wolfe Island to the United States had the river current and prevailing wind to help them. The return trip must have been a back-breaker.
William E. Horne took over when his father drowned. He made the journey much easier by using small barges pulled by power boats. The ferry service was busy hauling people, cattle, fish, hay, cheese and mail across the water.
War Surplus Progress
Two descendants, William and Darrell Horne, were running the business at the end of World War II and they modernized the operation when they bought a surplus Canadian landing barge. It, however, held only about four cars.
A much larger car ferry capable of packing in 30 vehicles was tried for awhile around 1950 but it was deemed too big. It is now operating on Lake Champlain. In 1952, the William Darrell, named after the two brothers, was commissioned and it has been making the back-and-forth run ever since.
Darrell died in 1970 and his two sons, George and Bruce Horne, signed on to help their Uncle Bill. When he was hospitalized a year ago, they followed family tradition and took over the ferry operation.
William Horne is now 80. He had a good summer and kept busy in his garden and on the golf course. His wife, Elizabeth, and Darrell's widow, Rachel, the mother of George and Bruce, handle business affairs and paper work from the stately but friendly Horne stone house just beyond the customs stop at the Wolfe Island dock.
George and Bruce have the heavy work. For them it is no series of joy rides between Canada and the United States. George usually takes the wheel while Bruce has the responsibility for flipping the big rope hawsers at either dock to properly tie up the cumbersome ferry. They then team up again to unload the vehicles and load the next group.
Eyeball Computing
That loading may be the most remarkable duty of the entire operation. George takes one look at the waiting line of cars and mentally sorts them into widths and lengths. There will be sub-compacts, compacts, regular size, vans, campers, trucks, trailers and boat-trailers. He mentally fits them into the irregularly shaped deck of the William Darrell and directs them up the loading ramp, where Bruce, who must receive the same message by thought transference, gives the hand signals to the drivers to inch them back and forth into their spaces.
Not an inch is wasted. "Sometimes." laughs George, "we have to pick up and lift one of those little, tiny cars to fit it in."
Certain combinations will get as many as a dozen vehicles aboard. Many times there are only two or three. If a car comes careening down lower James Street in Cape Vincent just as the ferry is ready to pull away, George will hold the power and Bruce will drop the ramp to load it.
And there are always the walkers and bicyclists. It is in this latter category that you will frequently find the mandatory pretty girl. She and the others climb to the passenger deck next to the helmsman's cabin. Up there the girls can get a better look at George and Bruce.
The 70-ton William Darrell is powered by a 320-horse-power diesel engine. It is 68 feet long and has a 28 foot beam and draws 6 feet of water. It can take 98 people. George explains there are 100 lifejackets; "…enough for the passengers and Bruce and me."
Nothing much ever happens on the crossings. Even an occasional drunk can't do any harm; the ride is too short.
During the peak of the summer the ferry makes 11 round trips a day, from 8:00 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. The fee for a car and driver is $3 and $1 more for each additional passenger. Back in the 1880s when power was first added, the charge was 25 cents a person.
So the season will last only a few weeks longer. George and Bruce are thinking ahead to their winter jobs as officers on ocean ships. The gulls still wheel off Horne Point waiting for the snow white ferry to return time and again to its home port.
The traditional, privately-owned, non-subsidized service is truly an institution. Thousands of people on both sides of the St. Lawrence hope it will go on forever.
And it probably will because, as George Horne puts it, "All of us in the family have our own jobs to do, and we do them."

1985

Submitted by George Halladay
The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.
Jul 30, 1985. pg. 1news Wolfe Island
Once again, Kingston-area residents are losing their jobs as the result of corporate decisions made far from Kingston.
This time the blow comes as Kraft Ltd., the Montreal-based food processor, has decided to modernize and consolidate its cheese production facilities. As a result, the Kraft cheese factory on Wolfe Island will be closed over the next 18 months.
With 28 employees, the Kraft plant is the largest employer on Wolfe Island.
"It's no longer economical to operate the Wolfe Island operation," Kraft production operations manager Jacques LeBoeuf told The Whig-Standard yesterday from Montreal.
"Over the years it has become less and less economical to operate."
The plant at Wolfe Island will be consolidated with Kraft's cheese production facility at Ingleside, near Cornwall. A $10- million expansion of the Ingleside plant was completed last year. A further $7.5-million expansion will be finished in January 1987, when the Wolfe Island operation shuts down.
"We needed new technology to remain competitive," LeBoeuf said. "We had to modernize and to do this we have to practise economies of scale. As we process more cheese, the Ingleside plant will become economical."
LeBoeuf said the Wolfe Island plant -- which processes seven million pounds of mozzarella cheese a year -- was too small to make modernization profitable.
"That's a small-scale operation," LeBoeuf said.
The Ingleside plant produces more than 150 products and uses 450,000 litres of milk in its daily operations. It employs 325 people.
Only five years ago, Kraft expanded the Wolfe Island facility by one third and upgraded the facilities. At the time, Kraft officials were predicting a bright future for the plant.
"We're expanding it because we believe in it," Kraft executive Ray Lowery said in 1980.
The Wolfe Island plant has been working at full capacity -- three shifts a day -- for the past several years. It will continue at full capacity until the closing in January 1987.
LeBoeuf said the persistent problem of whey disposal was also a factor in the closing. Whey is the watery liquid that separates from milk after it curdles during the making of cheese.
"We never really solved the whey disposal problem," LeBoeuf said. "We've been spraying the farms (as fertilizer) but that causes an odor. We shipped some to the Harrowsmith cheese company and some to Cornwall, but that was uneconomical. It was a factor in the closing. "
Bruce Kingston, manager of Harrowsmith Cheese Factory, Ltd., was not very concerned about losing his source of whey.
"I don't want to downplay it, but it's not devastating," he said. "It was not our main product. It will not affect any jobs."
Wolfe Island uses about 150 million litres of milk annually. Suppliers to the plant will not be affected, however, because the Ontario Milk Marketing Board handles the distribution of milk.
Local officials seemed stunned when told of the closing.
"It's going to be terrible, it really is," said Wolfe Island reeve Tim O'Shea.
O'Shea also said that he was not aware of any whey disposal problems at the plant.
Kingston Area Economic Development Commissioner Cecil Pare said the closing would be a setback for Wolfe Island. "I'm sure it's a blow to the Wolfe Island economy," he said.
Kraft is offering the Wolfe Island employees jobs at the Ingleside operation.
LeBoeuf would not speculate on what will be done with the Wolfe Island plant after the closing. But he said selling that property was a possibility.

1987

Submitted by George Halladay
The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.
Jun 3, 1987. pg. 40 celebration Wolfe Island
Frontenac County mainlanders recently had the privilege of travelling to beautiful and friendly Wolfe Island. The special occasion was the 60th anniversary celebration of the two island chapters of the Women's Institute: St. Lawrence and Wolfe Island.
Both chapters were organized in the spring of 1927, with the St. Lawrence chapter celebrating on the first Saturday in May and Wolfe Island on the last Saturday.
Mrs. Lillian Staley read the early history of the branch, written by the late Mrs. Wilmer (Lulu) Keyes, a charter member, who also served at district, area and provincial levels in the rural women's organization. A special tribute was accorded Mrs. Keyes with the singing of one of her original compositions "Flow Gently St. Lawrence," during a sing-song.
Mrs. Keyes recorded the initial meeting at the home of Mrs. John Weir, now the site of Fargos General Store. Mrs. F.S. Ferguson and Mrs. A.W. Sirett, representing the Frontenac District institute, attended and decided there was need of two branches on Wolfe Island.
At the first regular meeting of Wolfe Island chapter, 40 women became charter members. Mrs. James T. McAllister was elected the first president, with Mrs. John Weir as the first secretary- treasurer. Over the years, the membership grew rapidly, reaching a peak of 100 plus during the 1930s.
Honored guests at the 60th anniversary celebration were Mrs. Robert Bullis, 93, the oldest living charter member, and Mrs. Noble Staley, daughter of the first president, Mrs. James McAllister. Life members recognized were Mrs. Marion McDonnell, Mrs. Mary Johnson, Mrs. Ida Lollar, Mrs. Joan O'Shea, Mrs. Lillian Staley, Mrs. Dorothy White. Mrs. Sharon Hogan and Mrs. Peggy White were commended as the current leaders of the 4-H Homemaking Club, sponsored by the institute.
Mrs. Joan O'Shea, in recalling the origin of Women's Institutes in 1897, noted that better nutrition and home sanitation were contributing factor to the founding of the groups.
Mrs. Adelaide Hoodless, co-founder with Erland Lee, had lost a child from drinking unpasteurized milk. She was instrumental in getting Sir William Macdonald (the tobacco magnate) to put a large portion of his wealth toward the cause of teaching domestic science to young women. Courses began in 1902, at the Macdonald Institute at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph and Macdonald College in St. Anne de Bellvue, Quebec.
Canada Communications Minister Flora MacDonald, MP of Kingston and the Islands, told the institutes' members that her department was carrying on today the group's tradition of adequate health care - - not only at home but in aid to developing countries.
Ontario Solicitor-General Kenneth Keyes, an erstwhile Wolfe Island farm boy and MPP for Kingston and the Islands, in reading from a 1928 Wolfe Island Women's institute program noted the group was promoting better dental care among school children. He commended Mrs. Muriel Joslin, in serving as the first woman school trustee on Wolfe Island, long before the women's liberation movement began.
He expressed pride in the contributions islanders have made toward modern technological advances, noting his brother Lorne Keyes had assisted in the design of the first satellite for overseas communications. Lorne is still head of the program at the RCA company in Montreal.
Keyes suggested Wolfe Island's Tweedsmuir history would find a welcome and a safe keeping repository in Toronto at the provincial archives, stressing it had always been a pet project of his "Aunt Lulu."
He presented a commemorative plaque from Premier David Peterson to Mrs. Ellie DeVette, president of Wolfe Island Women's Institute.
Rev. John Appelman, Sacred Hart Church parish priest, reported that as a missionary for 10 years in Uganda, he appreciated being on the receiving end of the Canadian aid mentioned by Communications Minister Flora MacDonald. He expressed the hope he would still be on Wolfe Island 10 years hence for the institute's 70th anniverasry. "I have just planted three apple trees at the rectory and they should be bearing apples by then, and I will bring all the apple pies you want for the 70th anniversary banquet," he promised.
Mrs. Ida Lollar, who presided for the program, commented: "I can see you are going to have a most fruitful ministry on Wolfe Island!"
Reeve T.D. O'Shea and the dean of Frontenac County Council, extended municipal greetings. Councillor Mildred Hawkins Walton, John O'Shea and Jan Hasselaar were introduced, while written greetings were received from Deputy-Reeve Donald MacDonald.
Other special guests speaking briefly were: Miss Louise Poole, Kingston area Women's Institute president; Heather Allan, first vice- president of Frontenac District chapter; Mrs. Norma Ellerbeck, Frontenac District secretary-treasurer and Miss Susan Leuty, rural organizations specialist (home economist).

1988

The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.
Mar 5, 1988. pg. 1 news
IN 1843, AN ENGLISH watercolorist moved to Canada with his family and soon became a successful farmer on Amherst Island; in 1857, after 14 years of working the land, he wiped the dust off his pencils and brushes and became a painter again. Widely accepted as one of the best Canadian artists of the late 19th century, Daniel Fowler made his most important contribution as a renderer of landscapes, many of his scenes drawn from the rustic surroundings where he farmed, painted and wrote until his death in 1894.
Fowler's talent brought him substantial acclaim during his years in Canada; he won many prizes in exhibitions, including one he considered the culmination of his career: the bronze medal and diploma at the International Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 for his watercolor Hollyhocks. After his death, however, his achievement faded from view, as eyes turned to such exciting new movements in Canadian painting as the Group of Seven.
Then, in 1964, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre presented the first major retrospective of Fowler's work, kindling a renewed interest in the watercolorist. Artist Ralph Allen's essay, accompanying the exhibition, was the first critical evaluation in a period of research and identification of works -- conducted mostly by Frances K. Smith -- that eventually led to a second, more extensive show in 1979. Since that show, the gallery has acquired 14 additional Fowler watercolors and sketches; most are simply studies but some are striking examples that confirm the artist's place in Canadian art history.
The Agnes Etherington's current exhibition of these works, which continues until March 20, includes short excerpts from Fowler's Autobiography or Recollections of an Artist, a project he started in 1893, a year before his death. This document was first published in the 1979 exhibition catalogue, which also includes an illuminating essay by Smith. But all these words can't begin to communicate what is glowingly revealed in the paintings: Fowler was a keen and sensitive observer of nature, producing his most original pieces when he focused on the place he knew best -- Amherst Island.
Viewers not familiar with Fowler won't get the full picture from this modest show. But it does cover more than 40 years and features some of his most common subjects. The still lifes include three watercolors of dead game: Sketch Of A Duck I and II and Still Life With Pigeons (1874). Fowler's dead game paintings are not "about" death or any such philosophical topic; he merely used the game to make detailed color studies of nature's creatures. Still life, indeed.
Flowers are Fowler's other main still-life subject, and the two examples in this exhibition, Flower (1874) and Lychnis And Larkspur, are vibrant. Highly praised for this type of work in the 1870s and '80s, Fowler believed that he had made a breakthrough in painting backgrounds. These "fantasy" backgrounds contrast with the "realism" of the subject matter, a structural effect that neither Smith nor Allen finds always completely successful. The second of the two flower paintings highlights the bright, primary colors of the flowers, red and blue against a dark background. The petals and stems have a surprisingly velvet-like texture, a quality not found in the other still lifes.
The remaining paintings depict landscapes, all but one from England and the Continent. Two pieces entitled Lake Of Lucerne (1834 and 1884) contrast dramatically. One is a charcoal drawing on paper that gives powerful depth to the scene while maintaining a delicate balance of elements: illuminated vessels sailing on the water, tall dark mountains. The later work, a watercolor, is stark despite its colors, the elements stripped of romanticism. Another graphite sketch, In Knole Park (1837), is a stunningly accurate study of nature. Fowler once said that he "never took kindly" to the pencil, yet the depth and detail of this drawing are remarkable. Every groove in the tree bark, every leaf pattern is captured perfectly.
Two early landscapes are typical of the traditional British landscape painting of the time, of which the chief practitioner was William Turner. Allington Castle (1838) and Merle On The Moselle (1837) depict romantic images, the former regal, the latter common in tone. Great attention is paid to the buildings without overlooking the setting. Later landscapes retain this attention to detail yet sometimes lean toward abstraction of imagery.
European Street And Tower (1870) evokes the quiet daily life in a small town, which could be anywhere. Rooftops ascend in step-like fashion to a tower in the right corner of the painting, as people walk in the street below. The work is rendered in a style approaching impressionism. Waterfall In European Mountains (1866) uses sepias, yellows and oranges with flashes of white and touches of bright red to create brilliant effects of light and movement.
Woodland Scene (1878) is apparently the only Amherst Island setting in the show. The largest -- and perhaps the best -- of the 14 paintings on display, it is almost surreal in its juxtaposition of pastoral and threatening images, revealing an understanding of the power and potential violence in nature. In the thick woods, a large birch tree has fallen, its impact breaking branches from smaller trees. The colors are wild like the setting, the placement of the objects dramatic. In a clearing at the left, three peasants - - a child and two women -- gaze on the scene. The technique is superb -- the peeling bark, the winding branches -- yet it is Fowler's imagination that stands out in this painting.
Daniel Fowler of Amherst Island is a lasting treasure of the region; it is to be hoped that the continuing efforts of the Agnes Etherington to fully document his career will pull in more works as fine as those in this small but interesting show.

Transcribed by Peter Rogers
REOPENING OF WOLFE ISLAND CANAL COULD BEGIN IN '89
October 23, 1988
By Scott E. Hummel
Times Staff Writer
MARYSVILLE, Ont.- Dredging of the Wolfe Island canal, cutting a swath through the island that lies between Cape Vincent N.Y. and Kingston, could begin next year if the project is approved by the federal government, a Canadian official said.
The two-mile-long canal slicing across a bottleneck at the centre of the island has been closed since 1932. But a drive that began three years ago to reopen the cattail choked artery is nearing fruition, says Donald L. MacDonald, Wolfe Island Township deputy reeve and head of the county canal committee.
Restoring the 131-year old canal will cost $6.7 million, a tab that will be shouldered by federal, Province of Ontario, Frontenac County and City of Kingston governments," said Mr. MacDonald whose property abuts the north end of the canal.
Under tentative terms, the federal government would foot the bill for dredging the canal, the most expensive part of fixing the waterway, he said.
Ontario would pay for a swing bridge - which could be moved aside when large boats pass through the canal - on Highway 96 just east of Marysville, he said. The provincial government would also be responsible for building the approaches to the bridge and building parks on the canal. Frontenac County, which includes Kingston, would promote the canal.
"The county has already raised $250,000 as a seed, starter money for (the canal) and the city (Kingston) has matched that with equal funding," said Mr. MacDonald, adding that Kingston has raised an additional $80,000 for the project.
Cape Vincent Mayor, Timothy D. Maloney, said the village might commit some funds to the project but it has never been discussed.
"We have never discussed it at all that I can remember since I was on the board (1985)," Mr. Maloney said. "Obviously (the canal) would be a benefit to us."
The push for the canal reopening is going into high gear, Mr. MacDonald said. Federal Environment Minister Thomas MacMillan toured the canal in September and is behind the effort to restore the artery.
The canal, connecting Barnett and Bayfield Bays, would increase tourism between the United States and Canada, he predicted. It would also make for safer boating between Kingston and U.S. ports such as Cape Vincent Henderson Harbour.
A study prepared by the Kingston firm of Totten, Sims & Hubicki said reopening the canal would boost the already booming marine tourism industry in the Thousand Islands. Half a decade after the rejuvenation of the Kingston marina, the economic benefits for the island could include a 25-room country inn, a 45-berth marina, and a museum-park complex.
Reopening the canal would also improve the habitat in the canal and in the bays at both ends, Mr. MacDonald said. The St. Lawrence River flows through the canal when its open.
"As it stands now, the flow is almost totally impeded," Mr. MacDonald said. "When the canal was active, it was a superb fishing spot and some species of fish like to have a flow to make an environment they like."
It would cut the boating time from Kingston to Cape Vincent considerably, he said. The trip by canal would take about 20 minutes. Navigating around the wind-buffeted western island, often a hazardous task, takes about an hour. Travelling around the east end takes about 90 minutes, he said.
Once the canal is dredged, it will hardly need any maintenance for half a century, Mr. MacDonald said.
During its heyday, the 100-foot wide canal, with a 6-foot draft, accommodated large ships and ferries, he said. But the Depression and the growth of railroads brought the privately operated canal to a close in 1932.

Submitted by George Halladay
The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.
: Oct 5, 1988. pg. 1
News (Wolfe I.)
McGUIRE, Agnes and Sadie
Twins are rare and 80-year-old twins even rarer, but "the McGuire twins," Agnes Brown of Kingston, and Sadie Langdon of Watertown, N.Y., are holding a twins birthday in Watertown late next month.
On Saturday, Oct. 29, a day after their actual birthday, their friends will gather in the U.S. bordertown where Mrs. Langdon has lived for many years. Both twins are widowed.
Five years ago they held a big birthday party in Kingston, where Mrs. Brown lives, said her daughter, Jeannette Orr, who works at Rideaucrest Home.
She said her mother still does volunteer work for the women's auxiliary at Rideaucrest, as well as bowls, attends various clubs, and walks downtown every day from her Wright Crescent home.
Orr said that her aunt, Mrs. Langdon, used to farm on Wolfe Island with her husband Clifford Greenwood before they moved to Watertown, where he later died. She then married John Langdon, who also pre-deceased her. Mrs. Langdon now has 43 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

1989

The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont. Jan 21, 1989. pg. 1 Editorial (Simcoe I.)
Sanford S. Eves was born on Simcoe Island, which is at the west end of Wolfe Island, in 1913, and moved away from the family farm in 1933. Now retired in Belleville after a varied career which included farming, Great Lakes sailing and working for the Department of National Defence, Mr. Eves is writing a history of the island.
"The Eves family has been on the island through five or six generations. I still have a family cottage down there and my sister has a cottage on the site of the old family farm."
Mr. Eves is looking for information on island residents, particularly those who were there before his time and before the time of his own father, Richard.
"My grandfather, George Eves, would have known these people," he said. A search of newspaper files and Queen's Archives reveals little about the island. "It was not often in the news except when some shipping disaster occurred."
Mr. Eves wants to learn more about John and William Garrat who owned most of the island between 1833 and 1856 and operated a dairy farm and cheese factory there.
He is also seeking information on Margaret and John Potts, James Kemp, Eliza Robertson, Sarah Eccles, William Gates, Shirley Going, Saline Augsburg, John Gillespie, John Armstrong and a Mr. Cox whose names he has found on land records or mortages between 1868 and 1876.
The Briggs family owned a hotel at Lucas Point and Mr. Eves wants to know when it was built and whether a Jock Harty was connected with it. "I have been working on the history for about three years now and still have to search the archives in Ottawa and Toronto before I am finished. I would also appreciate any information or pictures that Whig-Standard readers can provide for me."
Mr. Eves can be contacted at 20 Munro Avenue, Belleville, Ont. K8N 1KI or by calling 962-6982.

The Whig - Standard. Kingston, Ont.
Jun 17, 1989. pg. 1 news
It's a bright spring day on Amherst Island, but close to half the island's 365 residents are gathered indoors at a fundraising auction for the local public school. Their goal is to raise thousands of dollars in a single day to help purchase a new playground. The auction is being held in the school gymnasium, the only public meeting place on the island. It too was built with the aid of community funds and is well used as a public facility. Only an islander would know that the day before a full wedding banquet was held here. A month earlier about 80 island residents met with board of education directors in the school gymnasium to discuss the fate of the school's eight intermediate students. Those students are now outside selling hotdogs and hamburgers to raise additional funds for the new playground. By the end of the day they will net about $200. The auction will be a huge success. Most of the 180 items donated for the event will be sold, and the following Wednesday, banking day on the island, the Island School Liaison Enthusiasts will deposit another $3,204 into the committee's growing playground fund. As the day winds down and the sun begins to set on the Millhaven shoreline five kilometres away, many residents are no doubt quietly wondering whether all the effort put into the school is worth it. Amherst Island Public School's declining enrolment in recent years has made closure a real possibility. Many are convinced that the Lennox and Addington County Board of Education is already determined to close the school. "Trustees know full well if they tried to close the school they'd have all-out war on their hands," says Dr. Alex Scott, who would sooner educate his children at home than transfer them to a larger school on the mainland. The board, he says, is playing its cards carefully, orchestrating the school's closure in measured degrees rather than at one fell swoop. Islanders fear that the school's closure would ring the death knell for the community, which is already fighting for its survival. "They've made their minds up they're going to shut the damn school," says an angry Peter Trueman. "But anything that's so damaging to one community couldn't possibly benefit the county as a whole. Is it worth nothing to Lennox and Addington to lose a living community?" Six years ago the island school was one of five designated for closure by the county board of education. Trustees quickly repealed their decision, but four years later, after enrolment fell to 32 students from 54, the board was again prompted to take action. The school would keep its three teachers, but would no longer have a full-time principal. A "twinning" arrangement was made with Bath Public School that allowed intermediate island students to take several classes on the mainland two half-days a week. This the islanders accepted. The past few months, however, have added a new chapter to the closure question. Three full-time teachers for 33 students is one teacher too much, the board decided in January. At the same time, trustees accepted the administration's verdict that two teachers were inadequate to cover 10 classes, from junior kindergarten to Grade 8. As of September 1990, the school will no longer have any Grade 7 and 8 students. They will instead attend school in Bath, close to an hour and a half away by bus and ferry. The board says it has no intention of closing the small rural school, which since 1948 has been an integral part of the island community. Yet for how long can the school continue to operate with fewer and fewer students? Will it eventually become a single-room schoolhouse like the one still standing near the farm of islander A. Bruce Caughey, the founding chairman of the county board of education? Fine, say the islanders. As long as the one room remains on island soil. To understand Amherst Island, you have to understand the islanders. They're an eclectic group of strong individualists who value highly the island's seclusion yet also enjoy the intensity of living in a close- knit community. Anonymity is unheard of here, tolerance a Golden Rule. Fourth-generation Irish settlers share the land with urban journalists and university professors; Christian children of all denominations attend Sunday school together; nuclear and extended families mix with gay and lesbian ones; and years ago seniors learned to tolerate the sight of topless women weeding the garden at Topsy Farms, formerly an island commune. It's acceptable here for women to work as farm laborers, and each year 10 to 30 island women gather for a 24-hour camp-out on the bluffs. "It's not a feminist thing," says Sally Bowen, a member of the Headlands co-operative that runs Topsy Farms. "It's just wanting to get together and talk and eat and sing." It's not uncommon to find islanders holding down several part-time jobs to make ends meet. The township is the community's largest single employer, with 31 full- and part-time workers -- 20 of them members of the ferry crew. There are about a dozen dairy, sheep, beef and cash-crop farms, many run by more than one family. Some islanders, such as carpenter and boat-builder Philip Gillesse, store owner Irene Glenn and freelance journalist Peter Trueman, are self-employed. And roughly 50 to 60 residents, at least eight of them teachers, commute to the mainland each day by ferry. Ms. Bowen apologizes for the mess inside the Topsy farmhouse and pulls a brand-new cushion out of its plastic package for a visitor to sit on. Housekeeping is not a priority during the spring season on a farm with 570 breeding mews. The way to fit into the community, she says, is by helping to do the jobs that need doing. "When there's 50 pounds of potatoes to peel, you pitch in." And when the dump committee is soliciting new members, you sign up. That's how former Global television news anchorman Peter Trueman cast off his television persona and became known, soon after settling on the island last year, as Peter-on-the-dump-committee. "As soon as you know the people, the labels are destroyed," Ms. Bowen says. "This is the kind of place that invites devotion. In a city it's so easy to know only the surface of things and not know the intensity of people. Here there's a real sense of knowing -- and caring -- which is impossible with the speed and numbers of an urban area." There is also a real sense of trust. Not only do islanders not lock their cars, but many of them leave the keys in the ignition. "You never know when someone might need a ride," Susan Caughey remembers her husband telling her when she moved here from Indiana 15 years ago. On two occasions since then Mrs. Caughey has awakened to find the truck nowhere in sight. And each time within hours someone called to say he had borrowed it and would return it later that day. Even if someone intended to steal an automobile, they wouldn't get past the ferry crew, says Jim Whitton, who lives steps away from the ferry dock in Stella. The captains and deck hands know every islander's car. They also, in some cases, know their lawn mowers. "One night I got a call from the ferry captain saying someone was driving away with my garden tractor," says islander Dave Vrooman. "I told him it was okay, that I had sold it earlier that day." Geographically and culturally the island is removed from the hustle and bustle of even moderate-sized towns. Here, almost everyone has at least one bird feeder to attract the dozens of species that inhabit the island. There's usually a cat or two to catch the farm mice and a kitchen table large enough to accommodate children, inlaws and any neighbors who might drop by. Some of the differences are more subtle. If the cream in your coffee tastes exceptionally smooth, it's because you're drinking unpasteurized cream from one of the island's seven dairy farms. And if you're awakened by howling or hooting in the dead of night, it's likely the cats, the coyotes or the owls. Police rarely patrol this 13,387-acre island, although it is only a 15- minute boat ride from the Millhaven ferry dock near Bath. "There's virtually no property destruction, theft or defacing here," says Ms. Bowen. "There's way too much garbage dumped at the side of the road, but the kids pitch in and clean it up once a year." The "kids" -- the island's 33 school children -- also cook an annual dinner for seniors using the school's kitchen facilities and community auditorium. "It's our contention that they have a clear idea of their role in society, that they know they're needed and feel useful," says Ms. Bowen. "And that translates into a better sense of self." In urban centres like Toronto, where Ms. Bowen grew up, after- school time is often filled with what she calls "programmed activities" such as music lessons or tai chi classes. The alternative for many children is watching television or hanging out in fluorescent-lit shopping malls. But on Amherst Island, she says, there's always a job to be done: the children help shear sheep, plant sod, milk cattle or collect eggs. "It isn't some make-work project. It's real. You're not struggling to artificially praise or value something. We literally need these Grade 7 and 8 students." Many islanders say their childrens' strong self-identity and feelings of self-worth are what enable them to do so well in high school. Since 1980, 94 per cent of the island's 51 senior students have obtained high school diplomas. This is not the case in the rest of the county. In fact the islanders note with dismay that next year the board of education plans to pay a local high school principal $55,000 to study the county's dropout rate. "We don't need another study to tell us how to avoid dropouts," says island resident Rosemary Vrooman, a Grade 8 teacher at Harrowsmith Public School in neighboring Frontenac County. "We have the answer already." The answer, she says, lies in the positive reinforcement and personal attention young teenagers can find only in a small school. "At 12, 13 or 14 years old their hormones are running wild. They're caught in a dilemma of wanting to be free but wanting the security of home. They want to challenge the teachers, but they also want to know what the basic rules are. Their whole bodies are jumping with change and they need stability. It's a sad, sad time to be moving them to another school." Board trustees say otherwise. Integrating the island's Grade 7 and 8 students with those in Bath, they say, will help prepare them for the transition to a high school -- either Napanee District Secondary School or Ernestown Secondary School -- with more than 1,000 students. Ms. Vrooman says intermediate feeder schools are a thing of the past. They've been tried before, she says, and they don't work. "I don't believe the way to help kids adjust to high school is by ripping them out of public school and throwing them in a school with 100 or 200 other kids. The kind of responsibility and leadership they get in this small school makes them more stable, and that's why they do better in high school. "Why should Lennox and Addington be seeking to centralize and fragment learning at a time when many studies such as the recent Radwanski report and the Ministry of Education's 1988 Student Retention and Transition report indicate that one stable, nurturing environment produces best results?" she asked trustees in a lengthy presentation last February. There was no response to her queries. What, then, makes Amherst Island Public School so unique? "Small in number, but large in spirit," is the school's official motto. When students want to stage an operetta, everyone gets to play a part. And in the audience are not just the students' immediate families but dozens of other islanders as well, says school head teacher Beth Forester. Because of the school's size, team sports also require the participation of every student. Janet Scott says that although her 14-year-old daughter is only four feet four inches tall, she plays on the school's basketball team. "The school isn't going to fall apart without the Grade 7s and 8s, but it'll definitely be losing something," she says. Students transferred to Bath, however, may miss an important aspect of education in the Amherst Island school: the active participation of islanders in school activities. For three years, Ms. Bowen taught French at the school as a volunteer. Island artist Shirley Miller volunteers her time teaching the students drawing. Island residents are encouraged to visit the school with items of interest. One woman brought a newborn infant to school. Another came to show the students the cast on her leg. Two others dropped by with an injured Canada Goose they found one day by the side of the road. All classes stop during these spontaneous show- and-tell sessions. Board trustees acknowledge the school is special in many ways. But how long can they continue to give it special treatment? How long can they justify spending public tax dollars on a teacher acting as a private tutor for a handful of intermediate students? And is the alternative -- expecting one teacher to handle four or five grades at a time -- in the best interests of the students and staff? "It's a very complex issue," says Willis Boston, director of education for the Lennox and Addington school board. "When do you decide the rights of the individual take precedence over the rights of the group?" As an administrator, Mr. Boston is caught between respecting the wishes of the board and deflecting the concerns of the islanders. "It's a case of individuals against the state," he says. The islanders agree. So do trustees. But it's the only point they agree on. Over the past few months each side has grown progressively more determined. "We've been outsmarted by the board all along the line," laments Peter Trueman. "We've had to play the game on their field, by their rules, and any time it looked like we may be winning, they called time out and changed the rules." It was on Jan. 30, at a special board meeting to discuss staffing for the 1989-90 school year, that trustees voted to reduce the staff at Amherst Island Public School from three to two full-time teachers and to transfer the school's Grade 7 and 8 students to Bath Public School. For the board, it was a straightforward financial decision: overall enrolment in county schools is expected to drop by 70 to 80 students next year, necessitating a cut in two teaching positions. And while Amherst Island is projecting a marginal increase in numbers over the next three to four years, its current pupil-teacher ratio of 11:1 is far richer than the county average of 17:1. County administrators met the day after the decision with school staff and the island's five- member education committee. Why, the islanders asked, had the board not consulted the committee beforehand? And why had their local trustee, Denise Kenny Hehn, not informed her constituents that a decision had been pending? The committee asked to meet with trustees at the Feb. 13 board meeting. There, they voiced a number of concerns, stressing that their main objection was the extra time it would take students to travel, by bus and ferry, to and from Bath Public School. Fifteen hours a week of commuting would pose a great, and unnecessary, hardship on each of the island's intermediate students, they said. Eight island students in primary and junior grades already commute daily to Bath to attend St. Linus Separate School. "My boy has taken the bus and ferry since kindergarten," says islander Shirley Kincaid. "It's not the nightmare they make it out to be." Mrs. Kincaid's children attended Amherst Island Public School for a month before transferring to St. Linus four years ago. "The students are just living in a shell here, and I won't let my kids do that. If my kids were still in public school, I'd be the first one to vote to send them to Bath. You can't hold on to Momma's purse-strings forever." The board voted to refer the matter to its education and personnel committee for reconsideration. But the islanders, after presenting an eloquent, seven-page speech using board and Ministry of Education documents to substantiate their claims, were unsuccessful in persuading the committee to change its mind. Frustrated, the islanders launched a letter-writing campaign to county trustees, Minister of Education Chris Ward and local MPP Ken Keyes. The island education committee held a public meeting and six committee meetings before it again approached the full board in March. On March 20 a battalion of more than 60 islanders crowded the board's Napanee office in a last-ditch effort to convince trustees their decision was wrong. They emerged with a partial victory, as the board voted to reconsider the matter in two months' time and have board administrators meet with parents in the interim. The trustees stressed, however, that even if they "maintained the status quo" and reversed their decision to transfer the students, the island school would still be left with only two teachers. Oddly enough, the islanders never protested the reduction in teaching staff, even though it was the catalyst that sparked the board's decision to transfer the Grade 7s and 8s in the first place. Retaining the school's three teachers would likely have made the transfer issue redundant. In retrospect, islanders agree that not addressing the staffing question may have been a tactical mistake on their part. But their intent, they say, was to first ensure that the intermediate students would remain on the island, then deal with the staffing question later. The islanders weren't the only ones who didn't fully appreciate just how related the two issues were. Ironically, the six trustees who on May 8 rejected the transfer proposal had all previously voted to cut one of the school's teachers. They evidently felt that two teachers could in fact handle the school's 10 grades, despite a statement to the contrary issued by board administrators. "It's our professional opinion that if the Grade 7 and 8 students remain on the island there should be three teachers," director Willis Boston wrote in a Feb. 20 memorandum to the board. "We're not saying two teachers can't keep the school running. What we're saying is that two teachers, in our opinion, can't provide the quality of programming presently provided in other schools." On April 18 about 80 islanders met in the school gymnasium with Mr. Boston to discuss various "alternatives" presented by the board. "What islanders came up with really loud and clear," Ms. Bowen said after the meeting, "is that they don't want their students to go to Bath more than two days a week." The plea went unheeded. On May 8 the board voted to send the island students to Bath five days a week as of September 1990. With an additional school bus picking up the students, trustees assured the islanders, travelling time would be cut to about 21/2 hours a day -- only a half hour, rather than an hour, above the board's own recommended limit. The board also voted to give the islanders a year's grace, allowing the Grade 7s and 8s to remain on the island for the 1989- 90 school year. The reason for the one-year delay, say trustees, is to give the island parents time to adjust. "It's not a pilot project," Mr. Boston stresses. Islanders question why the board had to decide immediately its plans for the 1990-91 school year. They suspect it was a political move designed to lessen the chance of the decision being overturned next year. (While a tie vote can defeat an original motion, a majority vote is necessary to defeat a motion to reconsider.) One factor that may have contributed to the islanders losing by one vote the motion to reconsider the transfer was the resignation on March 20 of Mrs. Kenny Hehn, the islander's representative on the board. Although Mrs. Kenny Hehn was strongly in favor of transferring the students to Bath, her eventual replacement, a young man from Bath named Stephen Leonard, may have sided with the islanders, had he been in a position to vote. But the board did not appoint Mr. Leonard to the position until after the vote was taken, seven weeks following Mrs. Kenny Hehn's resignation. This, admits board chairwoman Karen Mifflin, was clearly in contravention of the province's Education Act, which stipulates that vacant positions must be filled "at the first regular meeting after the vacancy occurs." The board, she says, did not have time to advertise the vacancy and conduct interviews before the April meeting. Some islanders are now urging the education committee to take legal action against the board over its failure to appoint a new trustee within the prescribed time limit. Others would rather tread softly, using tact and diplomacy to convince the board their children should remain on the island. It remains to be seen which option they'll choose, for minutes of the last Amherst Island Education Committee meeting have been declared confidential, says recording secretary Judy Miller. The publicly elected committee has not held a public meeting since the board's final vote last month. And a special township council meeting scheduled for May 18 to consider petitioning the Ministry of Education over the board's decision was suddenly cancelled the night it was to be held. "It was a miscommunication between the education committee and council," says island Reeve Ian Murray. "We've had 25 meetings on this issue," says education committee chairman W. Bruce Caughey, son of former board of education chairman A. Bruce Caughey. "To tell the truth, we're getting tired of it." It's been a long day for Karen Mifflin as she stops for an early evening cup of tea at the Napanee Mall. This is where she spends most weekdays, working in her husband's hairdressing salon. But several nights a month she becomes "Madame Chairman," presiding over board of education meetings and speaking to the press and public, not as an individual, but as spokesperson for the entire board. "We don't see any possibility of closing any schools in the near future," she says. The predicament facing Amherst Island is strictly one of numbers. "You can't ask one teacher to prepare for that many programs four separate classes, if the Grade 7s and 8s remained at the school, yet you can't ask one teacher to prepare for only two students. It's the number of students that makes their pupil-teacher ratio too rich." Comparing the island school's pupil-teacher ratio of 11:1 -- three teachers responsible for 33 students -- with the county average of 17:1 does not tell the whole story. The latter figure, says Mrs. Mifflin, can be misleading, because it also includes specialists such as librarians and guidance councillors. It is more appropriate, she says, to look at class sizes rather than pupil-teacher ratios. A 1987 study on programming for Grade 7 and 8 students in Lennox and Addington County schools with fewer than 200 pupils gives these comparisons: at Amherst Island school one teacher was responsible for 13 intermediate students; Centreville Public School had three teachers for 34 students; and at H.H. Langford, three teachers taught 51 intermediate students. Class sizes at public schools in Sandhurst, Enterprise and Tamworth were much higher, with only one teacher for Sandhurst's 33 intermediate students, one for Enterprise's 28, and the equivalent of 1.4 teachers for Tamworth's 42 Grade 7s and 8s. The programming study urged the board to consider consolidating the Grade 7 and 8 classes in Centreville, Enterprise, Newburgh and Tamworth. It also suggested that the intermediate students from Amherst Island, Sandhurst and H. H. Langford be integrated into existing schools. Only one of the recommendations -- to partially integrate the Amherst Island students -- was adopted. Every Wednesday and Thursday the island's intermediate students board the morning school bus and are taken by ferry to the mainland. From the Millhaven ferry dock, it's a five minute drive by bus to Bath Public School. On Wednesdays, the students take a three-hour instrumental music class with other students from Sandhurst Public School. On Thursdays, they take three hours of family studies with students from Bath Public School for half the year, and three hours of home economics the second half of the year. For the 1989-90 school year, the Grade 7 and 8 students will take history, geography, instrumental music and physical education at Bath Public School. At the island school, they will be put in a class with Grade 5 and 6 students. By the fall of 1990, when the students are slated to attend Bath Public School on a permanent basis, the island's two teachers will have to split only six academic groups, from junior kindergarten to Grade 6. The board's objective, says Education Director Boston, is that no teacher be required to teach more than two grades. "A teacher, to be effective, would rather teach only one grade. It's very difficult to find a teacher willing to teach four grades." Granting Amherst Island three full-time teachers is a luxury the board can't afford, says Mrs. Mifflin. "If we gave them that extra teacher, another school wouldn't get that extra teacher it needs, and I'd see that as a denial of our responsibility as a corporate body to run the board as efficiently as possible." "Fiscal responsibility" is an important concept for Lennox and Addington trustees, who each year take great pride in announcing how much they've shaved off their annual budget. Reducing staff by one teacher amounts to a financial saving of between $33,000 and $44,000 a year -- or roughly .1 per cent of the county's $36-million education budget. Every cent counts, says Mrs. Mifflin. "It means we've reduced the budget by that much money and have that much less to raise." What will the effect on the students be? "The repercussion for the students is they're going to get a better education," says the board chairwoman. "It would be inhumane to say it will have no effect at all, since it's obviously had an effect on the parents. But those kids are still going to get a good education. If all I was doing by moving the kids to Bath is saving $33,000, then I could not live with that." Benefits for the island students, she says, include special teachers for subjects such as music and physical education and social integration with their peers on the mainland. "With a lot of other children their age, there's bound to be social benefits." Mrs. Mifflin says she is sympathetic with the islanders' fears about losing the school, but says their concerns are unwarranted. "I think they've failed to recognize our concerns as a board of how to provide for their students. It so happens our decision flew in the face of what they wanted, but it doesn't mean we don't care or have ignored them." Have the islanders been too selfish in their demands and expectations? "That's a tough question," admits Mrs. Mifflin. "Our role as trustees says we will provide an education for the students and be as fiscally responsible as possible, and I have to balance that against the fact that those parents don't want their children in Bath. Do we have the right to put them there? That's a tough, very tough question. But my position as a trustee comes first." Emotions on the island run high. "There are people on the board with egos," says Mr. Trueman, "and they won't be dictated to by a bunch of dicks who want special treatment. The board's been made to look a bit pig-headed, and they're not going to forget that easily. It's human nature to justify what you've done, and this is a very human board." Islander Diane Gavlas says she's ticked off that the fiscally conscious board is willing to spend $5,000 to study whether it should renovate the Napanee board office but will not provide one extra teacher for Amherst Island. She says she will seriously consider plucking her son and daughter out of the school system if the board follows through with its plans. "I've never been to jail before, but I'll take this where it goes," she says. "We hate to use the kids as tools, but that's a last resort." Her husband, George, is equally upset about the board's decision. "The sole purpose of the Lennox and Addington board is to train us to be good workers for Goodyear," he says, referring to the corporate training program for Goodyear Canada Ltd. initiated at Napanee District Secondary School last year. "They have raised the curriculum to such a pitch that the price of education has gone beyond control, and those who need the three Rs don't get it. "The school board has made this decision purely for financial reasons, and if they think we're going to sacrifice our children's education for financial reasons," he says, raising his voice as if to strengthen his conviction, "then forget it. I'm going to assume we'll beat them." W. Bruce Caughey chews and spits out about two dozen toothpicks in the space of an hour before revealing his own feelings. For a moment, the strong, husky man with the Irish glint in his eyes relaxes and lets out a private chuckle. "By God we'll keep this school here one way or another." Every hour on the hour, 20 times a day, the Amherst Island ferry glides into its berth at the island dock near Stella. Most of the time it's filled to capacity with up to 18 cars, trucks and tractors. But on the 4 p.m. ferry, the passengers outnumber the vehicles, because that's when about 20 high school and eight separate school students return each day from the mainland. About 100 metres from the dock sits a yellow school bus waiting to take them home. It's a long, bumpy ride for most of them as the bus circles around the almond-shaped island, rumbling over gravel roads and swerving to avoid the potholes. But the students don't seem to mind. The worst part, they say, is the boredom. "Bor-r-ring," says Deborah Kincaid, a Grade 4 student at St. Linus School in Bath. Her brother Mike is nonchalant. "I don't mind it," he says. But Michelle Kincaid, now in Grade 6, admits it's "a bit of a jam" to get up at 6:30 a.m. every day to catch the school bus, then board the ferry, then hop into the taxi that awaits the separate school children on the mainland. She has been doing this for several years. The good part, she says, is that she gets a lot of homework done on the way. Reg Hitchins, a Grade 12 student at Napanee District Secondary School, says, "When little kids are going across all the time, it gets tiring for them. I can hardly do it now, it's so boring." A 15-minute ferry ride, says Grade 9 student Laura Wemp, can seem like an hour if you're bored. "If I was still in public school, I wouldn't want to go to Bath every day, that's for sure," she says. "It would get discouraging since you'd be tired every day." Tessa Fabian, a 17-year-old Grade 11 student, says she usually doesn't have time for breakfast before the school bus arrives in the morning, and the travelling often makes her too tired to do homework when she returns at night. But riding the ferry can sometimes be fun, she says. "Initiation day and the last day of school are fun, and it's fun wrestling on the boat. You also get to smoke a few cigarettes." Before the ferry started running year- round in 1971, many of the island's high school students had to board with families in Napanee during the coldest winter months when the bay was frozen. Yet before the island joined the Napanee District School Area in 1966, those same students were able to get a secondary school education at home, on the island. At the turn of the century there were a total of five elementary schools on Amherst Island, each with its own teacher and 25 to 40 students, says A. Bruce Caughey, who in 1915 began his formal education at School Number Five, a couple of hundred metres from where he lives on a large dairy farm. There was also a continuation school with two teachers teaching forms one, two and three: the equivalent of Grades 9 to 12. When the Amherst Island Township school area was established in 1933, bringing all five schools under the direction of one board, Mr. Caughey became the board's secretary-treasurer, a post he held until the county board of education was established in 1969. He then became chairman of the board of education and remained a trustee until his retirement from public office in 1978. "I have a total of 45 years experience with school administration," says the proud 79-year-old whose grandchildren attend the school he helped build. "Is it any wonder I have concerns about the direction of Amherst Island?" The island decided to consolidate its five schools and build a new, modern school in 1947. "It was the best-built school in the county," says Mr. Caughey. "It was built in the days when they knew how to build them right." Jack Kerr, the new school's first principal, clearly remembers coming to the island from Toronto in 1947. "I came for an interview and phoned from Bath to find out if there were any ferries. My first impression of the island from the mainland was 'did anyone live here?' All you could see were trees." The new school opened with four teachers responsible for teaching about 65 elementary pupils and roughly 30 high school students. It was a welcome change for Mr. Kerr, who was accustomed to teaching up to 48 students in four different grades, a situation he describes as almost impossible. Teaching several grades at once was never easy, he says, but there were fewer texts to choose from at that time and courses of study were standardized. "You did have to do a lot of planning and preparation to keep things running. You had to make use of your spare time and had to do homework every night of the week for three hours." That would be unacceptable by today's standards. The Lennox and Addington County Board of Education states in its policy guidelines that teachers should have at least 120 minutes a week of classroom preparation time. That may be difficult to achieve at the island school next year with only two teachers covering for one another. But Mr. Kerr says it's quite possible for two teachers to handle kindergarten to Grade 8. "It goes against modern philosophy, but I believe it can be done." Ken Keyes, MPP for Kingston and the Islands, taught during the late 1940s in a one-room schoolhouse on nearby Wolfe Island. "In general, there's been a lot of phenomenal education given to people in rural schools, whether they're one, two or three rooms," he says. Wolfe Island currently has one public and one separate school, but last year was one of the lowest attendance years on record for the public school, he says. In 1988 there were only 18 students enrolled at Wolfe Island Public School. Next year, however, with the addition of kindergarten and junior kindergarten classes, enrolment is expected to jump to 33, he says. Neighboring Howe Island no longer has either a public or private school. And the small public school on Simcoe Island closed several years ago after enrolment dropped to only two or three students, says Mr. Keyes. The Amherst Island ferry has over the past 40 years had an impact on more than just island students. It has also had a subtle but pervasive effect on the island's economy and changing demographics. Where once there were about 125 farming families and only a handful of regular commuters, today, the population has grown significantly, and islanders harbor fears that the island may become just another bedroom community. Irene Glenn is a young great-grandmother who has every intention of staying on Amherst Island forever. "But I'm not one who thinks the young people should have to look after their parents," says the sprightly owner and manager of Glenn's Store, which has been in the family since 1919. Mrs. Glenn, 69, is anxious to see a seniors housing complex built on the island, but many don't share her vision. "A lot of seniors say they would rather move to the city," she says. "A lot of them move off the island when they no longer have families here or can't drive or take care of themselves." The island's older students, she says, should be encouraged to leave the island to continue their education. "There's nothing for them to stay for," she says. At the same time, it's difficult for young families wanting to return to Amherst Island to be able to afford land and build homes for themselves. "This is just a daydream for most of them." Mrs. Glenn does, however, have confidence in the island's future, and is working with council's new "Quo Vatas" committee to help build that future. Yet when asked what might become of her historic island store if the government privatizes the nation's post offices, Mrs. Glenn grows suddenly quiet. "Shhhh. Don't say that," she says. The post office is the store's bread and butter. "We wouldn't keep the store if we didn't have the post office. There wouldn't be any money in it." For Dave and Rosemary Vrooman, Amherst Island is "the real world." And the key to that "real world" is the three-mile stretch of choppy water separating the island from the mainland. "The ferry is a great leveller," says Mrs. Vrooman. "The ones who aren't good friends don't just drop by. You can't just drop by here." Most islanders, the couple says, are here by choice. "You buy into this community; it's an emotional thing," says Mr. Vrooman, a guidance councillor at Sharbot Lake High School who built his island home 15 years ago. The back of the home, facing north towards the mainland, is one huge pane of glass. "This is the real world, where we watch the boats and the birds and the sunsets that stretch 20 miles across," Mrs. Vrooman says, pointing out the window to a colorful haze that indeed seems boundless. "We love the skies. The pinks and the purples and the blues are always different. And that's the price of admission. "It's not a question of wanting more people here but wanting the people who want to be here," she says. From his large white house on the bluffs that form the southwestern tip of the island, Peter Trueman is surrounded by a natural beauty that can at times be overwhelming. The night after the wedding reception in the school gymnasium, he and some out-of-town guests stop in mid- conversation to look out the back window at a glowing orange moon that appears to be several times its usual size. From the mainland, shrouded by the city's infrastructure, the same moon later that night looks puny by comparison. "One of the hallmarks of the 1980s is runaway commerce -- miles and miles of neon lights and low-rise suburbs and fast-food shops," says Mr. Trueman. "The island isn't consumer oriented. The only commerce to be found here today is Glenn's general store, a chip-stand by the ferry dock, a bank, the farms and some small cottage industries. "Coming off the ferry, it's like turning the clock back 50 years. It's like being in the 1930s and '40s. But every time I get home I know I've made the right decision." He, like the Vroomans, says the ferry is both the island's curse and its saving grace, preserving the island's uniqueness. "Most of us are here because the island is the way it is," he says. Some, however, aren't sure how long it will be able to stay that way. Pressure from developers has forced township council to impose a limit on land severances of one per property owner per year. The island ferry is growing more and more crowded: it has to leave passengers behind sometimes once or twice a day. Increased municipal costs are also putting pressure on the island's small economy. It will cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 -- almost a sixth of council's budget -- to clean up the island's waste disposal site. "It's a Catch 22," says Mr. Trueman. "We want more families but already have problems with congestion on the ferry. We want more people without taxing the facilities. It's a delicate balance." In the corridor of Amherst Island Public School is a plaque awarded each year to students who have "contributed most by their attitude and action during the year to the school and/or community spirit." Amy Caughey's name is on that plaque. And in the Grade 7 and 8 classroom, the student of the month listed on the bulletin board is Amy Caughey. "The life of Amy," it reads. Amy sits at the dining room table and discusses with a visitor and her two younger sisters what that life may hold. Her dream, she says, is to attend Queen's University and study medicine, then get married and enter the Peace Corps as a young doctor. She and her future husband would go to such places as Africa, Australia and Indiana, where her mother was born. They would then live on Prince Edward Island for two years, where Amy would work in Charlottetown as a pediatrician at the general hospital. On P.E.I. she would give birth to twins. And then, she says, she would return to Amherst Island. "You always come back to Amherst Island," says the shy 13-year-old. No one would doubt her sincerity.

The Islands: Articles: 1980's