SOUTH RIVER, Ont. — After sitting in storage bins for years in the basement of the South River Curling Club, old photographs and newspaper articles are once again being seen by the public.
Club member Bev Griffith says as part of the club's 70th anniversary, the members formed a committee to come up with ideas on how to recognize the milestone. The result was a memory wall made up of old pictures and newspaper stories that highlight the club's first 25 years of operation.
See related: South River Curling Club starts celebrating 70th anniversary
The memory wall is in the heated social room that overlooks the ice surface, and it's where players gather while waiting for their turn to curl.
“Dawn Arnold, one of our longtime members, asked, ‘Wouldn't pictures of former club members and events look fabulous on this wall instead of just having posters and pictures of jerseys?’,” said Griffith.
The committee liked the idea and so began the journey of going through the storage bins of photographs and news articles.
Griffith says while sifting through the bins, she also found ledgers within minutes from meetings the club held 70 years ago. Then she also found old curling memorabilia pins tucked away in a corner of the building. The committee now had the materials it needed for the memory wall.
Griffith says the albums contained thousands of pictures and the selection process was underway to determine what photographs to frame and put on display. The result was 43 framed photographs, news articles and fun facts from the ledgers.
“So we now have the original photographs that are no longer out of sight,” Griffith said. “These pictures tell a story. Why take them if you're just going to put them in an album and shove them on a shelf? This is a great project to share with everybody and show what the club is all about. Longtime South River and Sundridge residents will recognize many of the people in the photographs and people have been having a great time looking at the photos, reminiscing and reading past articles.”
The pictures include players from a time when corn brooms were used to sweep the ice ahead of the rocks and when players wore tam caps. Other photographs include bonspiels with the ladies' teams winning prizes like lamps and teapots.
The “fun fact” sheet includes information from 1953 to 1978. It refers to the very first meeting to announce the formation of the South River Curling Club, to how the building was constructed that same year.
Then in 1958, the club hired a caretaker for $100, and for the next few years membership fees went through a pattern of increases and decreases.
The “fun fact” sheet also shows that by 1961, the members were doing their caretaking duties, and in 1974 the club had artificial ice installed.
The first 25 years ends with the club receiving a Wintario grant to make an addition to the building and to renovate the club. Griffith says the memory wall contains a lot of information and adds this is only the start of “an ongoing project.”
The social room has another wall next to the bar that the committee is now eyeing to put more past memorabilia on display. Griffith is going through more recent photographs to create a collage that can hang on that wall.
“Also one of our members has been taking pictures of our league players, our bonspiels and pictures of our members taking part in the annual golf tournament,” Griffith said. “I'm going to try and incorporate all these pictures into our next project.”
Griffith says also being considered is framing more pictures than there is space for, but then rotating them with the existing pictures on the memory wall, and to repeat the rotations so people get to see the greatest number of photographs over time.
Griffith says the project has been time-consuming but, she's not complaining.
“It's been fun, and I love history”, she says.
Griffith says it would have been so easy for all the photographs, ledgers and memorabilia to get tossed out over the years. She says fortunately this didn't happen, and now the club has a great addition that strikes up conversations at the club and brings back great memories of past players and events.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the North Bay Nugget. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
