Kitchener

Queen’s Bush: We marched right into the wilderness

About 25 years after Pennsylvania Mennonites arrived, another group of US emigrants started a new life in what would be Waterloo Region. They—freemen and runaway slaves—founded settlements on undeveloped lands in Colbornesburg and later in Queen’s Bush. By the 1840s, the Queen’s Bush Settlement’s population was approximately 2000, of whom approximately 1500 were black. This […] Read more…

27 October – 02 November 1916: Hospitals, holy ground and Halloween

The 118th get spots; Colonel Lochead gets spotted Ten soldiers came down with measles and moved to hospital. The outbreak wasn’t serious, but if more men came down with spots, the Battalion could be quarantined. A few days before Halloween, Huronto, The News Record’s source in the 118th Battalion, reported on Lt. Col. Lochead’s promotion […] Read more…

13-19 October 1916: Cheerless puddings

Not Kitchener A week after city council’s wrathy meeting, the head of the military district announced troops would not winter in Kitchener. As expected, locals weren’t pleased. News of North Waterloo’s 118th and Muskoka’s 122nd “homelessness” revived speculation (mostly in The Daily Telegraph) of the boys’ return home. The newspaper tried to bolster its theory and […] Read more…

29 September – 05 October 1916: The aldermen were indignant and wrathy

St. Mary’s General Hospital St Mary’s Church’s Fr AJ Fischer announced plans for the city’s second general hospital to be built on five acres of land on Queen’s Park Crescent. The facility for 50-60 patients would be run by the Sisters of Charity (see notes) and would house a nurses’ training school. The Berlin and Waterloo Hospital […] Read more…

22-28 September 1916: Oh! Huronto! He was passionately fond of dahlias

First, we take Ontario; then we take Canada About a week after Ontario’s Temperance Act took hold, the four provincial liquor vendors’ cash register chimes probably wouldn’t have drowned out even the smallest of music halls. One wholesaler only rang up $22 in the first week ($429—see note on conversion): he wouldn’t have out-tinkled a […] Read more…

15-21 September 1916: Abstemious Ontario

Drying out Ontario In the days before the Ontario Temperance Act became law, newspaper articles warned about life after 16 September. Fewer drunks, more money A Liquor License Board report  ballyhooed possible benefits for a (more) ascetic province. Temperance was already in force in the prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) and so far they experienced […] Read more…

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