Finding What You Aren't Looking For

Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day and I really didn't feel like weeding. My husband and I decided to take a field trip to the Cupar Cemetery. I wanted to photograph the earliest headstones. Then in the winter I would try and find as many obituaries as possible to add to our obituary album at the museum. Well of course we didn't finish but we did get a good start. Today I intended to pick raspberries and weed, and maybe return to the Cemetery. It rained heavily and there was lightning and thunder, so on to Plan B. I started searching the Cupar Herald between 1908-1910 for obituaries. I found 8. 

                                                                                      Cupar Herald 10 July 1908

 

As I was about to crop one of the obituaries to a better size when I noticed an article in the upper corner. It was about St. Mary's Anglican Church's brass lectern. Mr. Swaisland was the manager of the Union Bank in Cupar. We also have his wife's obituary from the Cupar Herald dated 28 Feb 1908.

This lectern is at our museum but no one from the church knew it's history. Now we do. Sometimes you find information you aren't looking for and it can be a real gem.

More Early By Laws

It is unfortunate that the minutes for the village before 1909 are non existent.  I have been told that they were water damaged.  It is fortunate that the early By-Laws were also recorded in the Cupar Herald. Here are By-Laws # 1, 3, 4.  I put up By-Law # 2 in an earlier post.

                                                                                                                      

Cupar Anniversary

July 4^th the morning of Cupar's 110^th anniversary the sun shone brightly in the sky. Okay I'm lying.

The night before we had a lightning thunderstorm and a lot of rain. I did not sleep well as I counted the time between lightning and thunder claps. Our dog barked hysterically at each one. I was up at 6:00 a.m. making morning coffee, which was a good idea as the power went out for 3 hours and it was a drizzly kind of morning. Fire up the barbecue. The pancake breakfast, as part of the day's festivities, I imagine was well attended unless you really like cold cereal and peanut butter on bread. I had a bath and decided it wasn't worth drying my hair as I would only get soaked again.

I took my camera in a waterproof bag and headed down to where the parade floats were assembling. Thought I would get some photos before the next down pour. Surprise it only drizzled through out the parade. The cars lined the main street, all angle parked, which is illegal, but everyone was confident that no one would get a ticket because all the RCMP from Southey were apparently leading the parade.

I had several offers to sit in cars as my hair was soaking wet, right, I forgot about the bath, but I preferred running back and forth taking photos and avoiding the myriad of candies being thrown at the crowd.

Our museum opened it's doors at noon. I was excited about people coming and seeing our displays for the town's anniversary. At some point I wandered off to the sport's grounds to check out other activities. That may have been a mistake as I had to run back to the museum in the pouring rain.

The band, Blue Country, arrived for our entertainment portion of our Strawberry Social. They dumped water off the canopy and started setting up. Now I am not lying, at 2:00 p.m. as the Strawberry Social began the sun came out and it was hot. I discarded my rain coat but for some odd reason had not brought my sunglasses. We ran out of whipped cream. We ran out of plates. Judy ran for more.

Our event was a success. People loved the band and our special displays. People asked many questions. They remarked on how wonderful the museum was and how they must come more often.

We wrapped up at 5:00 p.m. 

  

Later people headed over to the pull pork supper at the sports grounds. In the evening the band Grimstone played. There were fireworks. Our dog barked hysterically at each one and I did not get much sleep.

Special Student Display

The Cupar Museum is pleased to announce 2 special exhibits for this summer by Amelia and Nadia Ermel. The 11 year old twins created their displays initially as school projects. Each received a Heritage Saskatchewan Certificate of Appreciation at the Regina Regional Heritage Fair for 2015.

The displays have been given a prominent position as you enter the main room of our museum.

Amelia's display shows the businesses located on the 100 block Stanley Street in the early 1900's.

Nadia's is a general history of telephones in Canada.

We hope that in the future other students will share their work with us.