Jewish Settlers continued

I posted in February 2015 information about Jewish settlers in Cupar. I had very little information at the time. This fall (2016) I received a comment from a G. Paulin which I am including here. I am repeating also the post not including the newspaper ads. Since then a relative of G. Paulin visited our museum in Cupar spending a couple of hours photographing maps etc. Mr. Drabinsky also visited the Jewish cemetery outside of Lipton. I contacted him and he didn't think he would be able to get back this way. Then I gave him contact numbers for the Dysart museum. Now he decided he might make another trip after all. We are all very excited that Mr. Drabinsky is researching Jewish settlers in the Cupar, Dysart and Lipton area and hope he will share what he finds with our museums. I unfortunately have only what I can find in the old Cupar Heralds, sometimes an ad or a reference to an event.

The Cupar Historical Committee made a valiant effort when accumulating information for the Cupar History book to contact Jewish settlers in the Cupar area. Unfortunately the results are minimal, but what they could find was included on page 509.

Since then the internet has come into being and there is information on Jewish settlers around Cupar, Dysart and especially Lipton, but in the future much more needs to be done. Today we are also able to access for free census records of this time.

Small town newspapers can be a wonderful resource, but too often they are overlooked. It requires time. They may contain only a kernel of information, a possible hint, that can lead to something bigger elsewhere. I was not looking for Jewish settlers in Cupar when I found some. They need to be included as part of our 110 years of history.

Sadly there is reference to a news article from 2 March 1910 which attests to the harsh conditions of an isolated farm life, especially for a woman.

I found in the 1911 and 1916 Cupar census a number of Jewish settlers in Cupar who were businessmen. I have included only 4 because I have ads or other information for their businesses. I do not know when they left. Also the census records are rather hard to read. According to the Cupar History book Mr. Nadler was a councillor 1913, and W. Pechet mayor 1921.

From the 1911 and 1916 census records I found the following:

Max Baratz: Roumanian, immigrated to Canada 1902, Hebrew, watchmaker.

William Pechet: Roumanian, immigrated to Canada 1902, Hebrew, merchant.

(for a time Max and William would be in business together)

Leon Nadler: Roumanian, immigrated to Canada 1902, Hebrew, taylor.

(I wondered did these 3 men know each other in the old country)

Samuel Freedman: Russia, immigrated to Canada 1906, Hebrew, liveryman.

Sadly the Pechet and Baratz store would succumb to fire in 1911, and Pechet's store would be destroyed by fire in 1921

We Have No Space

 

 How often have we heard from small museums “we have no space”?

 Maybe its true or we need to rethink the space we have.

 We are fortunate to have a large storage space we rent to people to house their RVs for the winter.

 However there is an used section that contains questionable shelving and wood that is basically beyond useable.
Time to sort through this, and that is exactly what a number of our volunteers have been doing this summer.
 We should have the first phase of our demolition complete before fall.
 Then we have the winter to rethink and plan how we can best utilize the “new found space”

Cupar Cemetery Mapping

Thank you to Linda Nameth for her many hours, actually more like months in her efforts to map and identify names and dates of people in the Cupar Cemetery. She intents to update this map and book once a year as our cemetery continues to have active burials. Thanks to her walkers, Linda and Jim Adam, and Lucille Ermel, who wandered the cemetery trying to identify and record headstones. Our town staff should also be thanked for supplies and computer access.

You can find the cemetery map on the Town of Cupar website.

A kiosk with map and book listing names location in cemetery and birth-death dates, when possible whether cremated or in casket and next of kin is located in the cemetery.

I have spent hours wandering through the cemetery looking for early settlers, finding their headstones and then losing track of where they were the next time I went out. So we now have a vital tool for family members and researchers.

Canada Summer Jobs

We are pleased to once again have received money from Canada Summer Jobs to hire a student for 8 weeks. Our last student Tenashia was with us for 2 summers and this year has been hired by The Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina as a summer student. We welcome this year Shelby who has just finished grade 11. We have kept her busy learning new skills: cataloguing new artifacts, including proper cleaning and storage. She has been scanning our latest collection book, scanning booklets and original photographs, assisting in rearranging displays and helping with our senior's tour. I can not believe 2 weeks has past. 

There are still more assignments to come.

 As we all know, as volunteers, there are quite a few things we always mean to get around to yet never have the time for. For me as a baby boomer I have enjoyed learning and exchanging ideas with a millennial. Hopefully Shelby and I will have time for a computer workshop . She will show me things on Windows 10 and I will show her how Mac functions.

1950's Summer Exhibit

At last the finishing touches to our summer exhibit on the 1950's. Thank you to volunteers Charity and Linda for hanging the records and Judy, Wes and Elaine for the installation of main 1950's exhibit area.

Some of the items are from the museum permanent collection, while others are on loan from community members. We are now open to the public for our summer hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. If you can't make those times you can contact one of our board members who will be happy to open up the museum and guide you through.

Of Course It Will Rain

One of the continual problems with outside summer activities for museums is obviously the weather. Always unpredictable no matter what the weatherperson says. Is 40% really 100%. It doesn't help checking the sky because it is continually changing. One year we had so much rain that our museum grounds were saturated all summer. We were fortunate the museum didn't flood, and that is really because of the vigilance of a group of our volunteers. Last year our Strawberry Social was celebrated July 4, the same date as the town celebration for it's 110^th anniversary. It literally rained on our parade, then later poured. Suddenly at 2:00 pm it cleared and was beautiful for our event, however it was really humid.

 

Fast forward to 2016, the morning of June 25, there were black clouds and threatening thunderstorms. We moved our event to the Legion. It was rather crowded for the band Blue Country with about 7 members and our guests, but somehow we pulled it off. We were lucky the Legion wasn't already booked, but it did eat into our fundraising money. 

 So what is the lesson learned? The date doesn't matter. Our museum proper does not have a large enough space to hold the event. Then we realized that our storage area, the old curling rink attached to the museum, that we use for vehicles almost totally empties out in the summer and with some rearranging and cleaning it could become our alternate space. Oh, yes we have no water back there. The sump pump doesn't count. The floor is dirt not mud or wood, but I am sure we will eventually get everything worked out.

A Soldier's Life

I found the following article in the Cupar Herald dated 24 August 1916.  No source is given.  It gives a different perspective and perhaps a sense of humour.  You may judge for yourself.

1950's push cart

The museum would like to thank Dennis Demyen

for the donation of a 1950's push cart

from the estate of his wife Barb.

The push cart was lovingly used

 through her childhood years

and will become an important feature 

of our summer display.

Qu'Appelle Valley Network May Meeting

Rebecca from White City and Pat from Dysart get a chance after lunch for some personal conversation.

I realize a lot of people don't like meetings but not only is it a time to find out what other small museums are planning and what are there challenges, but how we can all share and help.

This was our first network meeting in Cupar.
Next meeting will be in Dysart scheduled for
October 15.


If any of you feel like day trips this summer and fall, here is the schedule of events for our group.

Qu'Appelle Valley Museums

Schedule of Events 2016

May 28 Indian Head Bell Barn: Lobster Dinner

May 29 Abernethy: Open House

June 25 Cupar: Strawberry Social: 2-4pm

featuring Blue Country band from Fort Qu'Appelle

June 26 Indian Head Bell Barn: Horse Fair

July 14 Dysart: High Tea: 1-3pm

July 15 Indian Head Bell Barn: Pizza Night

July 16 Kronau:Simple Fun Family Festival

featuring “Up Side of Maybe” band from London Ontario

July 22 Abernethy: Abernethy Fair & Open House

July 23 Glenavon: Fair Day & Open House

July 25-29 Kronau: Making Memories Kids Summer Camp – Session 1

August 13 Dysart: Museum Day: 1-4pm

August 13 Indian Head Bell Barn: Barn Dance

August 14 Indian Head: Open House at 1 pm.

August 15-19 Kronau: Making Memories Kids Summer Camp – Session 2

September 17 Indian Head Bell Barn: Barn Dance

September 24 Grenfell: Fall Fair & museum quilt raffle draw

September 30-October 2 Abernethy: Culture Days

October 1 Indian Head Bell Barn: Octoberfest

October 1 Cupar: Harvest Lunch & Culture Days 11am to 2pm

October 2 Kronau: Culture Days – Celebrating Ukrainian Culture &

anniversary of the first wave of Ukrainian immigrants to

this province

October 15 Kronau: Annual Fall Fundraiser at U of R

Featuring Chester McBain “The Entertainer” Magician

December 3 Kronau: Santa Store – Children's secret Christmas shopping

day at the museum

December 11 Kronau: Christmas Program and Carol Sing-a-Long.

Special Exhibits:

Cupar: The 1950's featuring toys

Dysart: Music Through the Years

Kronau: “Marching on to War” impact of wars on Saskatchewan families

Old School Communication

Let me begin by saying I am a baby boomer and you can choose to judge my attitude and technical abilities by that. I like to start the day with a cup of coffee watching the news. Yes I realize it is highly filtered, but that is not what bothers me. It is the 24 hour news channels that spend more time on ads then news. By the time the geriatric ads for reverse mortgages, “help I've fallen and can't get up”, step in baths and circulation boosters are over I really am not sure what important news item I wanted to see. Those ads obviously target a specific audience. Anyhow I have turned to my ipad with it's ad blocker. What a joy. I watch and read as many news channels as I want when I want. They are still filtered and I am aware I am not being told everything but can we trust all the variations of “social media” as being more truthful. Note to self, take everything with a grain of salt. The other day I read an article on going “old school”. I think I am beginning to hate that phrase. It was about young tech savvy people going back to flip phones from smart phones. Interesting. It kind of made me happy as we chase the illusive idea of keeping up with technology. As I wander through our museum looking at “old school” communication technology I smile to myself. On a wall hangs a wooden phone, it used a party line and everyone on the line had their own ring. Of course some people had to listen in. My mom and grandmother had a code they used. Once it was “the princess has arrived” Well the gossip that went out that the princess from England had arrived. It was actually the birth of my aunt. Did you know on facebook you can read other peoples posts even if you are not a friend. Try privacy settings.

Does anyone remember the rotary phone? My favourite. I loved turning that wheel and listening to the sound. I was easily amused as a child. Then came the mobile phone, barely. It was large and cumbersome. Now we carry our life in our pocket, our “smart phone”. Do you misplace things? Do you have a passcode? Did you download the app that helps you find your “smart phone”? Do you understand what I am saying? 

Well here is the moral to my ramblings, I have chosen to be selective in the technology I use and keep up with it based on my needs and not pressure from my peers or much younger generations. Having said that one should never stop learning and  always be curious.

A few words of warning about today's technology, think before you hit “delete”, don't automatically hit “yes” because it's there, free isn't always free. What will happen when you hit update just because it's there? Think first because it isn't always good.

Moving Exhibits

Spring, a time of renewal and time to rethink museum displays. Our wildlife / taxidermy exhibit has been in the main building for years. The wood is lighter in behind, so I suspect it could be 20 years. It has now been moved to the hallway adjoining the other major displays. I must say it really looks good there. 

Our new mannequins have arrived. Our permanent war exhibit will house some of them. Now the problem is fitting the new ones in, which seem to be slightly taller than the old ones.

The summer exhibit featuring the 1950s will be positioned where the wildlife exhibit originally was.

Cleaning and dusting exhibits seems to always fall to our female members and what a fresh smell everything had when they finished. So over coffee several of our female board members poured over 1950s Eaton's catalogues doing preliminary research. Although we do have some 1950s artifacts others will be coming in just for the summer.

People will be pleasantly surprised come the Strawberry Social on June 25^th.

Saskatchewan Oil Industry

I found this article in the Cupar Herald dated May 11, 1939.  It made me think about how things change and cycle round.

CPR platform wagon

Spring is near and one of our major projects a CPR platform wagon has been finished.

Thanks to the many hours of dedication by volunteer Jim Adam.  The wagon was in very poor shape, especially the railings and it did take some time to research it to get the look just right.

The next step will be
to create a permanent
space to house it
along with CPR
artifacts we have been
accumulating.