Severn Bridge Women's Institute Building - Severn Bridge

Another open forum discussion is planned for this meeting that I think will result in a lot of very interesting stories. We are asking all those who would like to participate to bring one (considering the numbers involved we will have to limit it to one) picture from the past and describe the circumstances around the picture.

President's Message - A bare patch of earth is all that is left of the main lodge at Grandview. The building which was built in the spring of 1922, served as the heart and soul of the classic Sparrow Lake Resort. In less than six weeks a building that stood fot 86 years was reduced to match sticks. For your president this was a sad occasion. I spent a good part of my life there. Now time has moved on and a society that valued a sojourn at the lake now wants personal ownership of that lake. Resorts are becoming "uneconomic"; They have two strikes against them, they are labour intensive and capital intensive, and so another use was found for the "capital" i.e. land was found.

The SLHS has a book of historic structures in which we attempt to preserve buildings of historical significance if only in a pictorial sense. At our spring meeting I urge you to look at this book and ponder whether we should work to preserve our heritage physically as well as pictorially.

BILL 149 - President Bill Darker has passed along an excerpt from the April 2009 Ontario Historical Society Bulletin about Bill 149 being discussed in the Ontario Legislature. He will bring a copy of the Bulletin to the meeting so that those interested can read about it in more detail, because it is too long to reproduce here. In short this Bill is historic in that it will be the first time there is a law in this province prohibiting the relocation of an inactive cemetery. In the future, if Bill 149 is enacted, it will be in the public interest that our cemeteries remain in their original location.

This Bill is going into second reading and the OHS and the Ontario Genealogical Society are asking that people contact their MPP and indicate their support for it. In the past both of these organizations have spent a great deal of time, effort and money in legal battles trying to limit the relocation of these cemeteries by developers and this will go a long way toward reducing the effort required to see that the cemeteries stay in place.