Lot 16 history book being launched Thursday
The newly published book, “The Communities of Lot 16, Two Hundred Years of Our History,” will be launched this Thursday in an evening of celebration.
The book filled with facts and stories of the lot’s various communities: Belmont, Central, Southwest, Riverside and Nebraska, is a project of the Lot 16 Seniors History Committee. It is authored by Donna Lyle.
The book records the stories of the past 200 years of life in the lot whose boundaries were laid out by Samuel Holland in his original survey of the British colony completed in 1765. The lot name is still used with pride today – an interesting piece of Island history in itself.
The book, due to limited written sources, only lightly touches on the footprint of the Mi’kmaq and the Acadians in the area prior to the beginning of British settlement, but their presence can be felt in the writing.
Lyle says, “I don’t think a history can ever be totally complete, but an honest effort was made, and as the funding limited the project to a year, it proved a tight timeframe for researching, writing and everything else that goes into a book, but I believe we have a wonderful finished product that will both entertain and inform people.”
Lyle expresses the sentiment that she must have been “pure nuts” when the committee approached her to take on the writing.
The Lot 16 native and retired schoolteacher has always had a love for the history of the community, especially the stories she heard as a youth from her grandfather, Claude Ramsay, her uncle, Walter Ramsay, and her father, Frank MacLaren. “Uncle Walter was a great storyteller and had a wealth of information about Lot 16 and its people. The two of us spent hours in conversation sharing and learning about the area.” Lyle was also able to draw upon the resources her late mother-in-law, Helen Lyle Small had collected over the years in the hope of someday seeing a book published. She also used the Women’s Institute histories of Belmont and Central written in 1973, but it was starting from scratch for the other communities. Committee members provided the author with research material and were invaluable in their contributions, she noted. People such as Doreen MacLean, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, along with her cousin, Ruby Cousins, brought alive the history of Southwest, and Riverside, and Evelyn Paynter took on the challenge of Nebraska. When the committee met it was story time.
“It was satisfying to learn new information and be able to tie it in with something I already knew, and, of course, being constantly exposed to new pictures people sourced, was a real thrill,” said the author. “The pictures make the book interesting in a way that words alone cannot.”
She notes readers will see big changes in Lot 16 over 200 years in the name of progress. Funding for the book project was provided through the federal government program, New Horizons for Seniors.
The launch is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 31 at the Lot 16 Hall on the Ferry Road. The Lot 16 Seniors History Committee invites all to attend.