Lennoxville-ascot Historical and Museum Society looks back on the last 150 years
Have you heard? This year Canada celebrates 150 years of Confederation. A popular theme for many historical institutions, the Lennoxville-ascot Historical and Museum Society (LAHMS) held a vernissage this past Sunday for an exhibition showing the ways the last 150 years has affected life in Lennoxvilleascot and surrounding areas.
“People really like it,” said collection and exhibitions coordinator Janice Fraser, curator of the new exhibit.
According to Fraser, a committee started working on the exhibition in February. Not wanting to be too diversified, they decided to focus on six main themes that have affected the local community; education, military, transportation, royalty, toys, and businesses in our area.
While LAHMS has a substantial collection of historical artifacts, Fraser pointed out that looking at the last 150 years required some examples from more recent history.
“Well we can’t just have our artifacts,” she said, referring to the toy collection, as an example. Fraser said there are old dolls to compare with Barbie dolls, and examples of modern popular toys like legos along with old wooden toys.
LAHMS relied on loans from local community members and other institutions to compliment the ‘150 years’ collection.
Fraser credited LAHMS President Richard Evans with coming up with the idea for the exhibit.
Evans explained that the themes chosen for the exhibition have had a lasting impression on the area, from the commonwealth’s two longest reigning monarchs, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, to the evolution of education from one-room school houses to school consolidations.
“There was a heavy enlistment in both world wars,” Evans said, pointing to the importance of a military section in the exhibition.
In addition to the celebration of Canada’s 150th, Evans said it was also the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. Relatives of local Guy Wilcox, who died in the battle of Vimy Ridge, have loaned LAHMS artifacts for the exhibition, Evans said.
While the exhibit gives a snapshot of the region over the last 150 years, it also has some details Evans hopes visitors will find enlightening and interesting, like the fact that there was a prisoner-ofwar camp in Sherbrooke during the Second World War.
“It had a dual purpose,” Evans said. It housed captured low risk German prisoners, but also served as an internment camp for people whose loyalties were ‘questionable’.
Evans pointed out that the hard cases and high risk German prisoners were held in Red Deer, Alberta, so that if they were to ever escape, they would have a long way to travel to make their way home.
The guards for the Sherbrooke POW camp were WWI veterans who were not considered fit to fight in WWII.
Evans said a local, Fred Pierce, befriended a German inmate who was fond of building ships in bottles.
The LAHMS exhibit includes some of those ships in bottles, gifted to Pierce by the German prisoner.
Another interesting tidbit in the exhibit is reference to a number of prisoners who escaped from the POW camp.
“They didn’t want to get out,” Evans said, “they heard a rumour they would be sent back,” he explained. “They thought they were safer here, away from the gunfire.”
The exhibit 1867-2017: 150 years in Lennoxville and Ascot will remain on display until December.
Located in the upstairs of the Uplands Cultural and Heritage Centre, the exhibit is free of charge and open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Hours will expand to 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at the end of June.