Penfield family honoured for contribution to MCI
In its 50th year since establishment Memphremagog Conservation Inc. (MCI), at its annual general meeting held in Austin last weekend, made a curve in the road when it awarded the MCI Gordon Kohl Memorial Award to an entire family rather than an individual. The accolade is for outstanding contribution in the preservation of the natural environment. Descendants of Dr. Wilder Graves Penfield are the fifth recipients of this auspicious homage since its inception in 2005.
Tom Kovacs, the vice-president of MCI, who presented the award, noted that it’s not an annual award and, parting with past practice, this year marks the first occasion that the award is presented to multiple individuals from one family. On behalf of MCI, Kovacs thanked the second generation of Penfields for their foresight and generosity and all family members of today for maintaining the Wilder and Helen Penfield Nature Reserve. In addition, Kovacs gave a salute to past presidents Roger Williams and Wilder Lewis for their service with the lakefront conservation organization. “We wish to honour the outstanding conservation legacy of the Penfield family.”
Penfield’s grandson, Jeff Lewis, along with sister Kate and her husband Roger Williams, and brother Wilder Lewis were present at the MCI meeting to receive the award that had been initiated in 2005 by longtime friend and lakeside neighbour Don Fisher. Fisher is also a recipient of the award for his enduring commitment to MCI and tenure as president. Jeff Lewis outlined the history of the Penfield family at Sargent’s Bay and humbly disclosed that the family had come to a juncture about 20 years ago when they realized that keeping the property in the family would cost millions of dollars in taxes that they simply did not have.
“Some wanted to sell, or develop. In the end we agreed to find a solution to
keep it in the family.” That’s why they gave most of the land to Mcgill University to create the Wilder and Helen Penfield Nature Conservancy and is now controlled by the family’s “Meadowlark Beach Association.” The university’s Dr. Jacob Kalff of the biology department set up a limnology station in Greene Bay where graduate students could come to study the aquatic ecosystem.
Within two years upon emigrating to Montreal from the United States, in 1929, world renowned neurosurgeon and cofounder of the Montreal Neurological Institute, Dr. Wilder Graves Penfield and his wife, Helen, along with their four children happed upon the beach in Sargent’s Bay in their rowboat, where they camped and cooked and sang around campfire. They fell in love with the location and with money that Penfield had been awarded as a war reparation settlement after being an injured passenger on board the S.S. Sussex, he offered $6,000 for the purchase of 550 acres (over a mile of shoreline) to then owners of the two farms, the Mannings. They named the farmhouse “Sussex House” and the property “Magog Meadows.” They never looked back. Five generations of Penfields have congregated at Magog Meadows and every five years the entire family congregates to celebrate family during a weeklong celebration called Meadowlark. The property not only remains a sanctuary for wildlife and an outdoor laboratory for scientific research, it continues to be the catalyst for family life, a central tenet of the famous neurosurgeon’s very being.
According to Kate Lewis-williams, the Greene Bay facility is the main research base for Mcgill’s Limnology Research Center. The Limnology Research Center is of immense value both for conservation and for science. It demonstrates commitment to the highest ideals of caring for nature, humanity, and for furthering knowledge.
“When other families have drifted apart, our love for the lake, and our commitment to protecting it, has bound us together. And as long as there are Penfield descendants on Sargent’s Bay, we will keep faith,” concluded Jeff Lewis. To date, they are 65 strong with one more on the way.