Residents of former Village of Blue Water mark 75th anniversary
Community founded for workers near Sarnia’s Polymer synthetic rubber plant
SARNIA As Canada marks 150 years as a country, a village that helped win the Second World War, grow the Chemical Valley and then vanished is marking 75 years since it was built.
Grass, trees, parking lots, a couple of roads and a historical plaque are about all that remains of the Village of Blue Water, founded in 1942, in the midst of the Second World War as the allies sought to create a synthetic rubber source to replace their supply cut off by the Japanese.
As the Polymer plant in Sarnia was being built — its product critical for a wide variety of military products — workers flooding into the area for the project built their homes on its doorstep, just across from modern-day BioAmber and Arlanxeo plants.
The subdivision grew to a height of more than 500 homes in the 1950s, with schools, a church, restaurants and other amenities.
It was levelled, its residents moved mostly to Sarnia in the 1960s as growing heavy industry in the area threatened residents’ health.
“A lot of good memories here,” said Serge Gauthier, standing in the grassy field at Vidal Street and Huron Boulevard Tuesday where the historical plaque commemorating Blue Water was erected 10 years ago.
His family moved there from western Quebec when he was just a toddler and stayed about 15 years, until 1963, he said, when homeowners’ properties were expropriated and the village moved to Sarnia’s north.
“We grew up attending the school there, we did a lot of activities with baseball, football, hockey in the winter on the ponds,” he said, also recalling trips into downtown Sarnia to visit the theatre.
“It was a good area to grow up in,” he said. “It was a large village.”
His father was a carpenter with Curran and Herridge — modern day Curran Contractors — and his family would billet newcomers, many from Italy, coming to work at the plant, until they had enough saved up for a place of their own, he said.
About half the village of 2,300 spoke French, but there were scores from Italy, Greece, Portugal and other countries who’d travelled from overseas, he said.
About 100 people have already signed up for the 75th anniversary event, he said, Aug. 12 at Le Centre Communautaire Francophone, off the Rapids Parkway in Sarnia.
“We have a lot of pictures we’re going to display and basically just reminisce about Blue Water and get together again as people that are still alive and remember the village,” said Gauthier, now 69 years old.
He’s one of four organizing the event with the non-profit Blue Water Reunion 2017 group.
There’ll be video playing from the era showing the village, and era-specific music alongside typewriters, sewing machines and old rotary dial phones, he said.
People are encouraged to bring their old photographs.
The event is also a fundraiser, with plans to donate any proceeds to different charities in Sarnia, he said.
“Where we’re hosting it, they’re looking at improving their setup, so a lot of it might go that way,” he said.
Meanwhile, another milestone anniversary is in the mix too, he said, as Lambton College started in Blue Water, in the Errol and Indian roads area, in 1966.
Its 50th anniversary graduating class just attended the convocation.
“We’ve got them coming also, Lambton College, to participate in their 50th anniversary,” Gauthier said.
“So it’s kind of interesting to know that the village was the birthplace of Lambton College.”
Tickets are $20, and people are asked to purchase in advance for catering purposes, he said.