Heritage Night

On Wednesday, December 13th, Heritage Night, members of the Sherbrooke Snow Shoe Club began gathering for their weekly meeting at the old Prospect Street clubhouse around 4:45 p.m. The building was built 130 years ago, just 10 years after the club’s founding. A lot of history pertains to this site which at that time lay a significant distance outside the limits of the city of Sherbrooke.

The early arrivals usually go out for their tramp, either along the prescribed route as “street walkers” or across the open snowcovered space of the neighboring country club as “snowshoers”. This evening had sufficient snow cover but, with the cold temperatures accompanied by a severe wind chill factor, all trampers chose to street walk.

By 6:30 p.m. all had taken their seats in the dining room for supper. President Gordon Barnett introduced those who were seated at the head table - Honorary Treasurer Jack Noble, and 2nd Vice-president Harry Brown. O Canada was sung following which Harry Brown said Grace. The White Knights then began serving the meal, beginning with a hearty pea soup, then the main course of tourtière, meatballs and pig-leg stew, with cabbage salad. For dessert pudding chomeur (cottage pudding) was served, which satisfied everyone with a sweet tooth.

The president thanked our cook Carole Lacroix and her team for the delicious meal, and the White Knights for their good service. With no guests present this evening, the president chose to give a special welcome to long time member Ashford Lothrop, who hasn’t been in attendance for some time. This was followed by the drawing of the door prizes. The winners were Walter Enslin and Vern Dougherty.

President Gordon reminded the gathering of the President’s Reception beginning at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, January 2, 2018. Following dinner, attendees are to be entertained by a Celtic musical group, The Irish Trio. Our next business meeting night will be Wednesday, January 10th.

Past President & Vice- Captain Don Loughheed announced that the Snow Trampers & Walkers program for that night will include a guest speaker - a local nurse who served overseas under the auspices of Samaritan’s Purse, working at a hospital during the combat in Mosul, a city in Iraq.

Once again it was noted that Honorary Secretary & 1st Vice-president Steve Moore was absent, for a second time over the past couple of weeks. His brother Past President Dave Moore explained that Steve had been hospitalized a second time due to a severe infection in his foot. He has had a couple of surgeries, and hopefully will be home soon. The membership wishes him the very best, and a speedy recovery. A get-well card was circulated & signed by those present.

The younger Moore member of the club humored us with several stories. One was of a little boy in church asking the pastor the motivation behind the plaques on the wall. The pastor said they were in memory of men and women who died in the services for their country. The little boy stood very quietly and continued to stare at the plaques. Very seriously he then asked, “Which service was it - the early service or the late service?”

The sing-along was led by Gary Macdonald and Gerald Parent who filled in due to the absence of Chorister Phil Kerwin. They were accompanied by Jan Graham on the piano. Everyone sang with enthusiasm - “Bicycle Built for Two”, “White Sports Coat”, and the Christmas carol “It Came upon a Midnight Clear”.

The theme of the evening’s entertainment was “Heritage Night”, and Honorary Secretary Steve Moore had planned a special presentation but wasn’t able to be present. Fortunately President Gordon had a Powerpoint prepared for another event along the heritage theme, mainly farm machinery and its impact on our society, so he was able to step in. He gave a very interesting talk and slide show on antique machinery and his involvement with the Eastern Townships Antique Machinery Club. It was most fascinating and brought back a lot of good memories of the early farm equipment and how, today’s modern equipment has evolved. One of the main factors that impacted our society was brought about by the major farm mechanization that has taken place over the last two centuries. Companies like Massey Manufacturing (1847, Newcastle Ontario), Mccormick Harvesting Machine Company (1847, Chicago), and John Deere (1837, Grand Detour, Illinois) brought about many of these changes with machines replacing human manpower. Gordon pointed out how farming in the early 1800s was all done by hand. It required 96% of the population’s involvement to be able to fulfill basic food needs. Today human involvement has shrunk to 1.5% because of the modern equipment and the processes being so highly automated. During the Second World War, an enormously important organizational arrangement of farm machinery use & manpower known as the Harvest Brigade had an impact on Canada’s heritage. At the time, there was a scarcity of manpower in North America because of the men who were overseas fighting the war in Europe. The Canadian company Massey-harris had just perfected the first commercially successful self-propelled combine which would replace the reaper, threshing machine and related items. But the company couldn’t mass produce it due to the steel shortage. There were no other self-propelled combines on the market at that time. With the help of influential administrators in the American division of Massey-harris, the US War Materials Control Board released steel to build 500 combines which were delivered to custom operators, and each machine was able to cut a minimum of 2000 acres. Initially two brigades were formed in California and Texas, and began contracting work. The brigades were soon moving northward, primarily reaching into the Canadian West. They were highly successful. These combines cut over one million acres harvesting over 25 million bushels of grains, and saved over 300,000 man-hours.

Today, there are several thousand antique machinery clubs in North America and numerous others in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Clubs are dedicated to preserving the heritage and the history of farm and construction machinery, and the preservation of the machines themselves. A local group, the Eastern Townships Antique Machinery Club, was founded in 1992. Its members have collected a variety of antique machinery which they display at various events in the Townships. At the end of the presentation a number of the members had stories of their own to tell of experiences with farm machinery, having just seen some of the antique implements being used in the presentation. It proved to be a very interesting topic.

The evening came to a close, with some of the young at heart coming together for a game of volleyball.

Submitted by Don Parsons SSSC Captain