The Tweed Heritage Centre Remembrance.

    As a child I was blessed to have a Nana who was an amazing story teller.  I could sit and listen to her for hours, hanging on to her every word.  My Mother's family come from Scotland.  I am actually first generation Canadian on my Mother's side.  Nana had seen two world wars. When I say "seen" I truly mean "seen".  She would talk of being a young mother with young children during the war.  Their window's would be blackened, no lights to show the German's where to bomb.  Their daily existence was listening for the whistle of the bomb, knowing the pitch it made to know where it would hit.  She would send my Aunt and Uncle to school with gas masks, not knowing if they would be coming home from school.  As she spoke, I would hang on her every word, her every gasp, sigh.  Her speech was so vivid that I could almost see the blinding light in the darkened sky.  This was one of the many gifts that my Nana gave me.  She made me love history, she made me love storytelling.
    Nana has been gone 21 years now, and yet if I close my eyes I can see her lovely, life worn face, hear her slightly faded burr telling me about her history, about my history.  Her stories were so vivid that I can still visualize them.  I think about myself, and the strength that took for her to bundle her small children up and send them to an unknown fate.  I try to imagine myself doing their hair, packing their lunches and checking their school bag to make sure that they have their gas mask.  I think about comforting frightened children in thunderstorms, never mind during bombings.  She lived with the unknown.

    The world needs story tellers.  We need those people with the gift of speech, the gift to make the past accessible to those in the present.  It is those gifted individuals who will inspire others to care, to take up the cause, to become storytellers, keepers of the past.  That was what my Nana bequeathed to me, that was her legacy.  It is a gift, and I say gift because that is truly what it is.  It is a gift that I greatly admire in others.  We as a people need those story tellers, those keepers of our history, of our legacy.  We need those inspired individuals who make it their life's work to collect and savour our history.  In Tweed we are most fortunate to have Evan Morton.  Evan is the curator of The Tweed Heritage Centre.  He is a history machine.  I say "history machine" lightly, but Evan is very driven.  He takes our history, the history of Tweed very seriously.  He is the man people seek out regarding our town's past.  He has painstakingly preserved memorial items, old care worn pictures, books, stories.  He has a passion for Tweed.  A passion that we as a community should be most grateful for.

    The Heritage Centre / Evan is not just a repository for articles, it is a museum.  It is a museum that changes it's displays several times a year to reflect the time and the season, the people of Tweed.  November 11 is quickly approaching us, and the Heritage Centre has laid out a beautiful display of items that pertain to Tweed's role in the two great wars.  To be more precise, Evan and local veteran / Legion Member, Martin "Dutch" Vermeer have spent hours planning and painstakingly locating local artifacts for the display.

    The walls are lined with stories of brave young men and women who risked and some who gave their lives for our freedom.  Their stories kept alive by the love of their families and the dedicated collection of The Historical Society.  We are so lucky to have such dedication, such love of history in our community.

To Be Continued......