Unlike a number of people being profiled for the Frontenac County 50 stories/150 years project, Gray Merriam does not have deep family roots in Frontenac County.

He first came to Kennebec Lake, with his wife Aileen, because they were starting to look for a place to move to after Gray had retired from Carleton University, and they happened to be headed to Toronto for a conference.

“There was a property on Kennebec Lake, and it was on the way so we stopped in,” he recalls.

It was early March and they could not take the road all the way in to the property for fear of not getting back out, so they left their car behind and walked in.

“I wanted to live within two canoe lengths of the water, which this property had since the house is right on the Salmon River, where it flows from Kennebec Lake. To tell the truth even before we got to the house I was sold on the property because of the snow fleas that made it look like the snow was moving in waves.”

Gray began his academic career as a population ecologist and was one of the people who developed landscape ecology as an academic pursuit.

“I began my career as a population ecologist and developed landscape ecology, with others, during my time at Carleton,” he said.

Landscape ecology was different at that time because it was based in Europe and was urban-based. It was connected to urban planning.

“When we started looking at it here it was more about large mosaics of various habitat types. It was farmland so you had little sugar bushes at the back of the farm, farm fence rows, crop field, hay fields, little creeks with some brush along them, and that entire mosaic was what the organisms were living with so we tried to study that entire mosaic. Previously ecologists tried to narrow things down to one little homogeneous bit, but it was clear to us that everything around it was the driving variable for how it all worked.”

This approach was used at first to determine, for example, how populations of bird species could survive in farmlands where there are only small pockets of suitable habitat.

“It turned out, that while small populations were vulnerable because they did not always breed, other populations would migrate to the habitat if it was not being used. So this tells you that the fate of a population in a single woodlot goes on and off like a little neon light but the fate of population in the region has a very high level of security. What that led to is a realisation that the organisms located between different patches of habitat are very important for the species to be able to migrate from one patch to another. It's the nature of the movements between patches of habitat that determine the success rate. So we did a lot of work on farm fence rows as a connectivity."

This kind of academic pursuit brought Merriam into contact with ecologists and other academics from across North America and elsewhere. When he retired he took on the goal of seeing if the principles of landscape ecology could be applied in his new community.

“The first thing was to bring the idea of ecological processes in lakes to try to engage the folks on the lakes about water quality sampling, shoreline surveys, and that led eventually to the lake planning that has become popular everywhere. Lake plans are based on the ideas of landscape ecology, especially when they extend to looking at watersheds as a whole,” he said.

One thing that Merriam did was to start writing articles for the Frontenac News, and writing books. He also founded the Friends of the Salmon River, and became instrumental in the work of the Frontenac Stewardship Council, which is now the Frontenac Stewardship Foundation. When Frontenac County began to set out an Official Plan, he began pushing for a Stewardship Plan for Frontenac County, a goal that he is still pursuing.

“The Friends of the Salmon came about when I met some neighbours downriver and we started talking about the health of the river and how we could monitor it. So I held a meeting at my house and a number of people came and they became the Friends of the Salmon.”

He expected he would find hot spots and complaints about the state of the river. “There weren't any, which makes it more difficult to organize people but there you have it.”

If there is a single issue that is most important about the future of the lakes along the Salmon River watersheds and all the watersheds in Frontenac County, he says it is phosphorous. Most of the phosphorous affecting lakes here is coming from faulty septic systems.

“We understand the role of septics, but the problem is the people, who resist being told what to do, and the potential cost is an issue as well. But by focussing on waterfront properties the people who own them tend to have more money available. The properties on the hillsides don't have the same problem because the runoff from the septics is taken up by vegetation, trees, etc.” he said.

On all the groups he has been involved with he sometimes comes into conflict over what he calls his “insistence that projects that get done make ecological sense.”

Another thing that he has pushed over the years is the interest of the north end of the county over what he sees as a bias towards the south.

“When I first was introduced to the Stewardship Council it was known as the South Frontenac Stewardship Council and it did not consider that it would ever extend north of Highway 7. We had to convince them there was life up here,” he said.

One of the things that he has been able to focus people's attention on is the two different geological regions in Frontenac County, the Limestone substrate in the South and the Canadian Shield landscape to the north.

These issues will be discussed in the extended version of this article, which will be published on February 26, in the 50 articles / 150 years supplement that will be a monthly feature of the Frontenac News for the rest of the year.

Under the leadership of J.P. Pendergast, operations officer with the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment in Kingston, 34 soldiers and cadets spent a cold weekend camping on the property of Jen Farnum and Marcus Saunders, located near Clarendon in Central Frontenac, learning the basics of winter warfare.

The group usually camps on crown land, but when they were exploring the access points to crown land closer to Kingston so that they could spend more time training instead of traveling, they happened upon the Saunders property and were given permission to camp there, which also gave them access to over 20,000 acres of crown located just beyond it.

The group arrived on February 6 after dark, set up their camp and went to work immediately. The weekend training included formal classes and hands-on learning that teach the participants the basic skills of winter warfare. The focus is primarily on the skills for surviving in a winter environment, skills that are often unknown to people who come from urban populations.

“What we teach here would be no surprise to people who spend a lot of time trapping and hunting outdoors in the winter months but for those who have never experienced that, there is a lot to learn,” Pendergast said.

The group camped in three 10-man, bell-shaped arctic tents, each equipped with a two-burner Coleman stove and a single lantern and they ate the majority of their meals outdoors. The participants learned to build makeshift outdoor snow shelters and one participant built and slept overnight in what is known as “a winter coffin”, a 3x6 foot hand dug snow bed, which once dug is covered in branches and a waterproof tarp.

When I visited the camp I came across two senior officers chatting casually inside what Pendergast called a “quinzee”, a fully enclosed snow dome shelter that they had built. They packed down snow using their snow shoes and pierced it with sticks, then they dug it out from the inside, using the inlaid sticks to show them the depth to dig to. The structure had a hedgehog-like appearance and was 10 degrees warmer inside than the biting temperature outside.

The soldiers and cadets, who were dressed in specially made winter camouflage gear, also built numerous shelters out of fallen trees. They built lean-tos and other pit-type tree shelters in the woods surrounding one large open field. Other activities taught in the course included bear paw snow shoeing and cross country skiing. Participants also learned winter navigation techniques and how to construct various snow defenses, which consisted of trenches built of snow and ice. In a war time situation these would protect them from enemy fire.

The group came with their C7A2 service rifles. They did not fire them but they were shown how to properly carry them while skiing and snow shoeing and how to service them in the winter climate. The group endured ample snow fall and well below average temperatures that often dipped below -20 degrees Celsius and felt even colder with the wind chill. Pendergast said that to avoid hypothermia and frost bite, participants took regular breaks out of the wind.

It was the group's first time at the Saunders farm and Pendergast said that the property served perfectly for their purposes. “We had ample privacy and access to all of the different kinds of terrain necessary for our training. We saved ourselves a lot of traveling time, which made our time here more productive than if we had traveled further north.” He added that he would come back in a heart beat. “The Saunders were great hosts and we had an opportunity to show the Saunders' kids some of the things we were doing, which they really seemed to get a kick out of.”

Winter survival in the great outdoors is serious business and whether in times of peace or war, many of the teachings in this course would come in handy to soldiers and civilians alike. Perhaps Pendergast and some of his crew might welcome an invitation to next year's Frontenac Heritage Festival, where they could teach festival goers how to build their very own quinzee or winter coffin.

Phil Leonard conducts business from behind a desk in his garage. The house is across the courtyard from the garage and the grounds of his home outside of Harrowsmith are neatly tended and full of plants and flowers, courtesy of his life partner, Deb Bracken, who died earlier this year.

For Phil Leonard, the loss was (and is) acutely felt, but he is not one to dwell on it. Although he left municipal politics 11 years ago, he remains a key figure in the political life of South Frontenac.

I interviewed him back in September, a couple of days before the nomination deadline for last fall's election. He had signs for two of the candidates for mayor on his lawn, and I asked him if he would put up a sign for the third, if asked.

“I don't see why not,” he said, laughing, “it's not even up to me; the signs are on the road allowance anyway.”

Then when asked about a potential political comeback, he said, “If that's ever going to happen, you'll know pretty soon.”

Phil Leonard did not run for office last fall, but the candidate who won, Ron Vandewal - as well as everyone who has made a difference in South Frontenac politics in the post-amalgamation era - has spent time in Leonard's garage talking and listening.

“I ended up telling Gary Davison that he was welcome to come and visit, but not to talk politics anymore because he would sit and listen and then do whatever he was going to do in the first place,” he said.

Phil Leonard has municipal politics in his blood. His grandfather, Ray Babcook, was reeve of Portland Township five times, back when there was an election at the town hall at the beginning of January each year. His father was on the school board, and his uncle Keith was reeve as well.

“I've had uncles run against uncles over the years, that sort of thing; someone was always running for something,” he said.

In his own municipal career he sat on council for two terms and then was reeve of Portland Township for five terms, before becoming the first mayor of South Frontenac. Leonard served two three-year terms, between 1998 and the end of 2003. He also served as warden of Frontenac County on five different occasions.

And although he has been out of politics since 2003, he still remembers clearly the politics of the mid-90s and beyond, when the Frontenac townships were dragged into an amalgamation process that he describes as a “shotgun wedding”.

One of the key components to the entire negotiations, aside from working out how the Frontenac townships were going to amalgamate between themselves, were the negotiations with the City of Kingston.

“The City first wanted to expand west, to Loyalist Township, but when that didn't work out, they looked to the north,” he said. “But if they thought we would give them everything on a platter because we were country bumpkins, we showed them that wasn't going to happen,” he said.

The big prize for the City were Pittsburgh and Kingston townships. Typical of modern urban centres, the population was growing in the suburbs, but the work was in the City, as well as infrastructure costs so it was clear that those townships would have to become part of the new City.

“We negotiated payments for downloaded roads and we negotiated that the City had to provide service to the County at cost, because they were getting all that assessment from the two townships that they were swallowing,” Leonard said. “They didn't want that but they did want Pittsburgh and Kingston townships so they had no choice.”

One of those services that South Frontenac looked at, and the other townships may have been able to make use of as well, was policing.

“We had a big public meeting scheduled at Sydenham High School - this was after amalgamation. The City of Kingston Police Department was going to make a presentation, as was the OPP and we were going to decide which way to go, and we knew the City was going to make a lower bid. The day of the meeting I got a call from Gary Bennet, who was the first mayor of the new City, and he said the City was not going to bid on the contract. He told me why but I agreed not to repeat it,” said Phil Leonard.

The meeting went ahead that night, and Leonard recalls that he asked the OPP to make their presentation first.

“They made their offer and then we announced that the City wasn't going to make a counter-offer. It was a better deal than we would have gotten if the OPP knew they were the only bidder. I will say this, however; we have been really well served by the OPP in South Frontenac.”

“The Minister of Municipal Affairs, Al Leach, said we had to work something out or they would do it for us, but they also said something, and it was Premier Mike Harris who made the commitment, and I was at that meeting. He said that they were going to take the Education tax off the municipal roll, and that is a large part of the tax bill. They never did it, but that would have made it easier for us.”

As far as the horse trading that brought about South Frontenac, Leonard recalls that from the point of view of Portland Township, it was a risky business.

“We were in a strong position in Portland. We had reserves, paved roads, a dump, everything. Loughborough was in debt, and Storrington had money, but they had no dump because the City of Kingston had filled it up. Bedford wasn't sure where they were going to go. At one point the boundary was going to be Westport Road. South of the road was going to go be in South Frontenac and north was going to be in Central. But as I said it was a shotgun wedding; a lot of things were being negotiated.”

In the case of South Frontenac, the solution to the vast differences in financial standing and levels of service in the four townships was to institute an area-rating system whereby each would have its own tax rate and service standards set.

“We needed that until we could bring all of us to the same level,” said Leonard of the arrangement that lingered until 2010 when it was finally eliminated entirely.

As far as setting up the Frontenac Management Board in place of a full-fledged county, Leonard said that the idea was that the townships would run their own show and things would stay pretty simple.

“We talked about running it as country townships. We keep a small staff and hire locally when we needed work done. That was what we all wanted to do. But now there are more people working for South Frontenac than there were for all four townships combined. That wasn't supposed to happen,” he said.

In fact, the amalgamation order, which was signed on January 7, 1997, stipulated that the budgets of the new municipalities being created as of January 1/1998, including the new City of Kingston and the Frontenac Management Board, had to be lower than the combined 1996 budgets of the former municipalities that were being amalgamated to form them.

The stipulation did not extend beyond 1998, however, and as any resident of Frontenac County can attest, the 2014 taxation is a measure higher than it was in 1996.

When the first election for South Frontenac Council was held in 1997, Phil Leonard was elected as mayor, and what he was greeted with at the start of 1998 was something that no one could have envisioned - an unprecedented natural disaster, the ice storm of 1998.

“We had some people in place, and even a disaster plan from Portland, but we certainly weren't ready for what happened. No one was. Thank God for our volunteers and volunteer firefighters.” he said.

Leonard stayed at the Keeley Road Public Works office until late into the month as fire crews and volunteers led the effort to make sure everyone in the township was safe and the roads could be cleared and power lines restored.

“We were the fifth municipality in Ontario to declare a state of emergency. At one point the minister came in a helicopter, with Adrienne Aresenault from the CBC, and they asked me to go with them because I knew the territory. All you could see was ice everywhere you looked, and a lot of trees down, and those wild turkeys, because they were black. They wanted to see one of our emergency centers so I called over to Burridge and asked Arnold Quinn, who was the chief back then, if there was a place there big enough to get the chopper down, and he said yes. As luck would have it, just after we got there a call came in that a lady up the road had had a heart attack. So the helicopter left us standing there, and landed in her back yard and took her on to Kingston. We had to phone the road crew to come and get us.”

With all of the changes that have taken place in South Frontenac since amalgamation, Phil Leonard is no longer sure that as reeve of Portland he shouldn't have stood his ground and refused, as his friend Bill Thake had done in Westport, which never joined with any others and remains an independent village to this day.

“I just think that we have moved too far towards an urban service model, which was never necessary. We should have remained a country township as far as I'm concerned,” he said.

However, he does not regret changing Frontenac Management Board back to Frontenac County because, “The province never recognised the Management Board and we were being bypassed for grants, so we had no choice there."

He also thinks that bidding, and winning, the contract for ambulance service, was necessary and important.

“Do you think, if the City had it, they would have paid attention to the rural areas and built bases in Sydenham and Ardoch Road? No way. We have to look after the City but they wouldn't have had to look after us in the same way.”

But he thinks adding four more members to Frontenac's County Council, which happened in 2010, was a bad idea.

“All that can do is cost money, and make it harder to make decisions, that's all,” he said.

In the end, the amalgamation process, the ice storm and the first few years of South Frontenac politics took its toll on Phil Leonard, and that's why he walked away in 2003.

“The only time that I could get work done, at the office was between 2 and 6 in the morning, and between 10 and 12 at night. It totally exhausted me after a time. That's why I left when I did.”

And Phil Leonard will stay away, at least until 2017.

Dave Linton, a long time volunteer with Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS), not only talks the talk but also walks the walk - and in this case, skis the lopp.

At 75 years of age Linton knows first hand the benefits to seniors of regular daily exercise, its positive impact on mental and physical health and its ability to help them live in their homes independently and with dignity for as long as possible. It is with those ideas in mind that Linton will be skiing the Gatineau Loppett, a 51 km international cross-country ski marathon, the largest of its kind in Canada, which will take place on February 14 in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec.

Linton will be participating this year, not as he has done in the past, to raise funds for the SFCSC (he also has another idea about fundraising that I will mention later), but to raise awareness of the importance of daily exercise while also promoting the seniors programming offered at SFCSC.

Linton began volunteering with SFCSC 36 years ago when he and his wife Jennifer, who is the coordinator of the SFCSC food bank, first moved to the area. He currently volunteers as a fundraiser and driver and highly recommends the organization as “a place to hang your volunteer hat.” For Linton volunteering has become a way of life and fulfills an important need. “It gives me an intrinsic satisfaction and makes me feel connected to the community.”

SFCSC runs a number of Adult Day programs at the Grace Centre in Sydenham that are geared to seniors, many of whom are physically frail and socially isolated. Some may have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and may also be survivors of other illnesses. The programs offer participants a plethora of physical, social and cognitive activities under the direction of trained personnel and staff members, which help to stimulate brain and body function while offering clients a chance to socialize and interact with their peers.

The programming at SFCSC has expanded in recent years from three days a week to five and from a capacity of eight clients per day to 12. Participants in the program are provided with snacks and lunch, and trained PSWs also provide any assistance they might require while in attendance. Referrals to the program are typically made by the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) or by self-referral and are followed up with an in-office visit, after which clients receive a free one trial visit to the program. The cost is $20 per day and transportation can also be provided at an additional cost.

Dave Linton understands that skiing a 51 km marathon is definitely not for everyone, and stressed that it is the daily training leading up to the event that is most important. “It is the daily exercise required to prepare for a marathon and not the marathon itself that is most beneficial. My training equipment is not sophisticated: a chainsaw, an axe, a wood pile plus regular walking with a set of weighted poles…no running, jogging or any other high impact exercises is how I prepare for the race.”

Linton is an incredibly fit 75-year-old and is perhaps not a standard that other seniors can aspire to. He knows this but still he says regular daily exercise is key to overall health. “Daily physical activity changed my life (maybe even saved it on occasions). It is a life-enhancing tool for me and I strongly believe that it can be for others … If we seniors can stay out of nursing homes and long term care facilities, we will not only save tax payer dollars, but will enable ourselves to live healthier, happier, more independent lives in the long term”.

Now back to Linton’s idea about fundraising. He suggests that, given the fact that most seniors usually have everything they need in life, when families are celebrating a milestone event like a birthday or anniversary, they could invite guests to make a donation to the SFCSC in lieu of gifts.

For more information about seniors’ programming at the SFCSC and/or to make a donation call 613-376-6477 or visit www.sfcsc.ca

Long-time Verona resident, Doug Lovegrove, recalled that when he first moved to Verona in 1980 he became interested in the history of WW1 and in particular, the 146th "Overseas” Battalion, a unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces based in Kingston, Ontario.

The unit was made up of soldiers and officers from the counties of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington and recruiting began in Kingston in late 1915. Recruiting offices were also set up in Tamworth, Enterprise, Flinton and Napanee and recruiting teams also visited many of the hamlets in both counties.

Lovegrove, who served as an electronics technician in the Canadian Army in both the RCEME and the RC SIGS from 1967 until he retired in 1992, said that he became intrigued with the 146th Battalion because “simply put, there was not very much information out there about it.”

Lovegrove began his research five years ago and the results of his efforts are now accessible online in a project he has titled "The 146th Research Project". It is comprised of two parts: the first, a history of WW1 and the 146th battalion and the second a more in-depth look at the estimated 600 to 800 soldiers and officers who were part of it.

While most of Doug's findings have come from information he has gleaned from the internet, a number of local residents have also helped shed light on its individual members after he put an advertisement in this newspaper asking readers for any information they might have.

When interviewed earlier this week Lovegrove said that information about the 146th Battalion in general is scarce due to the fact that the unit was not formed until November 28, 1915 and further, that as soon as the unit arrived in England, its members were absorbed into the many other existing units. “Of the 260 battalions that fought in WW1, only one third are well documented”, he said. “The 146th Battalion was absorbed almost immediately upon its arrival in England. When I started my research only two units, the 95th Battalion and the 12th Reserve were listed as the ones who absorbed members from the 146th, but so far I have found 27 other units where members of the 146th ended up.”

Much of the information about individual soldiers and officers Lovegrove gleaned by searching individual regimental numbers, which offer up information about a soldier's place of birth, the names of his parents, his marital status, sometimes medical information, as well as the unit they were assigned to when they arrived in England, the medals they received, if they were killed in action and where they were buried in Europe or at home. The website includes a listing of memorable dates that outline the battalion's formation in Kingston and its travels from Kingston to Valcartier, Quebec and on to Halifax, where its members boarded the HMT Southland. The ship was part of a large convoy that departed for Liverpool, England on September 27, 1916 and arrived on October, 6, 1916. To date Lovegrove has found 66 pictures of individuals who served in the 146th and has also located 93 gravestone markers, most of them in Europe and some in Canada.

One of Lovegrove's most cherished finds occurred just this past week when he came across the 146th Battalion's colours, which were presented by a Mrs. J. B. Pense on behalf of the citizens of Kingston and deposited immediately after the battalion's departure for England at St. Andrew's Church in Kingston. The colours can now be viewed online and "are a very important historical artifact and represent the insignia of the unit.”

Others important finds are a photo of the entire battalion that he came across online as well as a photo of local soldiers from the unit gathered at the train station in Sharbot Lake, circa 1915. The latter photo hangs in the office of Sharbot Lake resident Marcel Giroux.

For Lovegrove the project remains incomplete and he is still hoping to find out more information that any local residents might possess or know of. The project includes an information request sheet that can filled out for those who either would like information or have information to relate.

Lovegrove's work, it seems, is never ending. Eventually he hopes to create a data base with information about each individual member of the battalion. “There are so many stories that have yet to be told, ” he said.

In wrapping up our interview Lovegrove stressed the importance of the Canadian contribution to WW1. “From a total population of 8 million, 600,000 Canadians served in WW1, which is a huge number and it should be noted that Canada's contribution was recognized by the fact that they were asked to sign the Peace Treaty, which demonstrated the recognition of their incredible efforts and their huge sacrifices.”

To learn more about The 146th Research Project visit www.146battalion.ca and those with any information can email him at “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..” It should also be noted that Doug is the military historian for the Portland District and Area Heritage Society and he also welcomes any information and artifacts in that context as well.

It was in late August that I went to interview Lee-Anne White at her home on Road 506 at Fernleigh, which at one time was a full-fledged hamlet with a post office, a store and a school, but is now only a clutch of houses around a crossroad.

I was accompanied by Jesse Mills, the videographer for the Frontenac County 150th anniversary project, and when we arrived Lee-Anne had a bandage on her leg and was limping when she opened the door for us.

“The nurse was just here this morning,” she said, “to change the dressing on my leg.”

She had hurt her leg by dropping a piece of wood on it as she was feeding the box stove in her basement to take off the morning chill a few days earlier. But though her leg was slowing her down, she still had a basin overflowing with bread dough in the kitchen and was de-frosting five pounds of ground beef to make meatballs for a family reunion that was coming up on the weekend.

Aside from her leg, something else was bothering her. Her car, a 2010 model, was in need of some work.

“They tell me that I don't drive it enough. That's why the linkage needs to be fixed and it needs new tires. I haven't told my son yet but I think I'll trade it in on a new one rather than bother with it,” she said.

Lee-Anne Kelford was born at Ompah on January 9, 1915, and this week she turns 100. She remembers the kinds of efforts that were required to survive on the Canadian shield farmland in the days before electricity, cars and other modern conveniences. What money her family made came from her father shoeing horses or milling wood, but most of the food they ate they had either grown, gathered or slaughtered from their own herds of cattle, sheep and pigs. For chairs they used burlap bags stuffed with straw or hay. They went barefoot in the summer and in the winter wore gumboots with homespun yarn straight off the sheep wrapped around them for warmth. When she was coming home from school with her brothers and sisters her mother would meet them with baskets and they had to fill the baskets with wild strawberries or raspberries on the way home. In the spring they would catch hundreds of suckers and salt them for winter eating. In the summer they picked blueberries and apples, worked in the garden and helped harvest hay and grain.

While the large 17-member Kelford family, seven brothers and seven sisters, father and mother and hard-bitten grandmother Jane Kelford, never had a lot of money, they were certainly not the poorest family around

“We were better off than those that were further down the line, I'd say. We always had enough to eat; we had cows and sheep and a big garden and a root cellar and mother was always baking biscuits or something, so we had no complaints,” said Lee Anne.

She still talks about her father's capacity to build things and make things work on their property. Although he could not read or write, he managed to build a steam-powered sawmill, a smithy and whatever the family needed to get by.

However, he may have taken on a bit much when it came to orthopedics.

When Lee-Anne was seven years old she fell out of an apple tree in an old orchard where she was picking apples with her mother. Of course there was no 911 to call. As she recalls it, she had driven the horse-drawn wagon to the orchard while her mother held her baby sister Elsie. Since her arm was broken and the bone was sticking out, her mother popped Elsie on Lee-Anne's lap and tied the baby to her so she wouldn't fall off. Her mother then drove home.

When they got back to Lee-Anne's father's wood and smith shop back at Ompah, he looked at her arm quickly and decided it needed to be set.

So, “he took an old cedar block, about 6 inches long, that was lying around,” in Lee-Anne's words, cut it and augured out the centre, then cut it again and split it to fit her small arm. He put her arm in and tied it together snugly with string, forcing the bone back into place at the same time. The next day her brother Sam got into a fight with another brother, Wyman, and Sam's wrist ended up being broken. Their father set that wrist as well.

The children then had to immerse their arms in a barrel of ice water repeatedly over the next two days, presumably to keep the swelling down. The treatment was successful in both cases - to a point. Lee-Anne was able to use her arm afterwards, but could not raise it all the way up to the top of her head, and her brother developed growths on his wrist.

At the time and to this day, after 93 years have passed, Lee White supports everything her father did that day.

“A neighbour said he should take us to a doctor but there was no doctor close by and we didn't have money to pay for a doctor anyway,” she said.

Her father lived a long life as well. He died at the age of 97 in 1977.

When Lee-Anne was older she took a job at a new lodge on Kashwakamak Lake that was opened up by an Ahr family from the United States. The lodge, which became known as the Fernleigh Lodge, is open to this day. She worked there for seven years, cooking and cleaning for over 100 guests at a time, and in the winters she worked at the Trout Lake Hotel in Ompah.

It was at Fernleigh Lodge that she met her husband, Melvin White, who was a guide in the summer and fall and trapped in the winter time. Melvin was from Plevna, and although he ran away from home at age 16, when the couple got married, Lee-Anne ended up living at Melvin's taking care of Melvin's parents and their farm for at least one winter during the 1930s, when she wasn't drawn back to Ompah to help her own family get by.

Eventually, Melvin was given a one acre piece of land on what is now Road 506 and the Whites built a 23 x 14 foot shack for themselves. Afterwards they built the house where Lee-Anne still lives on the same property (Melvin died in 2009).

“We scratched I tell you, but we never borrowed a cent in our lives. When we were building our house, with help from his half brother and uncle, I said to Melvin I'd rather eat one meal a day than go into debt.”

The couple had three sons, George, Andy and Danny. Lee-Anne ended up taking a job drawing mail from Fernleigh to Cloyne, a job she kept for 38 years.

At her 100th birthday party at the Clar-Mill Hall last Saturday, her sons were all there, as were her grandchildren, daughters-in-law, nieces and nephews and long-time friends. Sitting at the front with her, among the certificates from the governments of Ontario and Canada and one from Queen Elizabeth, was her aunt Agnes, who is 101 and still lives near Ompah. When it came time to take a family picture, both women pulled themselves out of their chairs, even though Agnes recently had an operation, and they walked over to be in the picture.

Back in the summer, we left some of our equipment at Lee-Anne's house when we recorded the interview. When I dropped back to collect it a few days later, I found her leaning into the back seat of her car, reaching over, with a vacuum cleaner going.

“I'm tying to get it ready for sale,” she said.

One thing that Lee White did not do was drive to her own 100th birthday party. The weather was pretty stormy that day so she took a ride from one of her sons. But she insisted that they take her brand new red truck, which they parked just out from the front door of the hall.

It's a nice looking truck - paid in full, to be sure.

There is a video below, and there is also a second video on Youyube. Click to broken arm video the clip tells the whole story of Lee-Anne's broken arm.

It was in late August that I went to interview Lee-Anne White at her home on Road 506 at Fernleigh, which at one time was a full-fledged hamlet with a post office, a store and a school, but is now only a clutch of houses around a crossroad.

I was accompanied by Jesse Mills, the videographer for the Frontenac County 150th anniversary project, and when we arrived Lee-Anne had a bandage on her leg and was limping when she opened the door for us.

“The nurse was just here this morning,” she said, “to change the dressing on my leg.”

She had hurt her leg by dropping a piece of wood on it as she was feeding the box stove in her basement to take off the morning chill a few days earlier. But though her leg was slowing her down, she still had a basin overflowing with bread dough in the kitchen and was de-frosting five pounds of ground beef to make meatballs for a family reunion that was coming up on the weekend.

Aside from her leg, something else was bothering her. Her car, a 2010 model, was in need of some work.

“They tell me that I don't drive it enough. That's why the linkage needs to be fixed and it needs new tires. I haven't told my son yet but I think I'll trade it in on a new one rather than bother with it,” she said.

Lee-Anne Kelford was born at Ompah on January 9, 1915, and this week she turns 100. She remembers the kinds of efforts that were required to survive on the Canadian shield farmland in the days before electricity, cars and other modern conveniences. What money her family made came from her father shoeing horses or milling wood, but most of the food they ate they had either grown, gathered or slaughtered from their own herds of cattle, sheep and pigs. For chairs they used burlap bags stuffed with straw or hay. They went barefoot in the summer and in the winter wore gumboots with homespun yarn straight off the sheep wrapped around them for warmth. When she was coming home from school with her brothers and sisters her mother would meet them with baskets and they had to fill the baskets with wild strawberries or raspberries on the way home. In the spring they would catch hundreds of suckers and salt them for winter eating. In the summer they picked blueberries and apples, worked in the garden and helped harvest hay and grain.

While the large 17-member Kelford family, seven brothers and seven sisters, father and mother and hard-bitten grandmother Jane Kelford, never had a lot of money, they were certainly not the poorest family around

“We were better off than those that were further down the line, I'd say. We always had enough to eat; we had cows and sheep and a big garden and a root cellar and mother was always baking biscuits or something, so we had no complaints,” said Lee Anne.

She still talks about her father's capacity to build things and make things work on their property. Although he could not read or write, he managed to build a steam-powered sawmill, a smithy and whatever the family needed to get by.

However, he may have taken on a bit much when it came to orthopedics.

When Lee-Anne was seven years old she fell out of an apple tree in an old orchard where she was picking apples with her mother. Of course there was no 911 to call. As she recalls it, she had driven the horse-drawn wagon to the orchard while her mother held her baby sister Elsie. Since her arm was broken and the bone was sticking out, her mother popped Elsie on Lee-Anne's lap and tied the baby to her so she wouldn't fall off. Her mother then drove home.

When they got back to Lee-Anne's father's wood and smith shop back at Ompah, he looked at her arm quickly and decided it needed to be set.

So, “he took an old cedar block, about 6 inches long, that was lying around,” in Lee-Anne's words, cut it and augured out the centre, then cut it again and split it to fit her small arm. He put her arm in and tied it together snugly with string, forcing the bone back into place at the same time. The next day her brother Sam got into a fight with another brother, Wyman, and Sam's wrist ended up being broken. Their father set that wrist as well.

The children then had to immerse their arms in a barrel of ice water repeatedly over the next two days, presumably to keep the swelling down. The treatment was successful in both cases - to a point. Lee-Anne was able to use her arm afterwards, but could not raise it all the way up to the top of her head, and her brother developed growths on his wrist.

At the time and to this day, after 93 years have passed, Lee White supports everything her father did that day.

“A neighbour said he should take us to a doctor but there was no doctor close by and we didn't have money to pay for a doctor anyway,” she said.

Her father lived a long life as well. He died at the age of 97 in 1977.

When Lee-Anne was older she took a job at a new lodge on Kashwakamak Lake that was opened up by an Ahr family from the United States. The lodge, which became known as the Fernleigh Lodge, is open to this day. She worked there for seven years, cooking and cleaning for over 100 guests at a time, and in the winters she worked at the Trout Lake Hotel in Ompah.

It was at Fernleigh Lodge that she met her husband, Melvin White, who was a guide in the summer and fall and trapped in the winter time. Melvin was from Plevna, and although he ran away from home at age 16, when the couple got married, Lee-Anne ended up living at Melvin's taking care of Melvin's parents and their farm for at least one winter during the 1930s, when she wasn't drawn back to Ompah to help her own family get by.

Eventually, Melvin was given a one acre piece of land on what is now Road 506 and the Whites built a 23 x 14 foot shack for themselves. Afterwards they built the house where Lee-Anne still lives on the same property (Melvin died in 2009).

“We scratched I tell you, but we never borrowed a cent in our lives. When we were building our house, with help from his half brother and uncle, I said to Melvin I'd rather eat one meal a day than go into debt.”

The couple had three sons, George, Andy and Danny. Lee-Anne ended up taking a job drawing mail from Fernleigh to Cloyne, a job she kept for 38 years.

At her 100th birthday party at the Clar-Mill Hall last Saturday, her sons were all there, as were her grandchildren, daughters-in-law, nieces and nephews and long-time friends. Sitting at the front with her, among the certificates from the governments of Ontario and Canada and one from Queen Elizabeth, was her aunt Agnes, who is 101 and still lives near Ompah. When it came time to take a family picture, both women pulled themselves out of their chairs, even though Agnes recently had an operation, and they walked over to be in the picture.

Back in the summer, we left some of our equipment at Lee-Anne's house when we recorded the interview. When I dropped back to collect it a few days later, I found her leaning into the back seat of her car, reaching over, with a vacuum cleaner going.

“I'm tying to get it ready for sale,” she said.

One thing that Lee White did not do was drive to her own 100th birthday party. The weather was pretty stormy that day so she took a ride from one of her sons. But she insisted that they take her brand new red truck, which they parked just out from the front door of the hall.

It's a nice looking truck - paid in full, to be sure.

There is a video below, and there is also a second video on Youyube. Click to broken arm video the clip tells the whole story of Lee-Anne's broken arm.

Long-time Verona resident, Doug Lovegrove, recalled that when he first moved to Verona in 1980 he became interested in the history of WW1 and in particular, the 146th "Overseas” Battalion, a unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces based in Kingston, Ontario.

The unit was made up of soldiers and officers from the counties of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington and recruiting began in Kingston in late 1915. Recruiting offices were also set up in Tamworth, Enterprise, Flinton and Napanee and recruiting teams also visited many of the hamlets in both counties.

Lovegrove, who served as an electronics technician in the Canadian Army in both the RCEME and the RC SIGS from 1967 until he retired in 1992, said that he became intrigued with the 146th Battalion because “simply put, there was not very much information out there about it.”

Lovegrove began his research five years ago and the results of his efforts are now accessible online in a project he has titled "The 146th Research Project". It is comprised of two parts: the first, a history of WW1 and the 146th battalion and the second a more in-depth look at the estimated 600 to 800 soldiers and officers who were part of it.

While most of Doug's findings have come from information he has gleaned from the internet, a number of local residents have also helped shed light on its individual members after he put an advertisement in this newspaper asking readers for any information they might have.

When interviewed earlier this week Lovegrove said that information about the 146th Battalion in general is scarce due to the fact that the unit was not formed until November 28, 1915 and further, that as soon as the unit arrived in England, its members were absorbed into the many other existing units. “Of the 260 battalions that fought in WW1, only one third are well documented”, he said. “The 146th Battalion was absorbed almost immediately upon its arrival in England. When I started my research only two units, the 95th Battalion and the 12th Reserve were listed as the ones who absorbed members from the 146th, but so far I have found 27 other units where members of the 146th ended up.”

Much of the information about individual soldiers and officers Lovegrove gleaned by searching individual regimental numbers, which offer up information about a soldier's place of birth, the names of his parents, his marital status, sometimes medical information, as well as the unit they were assigned to when they arrived in England, the medals they received, if they were killed in action and where they were buried in Europe or at home. The website includes a listing of memorable dates that outline the battalion's formation in Kingston and its travels from Kingston to Valcartier, Quebec and on to Halifax, where its members boarded the HMT Southland. The ship was part of a large convoy that departed for Liverpool, England on September 27, 1916 and arrived on October, 6, 1916. To date Lovegrove has found 66 pictures of individuals who served in the 146th and has also located 93 gravestone markers, most of them in Europe and some in Canada.

One of Lovegrove's most cherished finds occurred just this past week when he came across the 146th Battalion's colours, which were presented by a Mrs. J. B. Pense on behalf of the citizens of Kingston and deposited immediately after the battalion's departure for England at St. Andrew's Church in Kingston. The colours can now be viewed online and "are a very important historical artifact and represent the insignia of the unit.”

Others important finds are a photo of the entire battalion that he came across online as well as a photo of local soldiers from the unit gathered at the train station in Sharbot Lake, circa 1915. The latter photo hangs in the office of Sharbot Lake resident Marcel Giroux.

For Lovegrove the project remains incomplete and he is still hoping to find out more information that any local residents might possess or know of. The project includes an information request sheet that can filled out for those who either would like information or have information to relate.

Lovegrove's work, it seems, is never ending. Eventually he hopes to create a data base with information about each individual member of the battalion. “There are so many stories that have yet to be told, ” he said.

In wrapping up our interview Lovegrove stressed the importance of the Canadian contribution to WW1. “From a total population of 8 million, 600,000 Canadians served in WW1, which is a huge number and it should be noted that Canada's contribution was recognized by the fact that they were asked to sign the Peace Treaty, which demonstrated the recognition of their incredible efforts and their huge sacrifices.”

To learn more about The 146th Research Project visit www.146battalion.ca and those with any information can email him at “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..” It should also be noted that Doug is the military historian for the Portland District and Area Heritage Society and he also welcomes any information and artifacts in that context as well.

Kim Ondaatje, long time resident and keeper of Blueroof Farm in Bellrock, likely hasn't put paint to canvas in decades, or a least not in the big way she did decades ago. However, a recent trip with her to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queens University, where a retrospective of her paintings hangs until April 5, brought perspective and insight to the career of a formidable Canadian artist whose works hang in galleries and collections all over the world.

The show is a smaller, more compact version of a larger retrospective that was held last year at Museum London in London, Ontario. The Kingston show focuses on the artist’s paintings from three distinct periods.

The first period, her Hill series (1965-1966) focuses on the wilderness of northern Ontario, which Kim was inspired to explore by her industrialist father, who also loved the wild north. These smaller paintings depict locations in Bancroft, Muskoka and Haliburton, places she explored and came to know well as a young adult. Painted with a palette knife these works depict large, moody landforms, hills and shorelines that for Kim represent highly emotional times in her early adult life when she experienced both love and loss. “In these paintings I was letting out my feelings regarding the death of a friend who died in a white water canoeing accident in 1947.” The works represent the artist’s earlier expressionistic tendencies as a young painter but also foretell the compositional style typical of her later work.

The House on Piccadilly Street series (1967-1969) presents a more domestic time in Kim's life, when she was busy setting up her first family home in London, Ontario. The home is the subject for this series, which she painted after the house was renovated, and prior to moving in. In this series she gave up oil paints in favour of acrylics to meticulously render these hauntingly uninhabited interiors, simply titled “Door”, “Furnace”, “Chair”, which show single rooms or sections of rooms, but all devoid of any sign of human life. Still, the paintings offer a certain still tranquility, each beautifully bare and geometrically pleasing in their precise emptiness.

For the artist these works bring back memories of her mother, who set up her family’s numerous homes as perfect domestic settings, places so careful and regal that Kim recalls being afraid of breaking things when she would visit them with her dogs and children. “This series of the Piccadilly House pictures are about the way western society emulates perfection and symmetry and lifelessness. As you see there are no signs of life in these paintings, which is very different from Blueroof, where I live now and which is overflowing with life."

Both of these earlier series foreshadow the compositional qualities of Ondaatje’s Factory series (1970-1974), works that question the environmental impacts of big industry. These expansive works depicting some of Ontario’s largest factories, like Carlings on the 401 and the Lake Ontario Cement Factory in Prince Edward County are austerely beautiful in their masterful draftsmanship and subtle colouring, while simultaneously addressing their negative impacts on the environment. They depict the formal architectural landscapes of big industry typical in those decades, structures and related objects that are placed in what appear to be inaccessible landscapes, places that seem cut off from the living world yet which possess an austere beauty of their own.

These canvases definitely hold surprises for those who have never seen them in person. In “Carlings on 401” for example, a barely noticeable lumpy section of the canvas higher up depicts a small jet plane, soaring straight up perpendicular to the painting’s horizon line, a daring and inventive add on by the artist that is so subtle it fails to appear on the postcard-sized reproduction advertising the show; yet somehow it seems to foreshadow a dubious future. The show includes other noteworthy stand-alone works, including a painting of the artist as a young girl and also a short film made by the artist in conjunction with the Factory series that puts her huge behemoth factory spaces into the world of real time.

To view a collection of work by a mature artist, one who at age 86 has had decades to reflect on her past work, is a real treat and it was made more special in the company of Kim who never fails to impress with her generous reflections on the people, places and events that inspired her work, and that still fully engage her youthful heart and mind.

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located at 36 University Avenue in Kingston. Admission is free on Thursdays. For more information and hours call 613-533-2190.

Bob Taylor runs a fresh fruit and vegetable stand in Northbrook during the summer and fall these days, but he has done a lot of other things, and is known for the years during which he was associated with ambulance service in the northern half of Lennox and Addington County.

Less well known is his connection to WW2. Bob was born at the end of June in 1943, near the town of Stirling, a long way from the war, but that war had already taken a toll on him. His father, Robert Taylor, died in a plane crash during a training run near Scredington, England, on June 18, 1943, one week before Bob was born

Bob was raised by his grandparents, as his mother was working when he was young and eventually re-married. “My grandparents were wonderful and always kind and helpful to me, so I have no complaints about that,” he said. Although he was sent to New Brunswick, where his father's family was from, at about six years old, Bob had already made attachments in Ontario and he soon returned.

His grandmother died in 1955, and he stayed with his grandfather through his teenage years.

Although he knew of the circumstances of his father's death, it wasn't until last year that he visited Scredington, where the accident took place, to participate in a ceremony in a 13th Century church in which a plaque was dedicated.

“It was pretty overwhelming visiting the site, participating in the commemoration, and being treated as if I was royalty the whole time,” he said.

As part of the events, there was a flypast of one of the few remaining Lancaster Bombers, the same plane that went down on that June day in 1943.

Nine soldiers were in that plane, two more than a normal complement. Flight Sergeant Robert Taylor was the rear gunner with a new crew, and because it was a training mission he was basically along for the ride on the flight but, all crew members participated in training missions.

He had survived 50 bombing missions over enemy territory, a rare feat in itself (22743 soldiers died in combat missions flying in Lancaster bombers between 1942 and 1944 and 44% of the fleet ended up going down) He was in training in a plane that was set to be a Pathfinder, planes that flew just above treetops and lit up targets for bombing missions.

According to his son, because the anti-aircraft guns were trained on the bombers, the chances of survival in a Pathfinder were significantly better.

“He likely would have survived the war as a Pathfinder, but that was not to be,” said Bob Taylor.

By remaining in contact with his New Brunswick grandparents, uncles and aunts, Taylor learned some details about his father.

“My grandfather was renowned as a hard-working man, He built a very successful dairy farm, but my grandmother was much more social. Apparently my father took after his mother. He had a rare skill. He could smell a day’s work and disappear like a Houdini,” he said.

While he was in England for the ceremony, it brought some of the physical reality of his father's last day home to him, and he even brought a souvenir, of sorts, back to Northbrook.

“Someone pulled up a piece of twisted metal from the ground near the crash site. The paint on the bottom was the same as the non-reflective black paint on the bottom of the Lancasters, so it only makes sense that it was from the plane,” he said.

The metal is attached to a plaque to his father that Taylor brought home from England.

He is currently working on a book about his father's life and death.

Cutline

Bob Taylor holding a plaque to his father that was presented to him in England.