LPS Students Recognize, Remember and Respect   

Wilma Kenny | Jun 16, 2021

It seemed a pretty heavy assignment to give to grade one students: a Social Studies project asking them to research, illustrate and report on historical people or buildings in their community.

Teacher Sharon Isbell was delighted by the results, which several of her students agreed to share with the Frontenac News via their internet school connection.

Lilly chose to interview her great-grandparents, Audrey and John Sortberg. She learned how they had begun as dairy farmers, taking their milk to a small cheese factory in Hartington, and later to the Condenser in Sydenham, where Foodland now stands. Her grandfather told of the Brawleys' feed store in Sydenham, and of the man running it, who was called “Tricky.”

Like most farmers, John Sortberg held other jobs, at various times driving school bus, caretaking a cemetery, and working at Hillside garage. He was also a volunteer firefighter, and both Sortbergs taught Sunday school in the red brick church in Hartington. 

Charlie’s curiosity about bits of mica in his backyard led to his researching the trains that once ran behind his home on what is now the Cataraqui Trail. He had a picture of the impressive Sydenham train station, built in 1884.  

Rylinn’s project was about St Paul’s Anglican Church in Sydenham. She said the original 1837 stone church was in the path of the new train tracks through Sydenham. As a result the whole church was pulled down to make way for the train and rebuilt in the village on its present site, in 1912. Rylinn made a brilliantly coloured multi-media representation of St Paul’s.

Emmett, dressed as a superhero, showed his reconstruction of the original part of Loughborough Public School, built in 1915 and recreated with a hot glue gun and lots of coloured paper. He also spoke of the earlier Sydenham Public School, a stone building which stood where the most recent addition to SHS is located.

Jacob built Sydenham One Stop, complete with lots of vehicles, gas tanks and a superhero; a good place for ice cream and candies.

Bryce showed his drawing of Parham Methodist Church, which his great-great Grandfather Hamilton helped build.  

Another girl, Charlie, told of how she enjoyed visiting the graveyard with her mother, to place flowers on her great grandparents’ graves. While there, she liked to tidy up around the other gravestones, picking up flowers that had blown over, and pulling grass and weeds. 

What began as a school project became a family event with parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents taking part and the young students learning research skills that may be useful in many life situations.