Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

Derailments and crashes have been an unfortunate part of railroading since the very beginning of that technology. Fortunately, they are quite rare.Ěý

Wellington County has suffered its share of them during the century and a half that they have been operating here. A few locations, though, seemed to suffer more than their share of them.

The vanished hamlet of Gourock in Guelph Township, and the stretch of track north of Marden, torn up in 1989, are two locations that have seen multiple incidents. But leading them by a wide margin is the stretch of track between Guelph and Rockwood, and particularly the stretch immediately east of the Guelph city limits.

That line was built by the Grand Trunk Railway as a section of its main line from Toronto to Sarnia, and opened as far as Guelph in 1856. Specifications called for high quality work and good drainage.Ěý

The contractors, a firm headed by Casimir Gzowski and A.T. Galt, son of the founder of the Royal City, executed the work well. In the early years it was spared the frequent derailments and crashes due to broken rails and heaving roadbed that plagued cheaply built lines.

During the 1860s there were three fatal accidents near Rockwood, though none involved trains. The track was the straightest and shortest route between Rockwood and Guelph, and it was free of the mud that made the roads of the 1860s quagmires in the spring and fall of each year.

Consequently, many people used the track as a walking trail. A bridge over a road west of Rockwood had widely spaced ties between the rails. At night, this resulted in a pitfall for pedestrians, who would step into thin air and fall to the roadway below.

Dr. Thomas Parker was a Guelph doctor who was also the MP for Centre Wellington. On Oct. 18, 1867 he was called to visit a sick child in Rockwood. He had intended to stay there the night, but changed his plans, announcing that he would walk back to Guelph that night. Aware of the dangerous bridge, which was virtually invisible in the darkness and had already resulted in the deaths of two men, he told the parents that he would take the road.

After a short distance he changed his mind due to the mud, and headed for the tracks. Neighbouring farmers found him, semi conscious and unable to move, under the bridge the next morning. Dr. Parker died from internal injuries six days later. The Grand Trunk subsequently added additional ties to the trackage on the bridge to prevent further deaths.

Less than a year later there was a major derailment farther west, near the town limits of Guelph, and near what is now Victoria Road. The locomotive of a freight train jumped the tracks and rolled down the embankment. The momentum of the train smashed a half dozen freight cars, scattering merchandise everywhere. One of the cars was filled with brown sugar, and word soon got around. Half the schoolboys in Guelph swarmed over the wreck to get some of the sugar. The astute ones took some sugar home, to placate mothers who had warned them to stay away from the wreck.

The 1868 wreck did not result in major injuries, but it did tie up what was then the Grand Trunk’s main line for two days.

A far more serious wreck occurred 11 years later, half way between Guelph and Rockwood, and within sight of Maloney’s Tavern on the York Road. Somehow, train orders got mixed up or ignored. On the afternoon of Sept. 26 an eastbound freight train, with 15 loaded cars, left Guelph at the same time as another freight train, with about 20 cars, pulled out of Rockwood westbound. A sharp curve in the track obscured vision, and the trains crews did not see danger ahead until it was too late.

The trains were travelling at about 20 miles per hour, but those were the days before air brakes, and stopping a train took more time than there was available.Ěý

The engineers pushed their locomotives into reverse, yanked the whistle cords in desperation, then jumped, as did all the other crew members. One brave brakeman on the eastbound jumped to the tops of the cars and applied the handbrakes on each car, and barely escaped injury when the trains hit one another.

The long whistle blasts from two directions emptied the tavern, and a good half dozen men witnessed the crash. All said that the locomotives seemed to heave at one another like a couple of monstrous animals. Freight cars, made mostly of wood, crashed into one another and splintered into kindling.

About a dozen cars were destroyed, along with most of the freight, including a full carload of crockery immediately behind the westbound engine. Moments after the impact the boiler of one of the locomotives exploded with an earth-shaking boom, scattering pieces of metal in all directions. A piece of one engine, with the entire smokestack attached, sailed between 200 and 300 yards.

Bravely and somewhat foolishly, the crews and bystanders started to salvage what they could. They got most of the flour out of two boxcars, and some barrels of coal oil out of another. By then, the locomotives had set fire to the debris, and the flames soon reached another car of coal oil, shipped from Col. Nathan Higinbotham’s refinery in Guelph. Soon the conflagration outdid the best May 24 bonfire.

As the flames advanced, a crew member noticed a man wedged between the sixth and seventh cars of the eastbound train. Racing against the advancing flames, rescuers hacked away with axes to extricate him. The man was a tramp who had been noticed in Guelph the previous day. He gave his name as George Brackett of Jefferson, Iowa.

The train crews put him on an improvised stretcher and took him to Guelph. He died a few days later of massive internal injuries.

Cleanup work began before the fire had burned out. Both locomotives had been wrecked beyond repair; the Grand Trunk cannibalized their carcasses for spare parts.Ěý

Officials put the loss that afternoon at about $75,000, equivalent to at least three million in today’s dollars. The train crews and the agents at Guelph and Rockwood had a lot of explaining to do over the mixed up orders that day.

A few decades ago pieces of crockery could still be found at the site. No doubt there are still plenty of them for those who know where to look.

A quarter century passed before there was another major crash on this line. At 1:45am on the morning of April 9, 1904, two freight trains collided head on at what was known as Trainor’s Cut, about a mile and a half east of Guelph. The cause, like that in the 1879 wreck, was a mix-up in orders.

(Next week: A flurry of train wrecks)

*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Feb. 4, 2005.

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It’s his domain and as such he is particular, fussy and bossy. Such a Leo (I say that with love, but like, chill out dude).Ěý

But what kind of partner would I be if I didn’t offer to help? This rural property is our home and our business. We’re in this together. Besides, I’m not a fair weather gal. I’m borderline handy.Ěý

Okay, well, at least I’m super helpful. Did I mention keen?Ěý Positive too. Put me in, coach.

I’m not sure if it was a sympathy-vote-of-confidence, or an “anything to make you leave me alone” chore, but the Carpenter delegated to me a task that even I couldn’t mess up: raking. (Or could I?)

I’m on day three of this task. Day three. We don’t even cut the grass and I’m still out there making mini piles, like little hay stacks. Raking affords me a dangerous amount ofĚý time to think.

It brings to mind a university English class where we learned about the four stages of conflict in a plot: person vs. person; person vs. self; person vs. society, and person vs. nature. Raking brings about all of these conflicts. Let’s discuss.

The Carpenter gave me this task as a test. I’ll be darned if I’m quitting this exercise though. The Carpenter wants me to. I know he does.Ěý

It’s a twisted game we play with one another. Truth or dare. Is it true you can’t handle manual labour? I dare you to try. And for reasons I’m sure a therapist would have a field day with, I’m as determined as ever to prove myself not only capable, but exceptional. Person vs. person. Kelly gets a gold star.

Raking is boring. It just is. Same thing over and over. Person vs. self. So I have to get creative. I draft stories in my mind. I psycho-anayze my life choices. I converse with the chickens, who show up to kick my grass piles about. I secretly believe they like the Carpenter more than me and he’s sent them out to disrupt my progress. He would. They would.Ěý

Nothing bugs me more than, well, the bugs. This brings me to person vs. nature. I don’t know what those tiny bugs are that fly directly into the corners of your eyes, dart into your mouth and sometimes, wander up your nostrils, but they make raking most unpleasant. Bug spray isn’t a deterrent for these flying tyrants, it’s more of a dare.Ěý

I spend a good deal of time slapping myself, or making frantic hand gestures to move these creatures away from my face, but that just encourages them to bite. Long sleeves, long pants, long socks in high boots, a tight hood and gloves; sexy. Suddenly, I miss January.

Person vs. society in relation to raking is easy. People are very judgy about other people’s lawns. We are oddly obsessed with grass – ours and everyone else’s. It’s all about appearances. If anyone drove up the lane and saw me flailing my arms in self-defence, they’d judge.Ěý

The struggle is real, guys.Ěý

Ah, but the lawn looks great. It really does. I love this place. Until Thursday when we get to do this all over again.

I wish you a happy, safe Victoria Day long weekend, everyone.Ěý

Rake in the fun.

The post Rake appeared first on Wellington Advertiser.

You might argue they did, but let’s skip the metaphysical karma stuff and head straight to the heart of the matter, which is this: for all the credit the Carpenter and I get for raising these two beautiful, kind, smart, compassionate and hilarious people, what I really want to say is, thank you for doing such an incredible job raising me.Ěý

See, they don’t tell you that motherhood isn’t just about raising children. Sure, it was my role to deliver them into the world (a story neither of them likes to hear because of my propensity for graphic detail). Yes, I made a commitment to provide for them, nurture them, guide and protect them. Check. Check. Check and check. Yet, as much as I shaped their future, my children redefined mine.

In all the ways that matter, we grew up together. The things I thought I knew about life before their arrival, the lessons I thought I’d learned, the hurts I thought I’d healed, and the achievements I’d achieved were no longer benchmarks for success.Ěý

Nothing could have prepared me for the role of motherhood. Being responsible for another human life while also managing my own was nothing short of a fast-track apprenticeship turned CEO. Seriously, if there was a job description for motherhood, I don’t know if I’d pass the job interview.

From the minute we met in person, my children taught me to trust the power of my intuition. If I felt something was wrong, I was right. Gut instinct. I could sense things in my children that I couldn’t even sense in myself. It’s a sixth sense thing. That lesson helped me develop another skill: to speak up. When it came to advocating for my children, I found my voice without hesitation or doubt. Advocating for a child with autism is exhausting. It just is, especially if it’s a girl. Don’t get me started. All mothers of exceptional children relate.

Watching my daughter navigate school and social situations was, without question, some of the hardest moments of my motherhood journey, yet this is where she taught me the power of perseverance and self confidence. My daughter’s challenges would eventually become her wins. Kids that don’t fit in the box come into our lives to challenge our notions of what’s “normal.” They are game changers. They are teachers. They are healers. Especially for their moms.

Raising a son for whom school was easy but his teen years were nothing short of harrowing, taught me that you have to find a way to hold on and let go of your children at the same time. I had to trust his character was stronger than the will to fit in, and that eventually, he’d find his true north. Seeing him come into his own sense of self is empowering. His humour is dark, his compassion for others is light, his loyalty is sincere and his integrity guides him just fine. He has taught me about resilience, the kind that gets you through the hardest days. Remarkable.

My children raised me to be a better version of myself. They taught me the sacred art of letting go and holding on simultaneously.Ěý

Unconditional love makes sense now. Grateful.

The post Raised appeared first on Wellington Advertiser.

Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

(This is the conclusion of a series on Hugh Templin, the legendary Fergus editor).

The years between 1938 and 1942 brought many satisfactions to Hugh Templin.Ěý

He had spent the 1930s campaigning for flood control and conservation in the Grand River watershed. With construction proceeding on the Shand Dam, at the location he championed, he had reason to feel satisfaction.

Templin had no time for reflection. As frequently happened in his life, other events overtook him. In March 1939, his father, John C. Templin, died at 69 after a lengthy and losing battle with heart disease. Though Hugh had been effectively running the paper for years, he now assumed the title of publisher and editor of the Fergus News Record.

Whenever possible, he continued to indulge his passion for photography. He was one of the first in the area to experiment with Kodachrome colour film in the late 1930s, and about the same time he acquired an 8mm movie camera. Some of his work from this period has survived, and is a now a valuable historical resource.

More important, in the larger scheme of things, was the Second World War. At 43, and with a heart condition, Templin was unfit for enlistment, but he contributed to the war effort with his editorials, and with several series of articles.

In August 1940, he toured Camp Borden. Several papers picked up the resulting story. In May 1941, with a group of weekly editors, he toured defence plants in the Hamilton area. The articles he produced ran in papers across the province.

Later that summer, he visited five air force bases, all participating in the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association syndicated his resulting series in papers across Canada.

Templin’s most important series came in the fall of 1941. The Canadian Press decided to send a dozen editors and reporters from across the country to England, to view and report on preparations for the invasion of the continent. Templin was the only weekly newspaperman invited, and one of only three from Ontario.

The tour put him in stratified company. Joining him from Ontario were B.K. Sandwell, the legendary editor of Saturday Night, and Gratton O’Leary, the fiery editor of the Ottawa Journal.

After weeks of delays, the group left by plane from New York on Sept. 16. The trip was scheduled for three weeks, but various emergencies and difficulties, including air raids, delayed their return until the end of October 1941.

Templin’s riveting series on the trip, “Britain and Europe at War,” was syndicated in more than 500 papers, reaching an audience estimated at over three million. While in London, Templin broadcast a report transmitted to Canada over the CBC radio network.

Back at home, there were other problems to deal with. The newspaper office had been operating with six employees. One by one, they enlisted, and Templin had to scramble to find replacements and train them. 91´ó»ĆŃĽ volumes dropped, with a consequent adverse effect on the bottom line.

Through the 1930s and early 1940s, Templin had written a full page of editorials, totalling some 3,500 words, almost every week. With the pressure of other work, he had to cut this back to a half page, and omit it entirely when he was away in Europe. To fill space, he had to resort to syndicated material. And then he had to contend with paper rationing, resulting in a four-page newspaper.

Despite the struggles publishing a paper in wartime, Templin still took on new projects. In 1944, at the insistence of Arthur Ford, editor of the London Free Press, he agreed to sit on a committee to establish a school of journalism at the University of Western Ontario. The committee worked quickly, and had the courses prepared in time to accept the first students in September 1945.

Hugh Templin crowned his work with the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association by serving as president for the 1945-46 year. The duties involved numerous speaking engagements, as well as administrative work.

The crowning acknowledgment of Templin’s work as a newspaperman and conservationist came in 1946, when the University of Western Ontario awarded him an honorary degree. Dr. Hugh Templin maintained his connections with the university by serving on its board of governors.

Back at the office, Dr. Templin was able to settle down at long last to a regular routine. His full pages of editorials resumed, and he continued to compose them at the linotype machine, setting his words directly into type with neither editing nor corrections.

After the war, the third generation of the family entered the business, when Hugh’s sons, Peter and Bill, joined the staff.

Though still in his early 50s, Canadian journalists regarded Hugh Templin as the dean of weekly newspapermen. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the News Record ranked as the most quoted weekly in Canada. Profiles of him appeared in the Financial Post and the Toronto dailies, but he remained modest, describing himself as the editor “of an average country weekly, with a circulation of 1,600, and devoting itself entirely to news and opinions of the town and district.”

By the late 1950s, Hugh Templin started to slow down. He took on no new special projects or causes, but remained a consistent advocate for conversation. Bill Templin took over part of the editorial page on a regular basis.

Economic conditions became harder for weekly papers by 1960. Some advertisers deserted the papers in favour of flyers. Templin had difficulty in maintaining a network of correspondence that had once showered readers with rural news. Perhaps most important was changing technology. The News Record did printing as a sideline, but by 1960 this business started to move to firms offering offset printing, which was cheaper and could be done easily in colour.

Though his great years as an editor were over, fame and honours continued. Templin received dozens of invitations each year to speak to various groups and societies. A surprise came at the Fergus Fall Fair in 1961. Premier Leslie Frost opened the event, and in his remarks, praised Templin as “the father of conservation in Ontario.”

Peter Templin left the business in 1961 to go to teachers’ college and a new career. He had earned a mathematics degree in 1946, but had spent the next 15 years with the production department of the paper, and taking occasional reporting assignments.

On Jan. 29, 1962, Hugh Templin went to the regular meeting of the Fergus Service Club. Soon after he got home, he collapsed. Fortunately, he lived close to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed a stroke. They did all they could, but the old editor did not regain consciousness for four days.

Miraculously, he was able to recover, regaining most of his functions over the following months. It was a trying time for him. He had difficulty concentrating on reading, and he discovered, to his dismay, that he detested television.

“That Inside Page,” Hugh Templin’s famous editorial offerings, returned to the paper in September 1962, though in a much-reduced size. He struggled on with his duties for another year, during which he realized that it would be necessary to move to offset technology to keep the paper viable.

Concluding that he could not deal with the changeover himself, he decided to sell the paper to Charles Davis, publisher of the Elmira Signet. The new proprietor took over in December 1963, with Hugh Templin maintaining duties until the end of the year.

Moving quickly, Fergus citizens put together a testimonial dinner for him, under the auspices of the Fergus Service Club, the Businessmen’s Association, and the Chamber of Commerce (of which Templin had been founding president). Even with short notice, more than 200 attended. Dr. W.A. Young took the chair, and there were short addresses from a dozen editors. Guests came from as far as Winnipeg. Others sent regrets. By coincidence, the night was the 40th anniversary of Hugh Templin’s editorship of the News Record.

Though the paper had left Templin family ownership after 61 years, Bill Templin remained as editor for six years before leaving Fergus for other opportunities.

Nominally retired, Hugh Templin continued to write, offering “Mostly Gossip” to News Record readers, and “Country Editor” to the K-W Record. These pieces, unfortunately, were not his best work. He had plans to revise and update his 1933 history of Fergus, but was never able to concentrate on the task. By 1969, his health started to fail badly, and he had to abandon writing altogether.

Hugh Templin’s condition deteriorated so badly that he had to be admitted to Groves Hospital in July 1970. The life of Wellington County’s greatest editor ended there on Oct. 14, 1970, at the age of 74.

*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on May 2, 2003.

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Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

(This is the second part of the story of the Templin family of Fergus).

When the 28-year-old Hugh Templin settled into the editor’s chair at the beginning of 1924, he had found his life’s work. He would guide the News Record for the next 40 years, but the main themes of his career became evident within months.

Hugh Templin immediately put his stamp on the newspaper. The masthead listed him as assistant editor, but no one believed it; the pages had a livelier tone and more attractive appearance than they ever had before.Ěý

Personally, he grew a tooth-brush mustache that made him look older and sterner than he was.

One of Hugh’s first improvements was a set of column headings, using his pen-and-ink sketches. Many people do not realize that Hugh Templin had significant artistic talent.Ěý

He preferred pen-and-ink sketches and vignettes for column headings. Those provided visual impact in a newspaper that had no capacity to print in colour.

Professionally, Hugh Templin became active in the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, and quickly developed dozens of friendships with editors across the country. In 1926, the News Record won an award as “The most interesting Weekly in Canada.”

Templin had authored editorials since 1918, when he lived in Toronto. Back in Fergus, he expanded the editorial column to include scattered news items and sundry observations, written in a chatty style. The length swelled beyond the customary editorial column, and normally occupied a half page of space. He labelled it “That Inside Page.”

In addition to the editorial pieces, Templin covered meetings of Fergus 91´ó»ĆŃĽ and Wellington County 91´ó»ĆŃĽ, plus various other political meetings in town. He turned his hobbies into editorial features. First was “Of Interest to Radio Listeners,” beginning in 1924. As a sideline, he and his father, John C., sold De Forest-Crosley radios at the News Record office.

Other hobby-type columns followed; a photography series in 1925, an automotive column in 1929, and a rose and horticulture column in 1932.

In the 1920s, Hugh Templin displayed a feistiness that, in later years, diminished considerably. Though the Beatty family totally dominated Fergus in the 1920s, Hugh was not intimidated by them and, on more than one occasion, opposed the Beatty brothers editorially. Over time, the two sides developed a mature respect for one another.

The same could not be said of county 91´ó»ĆŃĽ meetings. Templin was appalled at the way the body operated, and at the way they dealt with public finances. He went so far in 1928 as to run a series describing the worst examples he encountered, and concluded by calling for the abolition of county 91´ó»ĆŃĽs altogether.Ěý

County 91´ó»ĆŃĽlors were livid. They were unaccustomed to being covered at all, and several of them considered themselves above criticism. The Toronto dailies and weekly newspapers all over Ontario covered Templin’s proposals, and his difficulties with the county. The affair added to his reputation as an important newsman and editor.

Hugh Templin had studied modern history at university. Early in 1924, he began a series on local history, initially titled “Historical Notes About Fergus and Vicinity.”

The mid-1920s saw a flowering of local history in Wellington, and Templin was a central figure. Arthur Wright, editor of the Confederate, had just published “Pioneer Days in Nichol,” and was at work on his history of Mount Forest.Ěý

American-born Dr. A.E. Byerly had opened his medical practice in Fergus in 1921, and immediately became a collector and compiler of Wellington County history.

Templin studied old documents and minute books in detail, something most local historians had not previously done. His first historical series ended early in 1925, but he renewed it in 1926. Subsequently, he penned occasional historical pieces as long as he controlled the newspaper. The News Record published Dr. Byerly’s first Wellington County articles before the doctor moved to Guelph in 1924.

Equally significant was an article by John Connon, which Templin published in two parts in March 1925. It was a biography of John McLean, the Labrador explorer, who had spent his last years in Elora. Connon had commenced his history of Elora before 1900, and a portion had been serialized in the Elora Express.

Connon stopped work in 1909 after the death of his mother. He had written a few pieces since then, for several magazines and newspapers, but mostly for the London Free Press, which he then circulated widely in Wellington. Connon was a local correspondent.

Though Connon was more than 30 years older than Templin, the two became close friends. To the surprise of everyone, Hugh Templin persuaded Connon to resume work on his book in 1926. Portions appeared in the News Record, set in double-column type that Templin reused to print the pages of the book. The Elora Express had done the same 20 years earlier, and Connon had the printed pages for 400 copies in storage.

The final section ran in the newspaper in December 1930. Templin sent all the pages, including a selection of Connon’s photographs, to a binder at his own expense. The first 100 copies of the History of Elora arrived just before Christmas and the balance just two days before Connon died. It was a risky investment for Templin, and several years passed before he was able to sell all the books.

With Connon’s work out of the way, Templin began printing a local history series by Dr. Byerly in 1931. With interest growing at this point in the coming centennial of Fergus in 1933, he resumed intensive historical work on his own.Ěý

The result, after a final marathon of work was Fergus; The story of a Little Town. Stylistically, it is the finest local Wellington County history of that period.

As well, Templin treated his subject in the form a continuous biography, rather than a collection of topical chapters or brief biographies of settlers, which was the fashion of his contemporaries.

Unfortunately, that would be Hugh Templin’s only major work in local history. It wasn’t that he lost interest, but that other events overtook him.

In the late 1920s, Templin developed a close friendship with Robert Kerr, the pipe-smoking tinsmith, who was the first in the Fergus area to study the Grand River system closely. Kerr had no training whatever in science, but his observations and reading made him an environmentalist, and a true eccentric in the eyes of most people.

Together, Kerr and Templin tramped for miles along the river, noting everything, and observing changes from year to year. In October 1930, he published an editorial calling for the expropriation of all the privately owned land along the Elora Gorge, and the establishment of a provincial park. His comments were widely quoted, but he had to wait more than 20 years to see the first steps taken to create Elora Gorge Park.

In 1931, Templin moved into high gear, with several columns on flooding problems and environmental deterioration on the Grand. During the summer of that year, he and Bob Kerr accompanied a provincial engineer on a walking survey of the Grand. The resulting report called for a flood control dam near Belwood.

For the next decade, barely an issue of the News Record came off the press without a Templin piece on the Grand River. Cycles of drought and flooding in the mid-1930s pushed flood control to the top of the agenda. A significant event was the formation of the Grand River Conservation Commission in 1936. Hugh Templin sat as the Fergus representative.

Flood control on the Grand River moved forward, but at an agonizing pace. Engineers initially proposed dams near West Montrose and Waldemar in East Garafraxa.Ěý

In late 1938 Hugh Templin convinced them that a much better site could be found at Concession 3 of West Garafraxa. The decision to proceed came in 1939. The official opening of the Shand Dam came on Aug. 7, 1942.

It was the culmination of a phase in Templin’s career, and one of the proudest moments in his life.

Next week: the final years.

*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on April 25, 2003.

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