Nets, Fish, and Fences - help identify these mystery photographs! #TBT

P10707 Young woman along a fence. Nets drying, looks like a riddle (wriggle) fence to the left.

The Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place (MMaP) at Memorial University is putting the final touches on a website dedicated to the folksongs collected by MacEdward Leach between 1949 and 1951 across Newfoundland and in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We need your help to identify the people in his photo collection!

Please contact Gale at leach@mun.ca or comment below. We'll update captions here if we find out more information.

P10756 Older couple ready for an evening out (or church?). Love that bowtie!

P10777 Sailor in doorway. Note fish drying above roof.

You are invited to the Georgestown Scanning and Mapping Party!

Georgestown Scanning and Mapping Party
Tuesday, May 14th at 7:00 p.m. at the Lantern.
35 Barnes Rd, St. John's, NL A1C 3X1

Did you grow up on Barnes Road or Maxse Street? Did you hang out at Rawlins Cross, or shop at W.J. Murphy’s? Did someone in your family own one of the old Georgestown shops? If you did, and have photos of any of those things, the Georgestown Neighbourhood Association and Heritage NL’s Intangible Cultural Heritage office would love to see your snaps!

Of interest are old photos of the neighbourhood, anywhere from the 1880s to the 1980s. Photos could be family snapshots, old photos showing parties, games or sporting events, cars decorated for weddings, or of any of the old shops and stores that once dotted the area.

In addition, there will be large maps available to mark the location of informal place names and neighbourhood landmarks, everything from sweet shops and barbers to dance studios and that special spot where you met with your buddies, where you played certain games, or brought your special friend.

“We want to see those photos Nan kept in the old biscuit tin in the closet,” says folklorist Dale Jarvis with Heritage NL. “Sometimes photographs from the 1970s and ‘80s include things like storefronts or shop signs that are now long gone, so even if they aren’t ancient, they can still help us document changes to the neighbourhood.”

Heritage NL staff will be on site to scan the photographs and ask questions about who or what is in the photo. If you bring your own USB flash drive, you can take home a digital copy as well as your original photographs.

Photos will also be shared online with the owner’s permission, and a copy will be uploaded to Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative, which is indexed and archived for history buffs everywhere.

Questions? Call Dale Jarvis at 1-888-739-1892 x2 or email dale@heritagenl.ca

Facebook event listing right here.

Photo of the Newfoundland Brewery Ltd colourized by http://www.thephotomender.com

Deborah Strong Squires's Rolling Pin, Sibley's Cove. #FoodwaysFriday

Last week, we posted a photo of a handmade rolling pin from Portugal Cove, and asked if anyone had one similar.  Florence Button of Carbonear responded with the photo above of a rolling pin that had belonged to her Great-Grandmother, Deborah Strong Squires.  Deborah was born 1833 at Old Perlican, and she and husband Charles later moved to Sibley's Cove.

Deborah Strong Squires passed away in 1920, but Florence didn't know of the rolling pin until she received it a year ago. Today, it is one of her most precious possessions, even if she cannot use it because of the split along the side.

Florence also sent along this fantastic photo of her GreatGranny Deborah, with two of Florence's late Aunties, taken a year or so before Deborah passed.  Pearl Squires is on her lap; Annie is standing.

Do you have an heirloom kitchen tool that you still use? Send us a pic and a story, and we'll share it in an upcoming #FoodwaysFriday post!

email: dale@heritagenl.ca

Living Heritage Podcast Ep150 Till the streetlight comes on

We are starting a new virtual museums project with our partners in the historic town of Bay Roberts. In this episode, we talk about the places and stories that make Bay Roberts special, and ask for your help in identifying locations of folkloric and historic interest in the community.

First up, we talk about children's games and Cable Avenue verandahs in an interview with best friends Wanda and Roxanne, and then sit down for a chat with Sandra Roach of Coley's Point, and Margaret Ayad of Bay Roberts. Listen to the end, and you might pick up some tips on staying safe from the fairies!

• Download the mp3

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The Living Heritage Podcast is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio. Past episodes are hosted on Libsyn, and you can subscribe via iTunes, or Stitcher. Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Spinning and Stables - help identify these mystery photos #TBT

P10702 Woman #2 posing with spinning wheel

Do you recognize this person? Please help us put a name to these faces!

The Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place (MMaP) at Memorial University is putting the final touches on a website dedicated to the folksongs collected by MacEdward Leach between 1949 and 1951 across Newfoundland and in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We need your help to identify the people in his photo collection!

Please contact Gale at leach@mun.ca or comment below. We'll update captions here if we find out more information.

P10732 Woman #1 posing with spinning wheel 

P10771 Preparing to ride horse drawn cart

P10772 Two women and a man posing with horse and cart 

A handmade wooden rolling pin from St. Philips. Do you own something similar? #FoodwaysFriday

Today's #FoodwaysFriday photo comes to us courtesy of Kim Ploughman. This hand-made wooden rolling pin once belonged to Edna Picco of Witchhazel Road in St. Philips, who passed away in 1995. The maker is unknown, but we'd love to know if you have something similar. Do you have an heirloom wooden kitchen tool that you still use? Send us a pic or story, and we'll share it!

email: dale@heritagenl.ca

Remembering 1942 - An account of the U-boat torpedoing at Bell Island

SS Saganaga

"Running to my sister's bedroom window which overlooked the eastern portion of the tickle, I arrived there before the debris flung in the air had settled back upon the water. The Rose Castle, deeply laden with her heavy cargo of iron ore was mortally wounded, but after only a few seconds she was hit by a second torpedo, tearing her apart in a blinding flash, and with bow and stern sticking almost vertically in the air she quickly vanished beneath the surface." 

- Lloyd C. Rees 

New on our website is a first-hand account of the torpedoing of the ore carriers S.S. Saganaga and the S.S. Lord Strathcona by U-boat 513 in the waters off Lance Cove, Sept. 5, 1942, and the similar dispatching of the PLM 27 and the S.S. Rose Castle by U-518 in the same location the following November 2nd.  It was written by the late Lloyd C. Rees, and we've been working with his daughter Catherine Rees to get it ready for re-publication. It has originally been posted online in 1999, but a few pages were missing. We've added it to our Field Notes series, and included a new introduction by Catherine, placing the work of her father in context.

You can read the full account here.

Or  download the pdf.

Looking for more info on the Adler Chocolate Factory, Bay Roberts

Atlantic Advocate, vol. 49, no. 08 (April 1959)

Candy and Chocolates 

The Adler Company... is the chocolate firm which is now also making hard candies. People who have visited this operation have all come away with the same impression about the cleanliness of the plant. It is spotless just as a food plant should be, no doubt it is a shining example of how clean a food-manufacturing concern can be. The plant is geared to greater output than at present and can produce tons of chocolates and candy every week. All ingredients are mixed by machinery so that the human hand does not come in contact at any tune with the product. The female help a!1 wear smocks and head and hand coverings. The Adler firm is now contemplating the erection of a potato-chip plant adjacent to the chocolate factory.

From:  The Newfoundland Journal of Commerce 1956-08, Vol. 23, No. 08 page 7 

As part of our new Carved by the Sea project to record stories about sites of folkloric and historic interest in Bay Roberts, we'd love to hear some of your memories of Adler's chocolates! If you remember the plant, the candies themselves, or the radio ads, leave a reply below, or send me an email at dale@heritagenl.ca

The Carved by the Sea project: What is your favourite place in Bay Roberts?

Advertisement for the short lived Adler chocolate factory in Bay Roberts. Opened in 1956, closed in 1960.

This morning Dale, and I headed to Bay Roberts for a meeting with Marilyn Dawe, of the Bay Roberts Heritage Advisory Committee, and Mayor Philip Wood. This was the start of the Carved by the Sea project which will identify and conduct oral history interviews on a dozen heritage places in the community of Bay Roberts, NL. Based on preliminary survey work, Heritage NL will work with the community to prioritize a dozen places for research, identify possible oral history subjects, conduct interviews, and then transcribe, edit, and make that material available and accessible through the Bay Roberts museum/archive, Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative, and an online Virtual Museum of Canada Project.

The places identified by the community for folklore and oral history research will represent a variety of spaces. Some of these places are well known community landmarks that tell of the town’s long history, and which tie the present to the earliest days of settlement. The remaining potential heritage places are less well-known, and largely undocumented. They reflect neighbourhood oral traditions, local folklore and folk belief, and speak to Bay Roberts’ history as an early to mid twentieth-century commercial centre.

What is your favourite place in Bay Roberts? Do you have a story about the chocolate facory? Let us know!