For 34 years I’ve lived with a phobic. My first husband, I like to call him. He has bat-o-phobia, a crippling fear of those black mice with wings that squeak in the night and make a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh noise as they flap around the kitchen, or the upstairs hall, or the bedroom. Our current house is…
Sue McCann loved the number 3. It was always her favourite number, always the one she chose when asked to “choose a number between 1 and 10” — that sort of game. She moved to Utopia in 1982 and immediately put her sales skills to work in a “man’s” world, selling bolts, and nuts, and…
Ray Marshall was a “what if?” kind of guy. He was born into a farm family in Kettleby, raised in King Township, took over at an early age the family operation which included a chicken hatchery and processing plant employing 250 people. He lived his childhood and working life in King Township. And in between…
Well, Scott Archibald has a happy grin on his face these days… this talented graphic designer, tucked at the end of hall 5 in Barrie’s popular entrepreneurial rental space–80 Bradford St.–is still shaking his head after running into a fellow entrepreneur this week. Cass Howarth, proud owner of fledgling Green Hydro, was taking a small…
In the mid 60’s, a fervent group of men and women built a ‘temple’ in which to meet. The International Order of Odd Fellows and Rebekahs was also responsible for the construction and funding of the IOOF Home in Allandale, as well as Heritage Place and now a new fabulous facility in Barrie’s expanding south…
When I first met Jack McGinnis, I was standing on a fulcrum of indecision, living in a time warp between work I had left and work I had not yet begun, life I had lived and left and life not yet identified. The inability to decide and commit was immobilizing me, and consequently my family….
Public School meets Middle Age. There we were, gathering in the parking lot of a building that used to be a mill and is now a fancy restaurant, smack dab in the middle of our home town. We hadn’t seen each other since late public school, early high school, and certainly hadn’t kept in touch….
“There’s nothing to do!” That’s the common summer lament and Celia Laur is out to prove that wrong. She’s made it her summer job to find out all the things that are free in Barrie and is publishing an illustrated guide to free activity. Nobody has hired Celia to do this, though. She has started…
She was 10 years old when the phone rang and her mother was desperate. Secretary to Monsignor Clair at St Mary’s, Mrs. O’Connor’s anxious voice told Margie the church needed someone who could play the organ. Now. Quick! So Margie O’Connor scurried over to old St Mary’s, on the hill, across from the convent on…
Dora Rowe Hook was buried on Wednesday. She died last Saturday, hours after playing bridge with her friends at Woods Park. Her sister, Lucretia Rowe, died December 17, 2003 (www.donnadouglas.com/ddes/col271.htm). Ernestine, the baby Rowe girl, died early at age 62, December 11, 1976. This is their story… Good-bye, My Love Dr. Little cradled tiny Ernestine…