The funeral of H.R.H. Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh on Saturday made me think of a small collection of 20 or so photos in the City of Wetaskiwin Archives. They feature Prince Philip’s future in-laws King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mum) during their Royal Visit to Edmonton on June 2, 1939. But why does our local Archives even have these photos?

They were taken by Carl William Walin who moved to Alberta from Minnesota with his family when he was three-years-old. In 1919 he purchased the F.L. Talbot photographic business in Wetaskiwin (above what is now Jasper’s Studio) and renamed it the Walin Studio of Fine Portrait Photography. For a period of time in the 1930s, Mr. Walin also operated film development services called Artistone Studio and was accredited to photograph Royal Tours of Canada. He was one of only three photographers, not including the official ones who accompanied the royal couple, permitted on the train platform and steps of the Legislative Building during the Royal Visit of King George VI. These 20 or so photographs that he took on that day were on display in his Artistone Studio.

Wallin moved to Vancouver in 1956 and sold his studio to Bert Jasperse, who eventually renamed the business Jasperse Studios. Carl Walin’s photographs are an important chronicle of early to middle 20th-century life in Alberta and especially significant for those of us interested in the history of the Wetaskiwin area. Mr. Walin died in Edmonton in 1966 and is buried in Wetaskiwin.

This artifact was donated by Hugh Stevens.

In the early 1900’s the one-room schools were few and far between with children driving horse and buggies four or more miles. The Lone Ridge School was filled up and could not take any more. The Goodhands, donors’ grandparents, who had started the Brightview Post Office, store and stopping place helped organize a new school district on April 22, 1909. Fred Leschert was the chairman and Angus Goodhand the treasurer. A debenture was drawn up for the Brightview School District of the North West Territories, Dec. 11, 1909 to borrow $700 at five-and-a-half per cent interest to build a new school. The school must have been built before the money was borrowed because classes started Nov. 15, 1909 and Miss Helen Howlett was the first teacher. It was built on N.W. 8-46-25-W4.

It is not certain when the organ was bought but one of the teachers (the donor’s Mom) Bessie Goodhand, mentioned mice nesting in the organ in 1921. Bessie and her siblings attended the school and then she came back and taught in 1921-1922. The donor’s dad, Russell Stevens, taught in 1929-1930. When the school was sold the donor bought the organ for $5. Their children learned to play on it.

This watchmaker’s bench was owned by H.R. French and sat at the back of his shop where he would repair the watches brought to him. The bench was probably already in the shop in the Compton Block on Pearce St. (50 Ave.) when Mr. French arrived in 1909. The lathe and tools were his, and they date back to his earliest days in Wetaskiwin. Watch repair and service have always been a large part of business carried out at French’s Jewellery. H.R. French was also designated as CPR Watch Inspector, which he would check all CPR watches monthly for accuracy and serviced them once a year.

Originally published for the Wetaskiwin Times, March 31, 2021

What is the right level of light to allow? We measure light in lux (luminous flux per unit area), and the recommended amount of light for a collection varies. A benchmark measurement is 50 lux, which someone with healthy and perfect eyesight can view the artifacts. When placing other aspects into consideration it drastically raises the number, to the max of 4000 lux, which is can cause major damage to an artifact over a long period of time.

We recently got a light sensor to test our all of our exhibit and storage areas to see how we can improve our museum. Currently we try to keep the light exposure to a minimum by having our lighting system on automatic sensors.

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, March 24, 2021

This trunk was a transfer item from the Red Deer and District Museum Society and was donated by August Brunner. This trunk was possibly made in the late 1800s and belonged to his mother Mary Ann Baumbach when she lived in Stratford, Ontario. Mary Ann married George Brunner and then in 1901 they moved to a homesteaded community in Wetaskiwin County, Lewisville. August Brunner has a sister by the name of Winnifred Peterson (nee Brunner), whom was a Woman of Aspenland in 2002. The homestead that they grew up on did not have electricity, central heating, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, telephone, or car. The main source of transportation for the family was horse and wagon or sleigh. Supplies were bought from travelling salesman or ordered from the Eaton’s catalogue. Otherwise, this family was quite self-sufficient.

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, March 17, 2021.

Once that wall was removed, we decided to try to clear up the space around the staircase, which meant moving one of our biggest and heaviest artifacts, a crank organ that has been in this museum, in that spot, since 2009 (pictured above on the right).

In this situation we examined the organ and saw that there was only one wheel, upon further inspection we realized that we could remove some pieces off the top of the organ and on the front as well to hopefully lighten up the load. While it did help, the organ was still heavy and difficult to move. After an hour-long struggle to move it 20 feet, it was finally in position. Once there, Craig our Collections Coordinator gave it a good clean using brush and vacuum technique, then put the organ pieces back.

Although museums are still closed to the public due to COVID-19, the public should still come down to the museum to check out our gift shop and wool shop. We have recently got in some new items and you can also see how spacious our main floor gallery area is after the organ transplant.

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, March 10, 2021.

A.C. Dandy’s beginnings was a family-operated small business known as Joe Broere Electric. Joseph Broere was a Dutch national who had lived in Indonesia for 20 years. During World War II, having been called into service, he was forced into a Japanese slave labour camp. After the war he worked to help rebuild the country.

In 1948, a year before Indonesia gained its independence, Broere started a very successful service and repair business that gradually expanded into a large manufacturer. In 1957, however, he and his family were forced to leave Indonesia for good. They immigrated to Canada, settled in Wetaskiwin, and began again (A. Bert Reynolds, Siding 16 Wetaskiwin, 1930-1960: pp: 396-7).

Today, Hans Broere, president of A.C. Dandy Electrical Products Ltd, and family carry on this great tradition of hard work, innovation, and supporting the community they live in.

Also published in the Wetaskiwin Times, March 3, 2021

Blush or rouge has been colouring complexions for over 3,000 years and not primarily to doll up the ‘fairer’ sex, but to make one appear healthier. The Egyptians rubbed ochre on their cheeks while the Greeks used crushed mulberries or Alkanet root to achieve those rosy reds. Romans went a step further and applied lead compounds to enhance a ghostly sheen followed by a layer of red vermilion to accentuate the facial features. Little did they know the danger of pesky toxins contained in both grooming rituals would ultimately cause the deterioration of the integumentary system and send one into madness.

Europeans in the middle ages took a different stance on the cherry chops when it came to de rigueur. Etiquette dictated that the aristocracy be pale to imply their absence from fieldwork to the degree that ‘The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine,’ suggested using leeches to remove redness. When Giulia Tofana entered the Italian Renaissance cosmetic scene, her powdered makeup products called Aqua Tofana promised even skin tone and strawberry cheeks. To the dismay of over 600 men whose wives purchased the arsenic, belladonna, and lead-laced items, the lethal beauty ointment was merely a disguise for a timely and unnegotiable ‘divorce’ if the wives heeded the instructions of Lady Tofana!

Coincidently, this particular Toronto produced blush set from our collection reads as follows: “Dear Madam, Don’t expect best results for Lady Esther Rouge unless you carefully follow directions shown in my Rouge Guide, Cordially, Lady Esther.”

Let us hope this turn of the 20th century cosmetic led many a person to confidence and not to the funeral home!

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, February 17, 2021.

Baoding balls are believed to have existed for as long 3000 years and were first referenced during the Han Dynasty between 26 AD and 220 AD. They are named after Baoding city in the Hebei province of China where it was common practise amongst all classes of people to train their hands using walnuts. Taking two or more walnuts in one hand the exercise was to balance walnuts in a rotating motion by pushing your thumb and pinky simultaneously inward causing the walnuts to revolve; the most experienced of handlers would never let the balls touch. Centuries later, during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD), walnuts were replaced by solid iron balls that were adopted by martial artists for combat weaponry/training and acrobats for performances. 

Emperor Jia Jing (1522-1567 AD) was said to have his entire court study the benefits of the iron balls resulting in the invention of a hollow design that was easier to manipulate and intended for medicinal purposes.  More specifically, hollow baoding balls were used on the meridians for resistance training, dexterity, and anxiety, similar to our modern day fidget toys. Some were made with miniature spikes that would lightly penetrate the palms to activate acupressure points connected to memory.

It was Emperor Qianlong (1736-1799) that popularized their daily use as he was prescribed their application believing they had metaphysical properties and it so happens he became China’s longest living emperor. Eventually their cultural fame produced many imaginative variations in the form of jade, gold and chrome steel plated chiming balls.

Another elaborate baoding ball manufacturing technique is called cloisonné in which decorates metalwork with coloured materials like agate, gemstone, marble and jade that are secured with metal wire strips, like gold or silver. Today, they are recognized as one of the “Three Treasures of Baoding” along with flour sauce and potherb mustard. So go, have a ball this Chinese New Year and welcome in the Ox zodiac.

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, February 10, 2021.

Recording sound and word has historically been to the acoustical delight or civic vexation of the listener. It may come as a surprise to some that Thomas Edison was not the originator of sound devices but, in fact, it was Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who invented the phonautograph in 1857.

Instead of playing back soundwaves the device traces them visually onto soot-covered paper. It wouldn’t be until 2008 when the phonautograms were played back using digital imaging. Thomas Edison’s sketches in 1877 were the foundation of John Kruesi’s, an Edison-employed machinist, phonograph built of tinfoil. Reportedly, the first sound impulses to be successfully recorded and played back on the machine were from a verse of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Acoustical recording, simply described, is where the performed sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that cut grooves into a rotating medium beneath it, like a record. T

hanks to many technological advances sound recording moved beyond nursery rhymes and the standard of 250 Hz to 2,500 Hz. The 1930s brought magnetic recording in wire and tape forms to the forefront by which the concept was realized earlier in 1898, Germany by Valdemar Poulsen. Mechanically generalized, it works on fields of polarity that create electrical audio signals.

It was John T. Mullin and Bing Crosby that launched the commercialized version of stereo tape recorders that was introduced in 1943. By using this method they improved sound quality and convenience of pre-recording radio shows.

This particular reel-to-reel tape player/recorder from our collection is a Minerva Three Speaker High Fidelity made in Chicago, USA. It was bought by Fred Buskas in the 1950s where it was used by the Clover Lawn Orchestra who played for local weddings and church groups.

Originally published in the Wetaskiwin Times, February 3, 2021.