By Waldo Redekop – Ontario District Historian
Over the years of being the district historian, I have accumulated quite a collection of many different items. A lot was as a result of the editorials that I wrote while editor of The Trillium asking people to preserve history and if they wanted to part with it, I would take it (much to the dismay of Donna). However, with the new web-master, Michael Black, being able to preserve material in an electronic format, I should be able to remove a lot of things from my basement.
Now that we have a new editor, I offered to write a column in which I look back at some of the material that represents the history of this great district. All of the Ontario District newsletters (Northern Highlights, Trillium and so on) are now on the web, so I won’t write about those articles often. The Harmonizer issues are all on the Society web so you can always check those out for information.
However, each district has produced district directories over the years. I have a collection of them and will write about some of the interesting items that I learn from reading them. They included the names and addresses of the district executive as well as all of the chapter officers and all committees of the district, plus a lot of other information. Since it is personal information, we won’t be placing it on the web, but I will recount some of the interesting things that I noticed.
My earliest Ontario District Directory is 1962, the year before we hosted our first International Convention in Toronto. More next issue about that.