INTRODUCTION
This is the story of a village. A community of people, a place inhabited by young and old, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors. Residents with common interests, a diversity of vocations and a variation of attitudes and opinions.

Every village has a heritage, several families can trace their ancestry to pioneers who cleared the land and established the community. There are people who became part of the community and some attracted by employment.

Youngmen brought their brides to the village and established a family. Teachers taught the children and married into area families. Preachers arrived to minister to the community and endeavoured to maintain an acceptable code of behaviour and moral standards. The village grew over several generations and attracted a bank, a railway, merchants for the main street, automobile services, schools, a library, several churches and a community centre.

The village had tree lined streets, homes of every size from the rose covered cottage to the palatial estate. The sidewalks bordered the roads and picket fences separated the lots. Children, dogs and cats played in the yards and housewives traded newsy items over the backyard fence.

The community had character , it was a special place, a gathering of people who took pride in the town they called home.

This book tells the stories of the people who lived in the village. Each resident contributed something special to the community and in their own way made a better place for each successive generation.

In Tales of a Village you will meet the butcher, the baker, the storekeeper, the banker, teachers, clergy , mechanics, craftsmen, skilled artisans, doctors, philosophers, grandparents, the ladies of the community , people who contributed to businesses, industry , transportation and public institutions, the people that added character to a village.

The village could be anyone of the thousands of small communities people call home and the people referred to are the stalwart citizens that make up the village population. The people not of another century but those who made up the gentle society of the early twentieth century.

Tales of a Village is the recollections of a member of a village society. One who lived among village people, watched the daily happenings in the community unfold and associated with village friends,neighbors and community residents.

The chapters of this book will give the present generation an insight into the lifestyle of their family in generations past; and for those people who were part of a village in the early part of this century , it will bring back many happy memories.

It has been said "that from the acorn the mighty oak grew" ; this also applies to the village, "from the village the large cities matured". Ralph Waldo Emerson possibly summed up the contribution rural communities have made to our society "The men in cities who are the centres of energy , the driving wheels of trade, politics, or practical arts and the women of beauty and genius are the children or grandchildren of people of a rural community".

A nation's heritage is rooted in the villages of other generations.
TO CONTINUE