49 The New Village

Nothing remains constant in our lives. Things change, other generations become the community builders and the older generations fade into the background, some to be a treasured memory of a passing era.

Walking through the local cemetery we see the graves of people we knew in former years, boys and girls we went to school with, friends of the family and in some cases relatives and family. It is at these times that a flood of memories come to mind and things that have not been thought about for years are recalled.

The village, like all small Ontario villages, has changed. In the years after the last war most communities underwent a stage of development and Mt. Brydges like other communities has had its share of growth.

In 1937 the highway from Delaware connected the paved main street of the village. This was a political perq; the village voters had helped to elect the Hepburn government in the province so Mt. Brydges became part of the highway system and no longer only the highest point on the railway between Komoka and Glencoe.

Two disastrous fires curtailed village development for a short time. The lumber mill and its saw mill went up in flames and the old Crowe factory was destroyed. A new manufacturing plant took the place of the automobile factory that was built to industrialize the village. Several new businesses now grace the main street, new names are over the front doors of some of the older businesses that remain in their familiar stands, and many new business people have enterprises in the commercial areas.

The village is no longer one main street. There are side streets, subdivisions of new homes, the street lighting has been improved from the days of the one light per block and the highway was extended to Grand Bend. A new freeway by-passes the village; people no longer have the time to journey through the little communities of the province.

Both schools are gone, a new elementary school has been built on the fair grounds and buses take the village students to the high school of another community. Education with its many refinements requires better establishments - sometimes we wonder if the resulting product from this new atmosphere meets the needs of everyday living.

The railway station has been torn down, the trains no longer stop for passengers and few freight cars bring coal, lumber, cement, grain and goods to the village. Trucks have become the general mode of transportation.

The sheds that once came in handy for the horses that farmers drove to town, the church sheds for the members' horses and the Continuation School shed for the students who drove horses to school have disappeared, along with the hitching posts.

No longer is it necessary to drive cattle from the pasture to the railway stockyards for shipment. The feed lots have changed the methods of fattening cattle.

Natural gas came to the village in the '30s and the smell of smoke from wood stoves no longer hangs in the air. Driveways are now built of asphalt instead of coal ashes.

There is a fire station complete with a fire truck to replace the old hand pumpers, a fire chief is in charge of the brigade and sirens, instead of the Town Hall bell, sound the fire alarm.

Sports are organized and several teams in recent years have claimed fame for the village. Posterity can no longer tolerate a bunch of kids playing ball on the rough sod of the old school grounds.

The euchre games in the blacksmith shop and the checker games in the barber shop are no longer part of village life. The gathering of elderly gentlemen, on fine summer days, in the side yard of Harding's Funeral Home for bowling is long past and other forms of recreation for the senior community have taken its place.

The telephone system has become part of "Ma Bell" and the phones have been modernized. No longer can Tilda crank the phone three longs and a short and converse with Mary, check on Grandma's health and gather news from the other people on the party line at the same time.

Times change, we enter new periods of time, move to far away places, engage in other pursuits and sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren become part of our families, but still the memories of growing up in a small village linger.

The friends of our youth become fewer each year, but Mt. Brydges, to many of us, is still referred to as the home town.

THE END
Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Index