CORNWALL WOMEN WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE

ALDA (ARBUTHNOT) MACKINNON – CURATOR.

The local heritage community owes a deep debt of gratitude to Alda MacKinnon for preserving the history of Cornwall and the United Counties, first as guide and then curator of the United Counties Museum in the Wood House (aka Cornwall Community Museum) from 1960 – 1990.

From Northfield Station, Alda married grocer Cecil MacKinnon who in time took over Fisher Brothers groceteria at 15 2nd St. E. Alda was widowed when Cecil died suddenly. Now alone she successfully supported her family, in an age when widowed women received meager community support, through school, seeing them find careers in teaching, nursing and retail.

Fortunately for both the community and herself, Alda had museum experience from working at Upper Canada Village, and was now hired to work at the Wood House.No less than a walking genealogical dictionary, museum visitors interested in learning about their heritage only had to ask Alda to be filled in.Along with this wealth of knowledge, Alda through her dedication and collecting skills laid the foundation for the only museum with national status outside of Ottawa in SD & G.Holding down the “fort” seven years longer, than the author, I can attest that without her we would not have the Museum we have today.

ANNE (LATIMER) NYLAND – CHIEF LIBRARIAN.

Cornwall and the United Counties libraries were completely modernised with the arrival of Anne and Herman Nyland.

Nyland came to Cornwall in 1964 when the library occupied the Cline House.Seeing the need for a dramatic expansion of services she supervised the addition of the Simon Fraser Wing as Cornwall’s Centennial Project in 1967, and two years later opened the Kinsmen Wing with a children’s, and reference sections.Always finding ways to reach more people, Nyland engineered the opening of libraries in Cornwall’s east end in 1971 and the north in 1975.

Historians Clive and Frances Marin wrote, that Cornwall’s ever expanding library resources led to the creation of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County Library by her husband Herman with Anne serving as the system’s Chief Executive Officer.With Cornwall acting as the regional resource library, by the late 1970’s the Counties’ 85,000 book collection housed in the former Canada Cotton Mills Weave Shed, circulated 231,500 times in 1978, a vast improvement over the 20,000 books circulated annually after World War II.

Unfortunately when the Nylands left, local politics under the guise of budgetary constraints, spelled the end of their work and the sharing arrangement between the City and the Counties ended in 1988.

A more detailed history of this partnership can be found in the two books about SD & G by the Marins.

Born in Lyn, north of Brockville, Anne’s mother was a teacher and her father a farmer.She earned her Bachelor of Library Science from the University of Toronto in 1941 and worked in Montreal, Fort Francis, Southwestern Ontario, and Nova Scotia before coming to Cornwall to be near her aging mother.

Anne died at age 99 in Edmonton in 2018, having left Cornwall in 1990.

ESTELLA (FAWCETT) ROSE – POLITICIAN

Estella first came to public notice when she was crowned Dundas County’s first Dairy Princess in 1957.

Born into a farming family in Mountain Township (North Dundas), she strengthened her dairy farming tradition by marrying Ed Rose and adding two Holsteins to the herd of ten Ayrshires, to create “Twin Venture” dairy farm.

Along with raising a family, running a farm and being active in 4H, Estella worked as a hairdresser. Estella became interested in politics in protest to a proposed mega-landfill being planned near her home.Frustrated that merely talking about the project and writing letters was not enough, she was propelled to run for office after she overheard someone comment that “…there was no room for women on Mountain Council.”

As they say “the rest is history.” and in 1994 Estella became the Township’s first female Reeve, then Deputy Mayor of North Dundas and finally the United Counties first woman Warden in 2007 -08.She told reporter Andrea Cartier of the Iroquois “Chieftain,”that she “…was never concerned about the next election, but the next generation.”To emphasis this point Rose invited her granddaughter’s grade six class to witness the ceremonies around her installation as Warden.Youth involvement, modernisation and affordable accessibility to rural internet and other amenities taken for granted in urban centres, coupled with her strong commitment to protecting the agricultural community and the environment drove her political career.

Rose’s dedication to rural life was honoured with her induction into the Dundas Agricultural Hall of Fame.