On Wednesday, July 19, the Cortes Island Museum offered visitors a rare opportunity to see some of the clothing and accessories from its collections.
The event was organized by Lilly Allen, this summer’s intern, who was inspired by the dress that Margaret Smith wore when she married John Manson in the late 1890’s.
“I remember seeing the dress in the Pioneer Room when I was growing up. It was such a distinct memory in my childhood on the island, that I thought it’d be really interesting to bring it out and have people actually see it (and not just see the photo),” she explained.
Cortes Currents: I understand that one of her daughters used it for a Halloween costume?
Lilly Allen: “Bonnie was saying that a lot of kids in the Manson and Ellingson families dressed up in it for Halloween.”
Bonnie MacDonald, Melanie Boyle and the Museum’s new events coordinator, Alex Woywitka, helped fill the Heritage Garden with a vast array of clothing, accessories, photographs and even two local textile artists.
“It just really gives a feeling of another era. It puts you back there in a way that you can’t get from just reading something about it. And it helps visualize just how life used to be different,” said museum archivist Jill Milton.
Cortes Currents asked a couple of visitors for their impressions:
“My name is Lindsay Mathews and I have a house here on Cortes Island. Exhibits like this make you check your assumptions about places and things. I thought that things were more casual even then. I’m sure they were, but there was obviously lots of tradition and dressing up formally. It challenged my assumptions, a beautiful exhibit. I’d recommend it.”
“My name is Gareth Orderman. I’m a summer resident here. I saw a lot of cool things, like wedding dresses, different fabrics, different tools that they use and it really looks like they put a lot of work into these clothes.”
Some of the hats were from the early 1900s.
Lilly Allen: :Hats were quite popular, especially for church and picnics on Cortes. There used to be a lot of picnics . If you look up ‘picnic’ in the archives, there’ll be plenty of images all across Cortes: in Mansons, Whaletown, Smelt Bay and Squirrel Cove.”
Jill Milton: “Some of the hats were pretty wild. There’s some photos of Mrs Nixon with really crazy hats on. This one looks like a big fancy bucket.”
There was a large collection of historic photographs. Including several pictures of Cortes island’s well-known ecological philosopher Gilean Douglas.
Jill Milton: “The pictures of Gilean shows that sort of continuity of her stance and, I think, her personality throughout her life.”
She pointed to photos of Douglas when she was about 15, 21, 50 and about 70.
Jill Milton: “She’s just very forthrightly standing there, face on to the world.”
We moved on to a collection of uniforms
Lilly Allen: “The Boy Scout uniform was donated by Bruce Ellingson. There are Boy Scouts and Girl Guides on the island. We have a photo of Andy Ellingson wearing his Boy Scout uniform at Smelt Bay in our archives.”
There was also a BC Ferries uniform from the 1970s, when the ferry was still under the Ministry of Transportation and FREE.
Lilly Allen: “The sewing machine is pretty cool. It’s from Refuge Cove. Alice Clare donated it and it’s a portable hand crank sewing machine. It’s tiny. You’d have to be cranking with your left hand and sewing with your right.”
The podcast image for photos this article (above) shows Lilly using a flat iron, ”Some of them have detachable handles, so you’d leave it on the wood stove, take the handle off, and then put the handle back on to iron your clothing.”
There were also three gas-powered irons.
Lilly Allen: “You put water in it, and the gas would heat this water into steam, and then you could use it to iron your clothing.”
There were two artisans at work under a couple of trees in the centre of the garden.
Ayami Stryck was using a hand held spinning device.
“This is a drop spindle. I just made it wind up to the little, what they call cake, and then I start plying.”
CC: When was that more popular?
Ayami Stryck: “Actually, it’s coming back. People want to try drop spindles because you can carry them everywhere, you don’t have to have a big commitment, and you can do it anywhere. I usually take it to the ferry, just like knitting. Women get together to sing and spin.”
CC: After this is done, what are you going to make?
She held up her bag, “Either a tapestry or a bag like this, something usable to be appreciated for the old process.”
Loretta Tennant was using a spinning wheel.
“I am spinning some yarn. This is a combination of five different colours of Romney yarn and some grey cordell fibre that I blended together on my drum carder, then I create these multicoloured bats.”
“I am spinning singles, then I will apply them together to get doubles, which makes a stronger yarn and something that’s more the size that I like for knitting.”
“This will end up being a hat, or something like that.”
Nancy Silver was impressed by some of the knitting on display, “This is a knitted sweater. It’s so beautiful, from Nancy Kendall’s collection. Oh my goodness, such good shape. This one is magnificent and also from Nancy Kendall’s collection.”
There was a Cortes Island School jacket from the 1970s.
Lilly Allen: “It’s on loan right now, so it’s actually not the museums.”
Nancy Silver: “These things are in such good condition.”
Lilly Allen: “It’s funny because the mascot is still the mascot of the school, It’s a blue heron. The jacket is so warm. My boyfriend has two. They’re my favourite jackets, even though you’re probably not supposed to wear them because it’s leather and felt, but I love them in the rain because you don’t feel anything.”
CC: So you wore something similar?
Lilly Allen: “Yes, they’re still really popular.”
The next exhibit was a group of mannequins. One of them was a blonde wearing a blue party dress, matching hat and a white purse.
Nancy Silver: “Who is this? Hello, nice to meet you. Oh my goodness. You must be from the 1950s with that bag. And it’s leather, isn’t it? Oh my god.”
Lilly Allen: “This is from a separate collection, but it looks like they belong together.”
CC: Do you have any other highlights that you’d like to mention?
Lilly Allen: “Margaret Manson’s dress.”
It had a floral pattern in many shades of purple.
Lilly Allen: “There’s King Carl’s cape, crown and medallion.”
The late Carl Triller built a castle on Cortes and was long known as King Carl of Cortes Island. Lilly did not know when his reign began.
Lilly Allen: “That was before I was born. I think it was just two years ago he was still in the Cortes Day parade. I was Princess of Cortes one year, and he was still doing it. I think he passed away fairly recently.”
“We have images of Peggy Newsham when she was Queen of Cortes.”
CC: Does Cortes have a large archival section for a community this large?
Jill Milton: “We probably have a big archival collection of photographs, and I’d say that it’s probably well organized for a community this size.”
CC: Do you happen to know how many pieces there are? How many documents, how many photographs ?
Jill Milton: “There’s around 4,500 single photographs, but then there’s photographs, albums, and some collections that have come in over the last two years that have added at least 2,000 more photographs. As for the documents I could get a linear count just by looking at the boxes.”
So we went inside and looked at the boxes
Jill Milton: “47 feet of documents pertaining to island families and organizations. It’s basically the social history of Cortes from about 1900 on, only it’s settler society. We really don’t have any First Nations history in the archives except for a few photographs, that is a big lack.”
Lilly Allen: “I’d love to thank all the people who helped out, there’s so many. Bonnie MacDonald helped a lot with pulling stuff from the archives. Melanie Boyle and Alex Woywitka helped with setting up and organizing. Gina Trzesicka made the sign, and advertised this event. Ayami Stryck donated two mannequins for us to use today and came in for a little bit. Loretta Tennant came in. So did Helene Racine for a short period. Nancy Kendel donated some of her hand knit wool, shawl, and sweater. Sheryl Thompson let us use her steamer, so that we could steam up the clothes and get them wrinkle free. It’s hard to get wrinkles out when they’ve been in there for 50 years.”
Top image credit: early settlers on Cortes island – Photo courtesy Cortes Island Museum
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