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THE NEW TANNER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2008 4 The Regional Municipality of Halton www.halton.ca 1151 Bronte Road, Oakville, Ontario L6M 3L1 Tel: 905-825-6000 Toll Free: 1-866-442-5866 TTY: 905-827-9833 www.halton.ca More Blue & Green During the Holidays Items for Blue Box Items for GreenCart Items for Garbage Clear moulded plastic packaging Plastic ? lm Bubble wrap Plastic plates and cups Wrapping paper Bows & ribbons G C PW -0808 3 Items for Blu Cardboard boxes Fine paper & envelopes Newspaper Boxed beverage containers Plastic bottles Aluminum food & pop cans PET HDPE 1 2 Turkey, ham & meat, including bones Challah bread Gingerbread Latkes, fruits and vegetables Paper napkins Paper plates and cups Christmas Trees: Christmas tree collection occurs in January (urban areas only). Check your Waste Management Calendar or www.halton.ca/waste for exact dates. Remove all tinsel, lights, decorations and plastic bags before collection. Ensure trees do not become stuck or frozen in snow banks. Postcard Detective Blake brings life in 1800s alive By Frances Niblock Through modern technol- ogy and turn of the century artifacts, Actons Dennis Blake, sometimes billed as a postcard detective, is able to recreate the Acton of the early 1800s through the writ- ings of local citizens. Using early 1900s post- cards and so-called cabinet cards mounted pictures of people that friends would dis- play in a glass cabinet and computer software, Blake, in a recent presentation to the Esquesing Historical Society, offered a look at life in Acton at the turn of the century. Blake said the crux of his presentation is a woman called Lizzie Fisher who he first met when he found a cabinet card with her name on it, photographed by an Acton photographer. Over the years, he also found four postcards that Fisher had written to her sister Hilda in the early 1800s featuring a lithograph of an Acton scene on one side and an address and message on their other. At that time prior to the telephone postcards were the preferred method of com- munication, taking advantage of two times daily mail deliv- ery and a one centre stamp. Fishers cards intrigued Blake and he set out to try and find her using the Inter- net to comb through census information and marriage and death records, Blake tracked Fisher down to a small village in Perth County where shed been born one of 11chil- dren. He also discovered that Fisher had married Acton blacksmith Ernest Hall and had a son Albert in 1809. Blake was not able to find out much about Fisher, other than her religion, address on Queen Street, who she mar- ried and her child. This is one of the charm- ing things about it. Shes an unknown, a little person that has done nothing historical except to exist. One of the reasons for studying history is to give dignity and recogni- tion to those that went before us, and thats what I was able to do, Blake said. Blake, a visual arts in- structor, has been collecting postcards for 30 years his first was a riverbank scene that he bought at the Aber- folye antique market when he was a teen. He has a col- lection of between 50 and 60 Acton postcards. Using my collection of postcards of Acton as his- torical artifacts, I though it would be interesting to use Fisher as the crux of a postcard presentation on Keynote its Apples ver- sion of power point to take a walking tour of through Ac- ton in 1908 when Fisher lived here. Blake said, adding he also used information from author Mazo de la Roche, who lived in Acton for three years, and from Actons Early Days. Blake said he had three main points in his presenta- tion, beginning with the idea that postcards were a democ- ratizing force and that Fishers postcards were an authentic voice from the past. Lizzie did not write very well, she spelled phonetically and when you read her cards you hear how people spoke in those days. Also, many of these postcards had not been seen in over 100 years so there was something unique or romantic about that, Blake said, adding many postcards were destroyed during the paper drives during WWII. Blake said he began col- lecting postcards for the evocative inmates, but his interest was peaked when he attended a presentation of a postcard collectors as- sociation where an archivist described postcards as arti- facts and explained what you could learn from them, besides seeing a beautiful im- age. That peaked my interest to see what I could do with Acton I have between 50 and 60 postcards that Ive found on eBay or at paper shows which are like a stamp show, Blake said, adding the postcards have allowed him to combine his collecting hobby with his interest in technology that allows him to present the images and learn about the lives of people who sent the cards. He said many of the messages on the post- cards are banal talking about the weather, theatre showings, sporting events, and in one, how the local temperance option had not passed in Acton and it was still possible to get a drink in town. On March 14, Blake will make his presentation to the Kitchener Waterloo Post- card Club. Storey Glove Co. on Bower Ave. had a poignant message on back of postcard Old Acon Public School is on card sent by Ettie Laird, who is 1898, at age 16 became Actons first librarian in the Free Library in town hall