Ninety-year-old Shirley Trussell Lewis wrote to Jane Carter Urquhart, the renowned Canadian author who had returned to Colborne with husband Tony to take up residence. A copy of a July 21, 2001 column by Jane in the Globe and Mail newspaper had tweaked memories. Shirley Lewis had previously written to Jane Urquhart so this 2010 correspondence was not a unique contact.

Shirley Trussell Lewis was the granddaughter of Charles Larke, manager of the Colborne branch of the Standard Bank of Canada. He and his wife Emma Jane, whose parents owned Lyndhurst, became the new owners of the stately house at the northwest corner of King Street East and Elgin Street North in Colborne in 1897. Mrs. Lewis’ mother, Mrs. C.C. (Louise) Trussell, was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Larke. She returned with her children from Poughkeepsie, New York, to spend summers in Colborne and at the Larke summer cottage Idle Hour at Loughbreeze several kilometers away on the Lake Ontario waterfront.

In her 2010 letter, Mrs. Trussell Lewis shared memories and old photographs of her visits to Colborne and Loughbreeze. She was living in Anchorage, Alaska at the time. She had married former Alaska State Superior Court Judge Eben Herbert Lewis (1918-2000). Shirley Lewis died September 13, 2016 at the age of 92 years. The first page of the letter is typewritten:

“Dear Jane, It has been almost ten years since last we corresponded. Your mother was ninety years old (and now I am). You were living in Stratford and now all year in Colborne, perhaps in your mother’s house in town but also your cottage at the lake. My niece, Sheila Holzer and her husband, from Edmonton, visited me here last month and brought me a clipping about you from the January Globe and Mail. She, also, was in Colborne a year or two ago and visited Loughbreeze. She told me your cottage had a fence around it and “no trespassing” signs. In the article from the paper, the picture of you sitting and facing the lake made me think of the picture of the lake frozen over, so I thought you might like to see it. I am also enclosing some other pictures you may find of interest. Two are of my grandparent’s house [“Lyndhurst”], front and side views, on the corner right across from the Anglican church [Trinity in Colborne]. The house was very much a part of my life in the eighteen summers I spent in Colborne. It had a name. “Lyndhurst”. The view of the side shows the kitchen door and the woodshed and on out to the outhouse (no longer used as indoor plumbing had been installed by my time) and on to the barn. No horse and carriage in my years but I have the carriage lamps electrified in my home here. You will note at the end of the porch a place where the ladies could step right into the carriage and not have to get their long skirts muddy from the unpaved side street. I don’t remember the name of that side street and would like to know it [Elgin Street North]. Probably paved by now. When I was old enough to cross the King’s (then) highway, I would be sent to the Post Office to get the mail. I passed the red brick house on the corner (owned for some time by my great grandfather [Levi Bailey], passed by Pat Gayle’s publishing shop and into the Post Office. I would go up to the postmistress, Miss Padgington (SP?) [Mrs. Padginton], and say, “May I have Mrs. Larke’s mail please?” and she, a dear little lady with her hair up in a bun, would open the wicket and hand it to me with a smile. (I have always liked her name and if ever I wrote a story I wanted a Mrs. Padgington (sic) in it. I give the name to you for one of your stories. My grandmother died in 1938, fifteen years after Grandfather [January 15, 1923 at the age of 70 years]. I wonder if your mother was living in Colborne then and would have remembered them. Grandfather was the local head of the Standard Bank of Canada at the corner next to Griffises drug store. Grandmother was sort of the doyen of Colborne in her day, at least, I think she thought she was. She was always pleasant to everyone but, at that time, there was definitely a caste system in Colborne and she didn’t want any of her granddaughters going out with a local boy. I did go to Cobourg dancing at a pavilion there with one of the Colborne boys but my mother didn’t tell her mother. Lyndhurst burned down several years after Grandmother died [1945]. A tenant heating a frozen water pipe set the house on fire.”

The second page of the letter is handwritten.

"2. Jane, I hope you don’t mind my typing this on the computer. I am in a hurry to get this in the mail. I thought you might like a bit of history so will explain the picture of grandfather [Charles Larke] and the Duke. “Grandfather was on his morning “constitutional” and had walked to the railway station when the train came in. The gentleman in the homburg hat got off the train to stretch his legs. He was on his way, as Governor General of Canada, to open the new hospital in Kamloops, B.C. [1912]. One hundred years later, my sister Virginia was still alive when the hospital celebrated its centennial. With warmest regards, Shirley Lewis P.S. I’m trying to use up this business notepaper." August 7, 2010