Ormond is the Centre of the Universe

Stories of my home in Eastern Ontario, between the two great rivers.

Dedicated to those who are no longer with us. We will never see the likes of them again.

Dédié à ceux et à celles qui ne sont plus parmi nous. On ne verra plus leurs semblables.

Coisrigte don fheadhainn dhuinn nach maireann. Chan fhiach sinn an leithid a-rithist. 

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Preface

Ormond is the centre of the universe – you can go anywhere from Ormond!

A friend of my father’s used to say this about his home town of Carleton Place. He said it tongue-in-cheek, of course, and so do I. Nonetheless, it illustrates a basic truth about humanity – our home, wherever it happens to be, is the centre of our universe. It doesn’t take long for this to happen; spend a couple of days anywhere, and it starts to feel like home. Spend the first 18 years of your life in a place – especially if your family was already there for a century before you came along – and it will always feel like home, It becomes a part of you are, and you will carry it with you for the rest of your life. Ormond is a big part of who I am.

I am also a geographer by training and inclination. Geography is all about describing and explaining places. What is the essence of a place? What unique combination of features has made it identifiable and worthy of a name? What physical and human forces have interacted in order to create it – and to make it grow or decline, or even disappear?   

Ormond is a very small place, but it is important to me and no doubt to everybody else who has roots in the area. There aren’t that many of us, however, so I hope it will also be of interest to people who may have never been to Ormond – and might not see much there without a guide.

Ormond actually has some unique characteristics. It sits at the heart of Easternmost Ontario – the ‘Far East’ of Ontario, as I am wont to say – composed of the United Counties of Prescott and Russell, the United Counties of Stormont Dundas and Glengarry, and the former County of Carleton, now the City of Ottawa. These three municipalities meet at Marionville, about four kilometres northeast of Ormond, and in many ways a sister village.

Ormond and Marionville sit on either side of the linguistic divide between French and English Canada. I was raised half way in between. To the east of our farm, when I lived there, the land was in French hands all the way to Quebec.

Before the French arrived in the area, Ormond was part of a one contiguous Scottish community spread across the boundaries of Winchester, Osgoode and Russell Townships. It was predominantly Gaelic in language, Baptist in religion and Liberal in politics – a combination that set it apart from surrounding areas.

In most other respects, however, Ormond was similar to the communities around it, and subject to the same political, economic and social pressures from the outside world. So this essay could be read as a case study of a typical Eastern Ontario farming community.  

You could also look at Ormond as a microcosm of the universe – with a full cast of archetypal characters, running the gamut from premiers to paupers and from saints to scoundrels. (Yes, we had them all!) My little treatise is like a gab session at the Ormond General Store on a Saturday evening, or around a hot stove in the dressing room at the rink – you start off discussing local matters, but you never know where the conversation will end. In this sense, too, you can go anywhere from Ormond.

This is a story of growth and decline. The Ormond I knew as a boy no longer exists – even the sort of community it was no longer exists. I would like to leave some sort of record. I suspect that there are many others out there who have experienced a similar loss; who may regret the decline of community life in general, and of rural life in particular. Like me, they may even be searching for ways to revive a sense of community in this age when we are asked to think globally and act locally. 

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When I originally sat down to write this, my intent was fairly simple. I was stimulated by Tom Carkner’s marvellous book on the village of my youth. [1] I thought I could add some useful context. I have a pretty good grounding in the history and geography of Eastern Ontario. I was pretty sure I knew how Ormond got its name, why it developed where and when it did, and why it stopped growing. I would just have to do a little archival research to prove my claims beyond the shadow of a doubt. That done, I could sprinkle in some family stories and personal memories, and “Bob’s your uncle”, as the English say. [2]

It turned out to be much more complicated, as it usually does. I have uncovered a fair bit of evidence for my claims, but I certainly haven’t proved them conclusively. And in the process I have made a lot of unexpected discoveries. One thing has lead to another and my story keeps growing.

You can go anywhere from Ormond – and most people do. I left home at eighteen and have lived most of my life in other places. After coming home in retirement, I began to see it with new eyes.

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time”.

T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

I am amazed at how much I didn’t know about Ormond when I lived there. There was a lot more going on than I was aware of – more hidden than was said, more said than was written down. Much of what was written down has been lost. Our public archives are in a deplorable state; whatever records have been retained are hard to access – mostly unsorted and undescribed. (There should be a job in that for an underemployed old fogey like me, but interest and money seem to be lacking).

As I result, there are some mysteries I can’t explain. The people who might know the answers are long gone. Perhaps some of you can help me resolve them.

So I will share with you what I have learned so far. With some trepidation, I will raise topics often glossed over in local histories – perhaps for fear of reopening old wounds, or exposing skeletons in our collective closets. There are stories of conflict and compromise, the politics of religion, language, and ethnicity. I have added a section on First Nations – there’s a lot more to say than you might think.  

I would also like to ask for your help in correcting what I may have gotten wrong. I believe my story is ‘mostly true’, as Huck Finn says at the beginning of Mark Twain’s classic novel. [1] I have tried my best to sort the truth from the fiction, and to identify the ‘stretchers’, as Huck would say. Some may have slipped in unidentified, but that can also be informative. Stories tell us a lot, even when they are not entirely true – at the very least, they tell us something about the mindset of the teller. As they say in Italian: Se non e vero, e ben trovato. (Even if it isn’t true, it is well made up).

[1] Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – the novel was inspired by Samuel Langhorne Clemons’ memories of his home town of Hannibal, Missouri. 

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There is also the problem of anachronisms. Places appear and disappear, and their names change over time. The little spot of the surface of the earth which we now call Ormond has existed since time immemorial, but it doesn’t seem to have had a name until 1857. The place we now call Metcalfe was known by other names before 1877. Nonetheless, the easiest and most meaningful way to refer to such places is by their present name – our point of reference is always the present. If a place didn’t exist at the time one is writing about, or had another name, the writer should point this out. It may require the use of awkward constructions – like “the place that later became X“ or “what is now known as Y.” I have tried to do this as much as possible, but bear with me if you find an occasional reference to a place or a name which didn’t actually exist at the time. 

The short article I intended has become a series of essays. This allows you to pick and choose. There is no need to read it all – not at once, or not ever! Feel free to browse. If you find any part of it boring, or if it’s more than you want to know at the moment, just move on to something else. Hopefully something will ‘turn your crank’, as they used to say at Ormond.   

December 10. 2020

Robert Burns McDonald

Candiac, Quebec

613-868-9812

macdonaro@gmail.com

[1] Thomas Walter Carkner (2016) Ormond, Ontario: Our Ancestral Home, Our Heritage

[2]  Irrelevent footnote: You may wonder, as I did, who this Bob was. Research shows that he was Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, and Conservative Prime Minister of Britain for three terms between 1885 and 1902. He appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour to cabinet as Chief Secretary for Ireland. The expression was coined after Arthur publicly referred to the Prime Minister as 'Uncle Bob'; it means ‘it's as simple as that’ – life is easy when Bob's your uncle! Arthur did very well, in fact, and succeeded his uncle as Prime Minister in 1902. Unfortunately, I haven’t been nearly so helpful to my nieces and nephews.

(http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/why-do-we-say-bobs-your-uncle )