‘Parlour Party’ revisits the past

The Fort Frances Museum’s “Parlour Party” last Sunday was a place for children to play with replicas of old-fashioned toys and clothing.
And for local seniors like Kay Whalen, Evelyn Metke, and Edith Newman, it offered a chance to step back in time to recall the novelties of their childhood.
The exhibit “Canada At Play,” here on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum until Oct. 23, features hands-on items and displays of 100 years of toys, games, and sports.
Included were stereoscopes, kaleidoscopes, and a cased collection of porcelain dolls. It also featured wooden block puzzles, a wooden dancing man, cup and ball games, paper dolls, rubber stamps, spinning tops, and a collection of old toboggans, skates, and sleighs.
One of the things Whalen, now in her 80s, remembered best about the “parlour scene” in her childhood home was that it was a place to play with special dolls.
“We had homemade dolls that my mother had made,” she reflected. “They were beautiful dolls that we could play with only on Sunday [and] the rest of the week they sat on the parlour shelf and we could only look at them.
“I have never forgotten that doll,” she said.
“Jacks and marbles and a skipping rope were my toys,” said Newman, 84, who was born and raised in Toronto. “And dolls were my thing. I had every kind of doll you can imagine–rag dolls, kid dolls, and an Eaton beauty doll.
“I learned to sew very early [in age] and I made my own dolls’ clothes,” she recalled.
Newman also fondly remembered playing hopscotch, painting, and drawing with crayons. “Our quiet time was spent reading and listening to music, and we always went to bed early at about 7 p.m.,” she noted.
“We had a radio and we would sit and play cards and did a lot of reading, of course,” echoed Metke, who grew up in Saskatchewan in the 1930s.
“We did not have a lot of toys but we always had skates, that was very important,” she added, noting she had been taught to skate by Elmer Loch, who went on to play hockey for the Montreal Canadiens.
“When the Depression hit, I passed my dolls on to somebody who didn’t have any,” Metke said. “I was happy to share but I treasured my dolls and was sad to give them up.”
The old school desks on display indefinitely at the museum also caught their eyes.
“I remember using desks like these and if you were bad, you had to sit with a boy–that was the awful part,” chuckled Metke, who grew up in Saskatchewan in the 1930s.
“We were pretty good kids [in school] — they had a strap in those days,” smiled Whalen, who attended school in La Vallee.