Page 5 - July 2023 News On 7

HAZZARD'S HISTORY NOTES

by Grant Ketcheson
“IS THE LINE BUSY?”

We live in a world of instant communication, a world where anybody can talk to anyone, anywhere on the globe. The
downside of this “instant everything” is that newspapers, as we knew them, are either dead or on life support and the value
placed on expertise with the written word seems to be in a similar decline.
The coming of telephone service to the Hazzard's Corners area brought major changes. The telephone ended isolation in
rural communities, even though as many as a dozen households had to share one line. News quickly moved through the
community as some listened in on others' calls. (Nobody would admit to that!)
Prior to the telephone, the accepted method of communicating was by letter, or an actual visit. Mail was such a vital
service that it was available seven days a week. We have postcards which were postmarked December 25! Mail was sorted
in special mail cars as trains sped between major centres. There is a record of a local Madoc Township lass receiving a
postcard from her sweetheart, postmarked in Toronto at 9:00 pm the night before. How's that for service, and for only one
cent?
Still, unless you were to harness Molly, hook up the buggy and drive to
your friend's house, communication was only by mail. An example of this
is found in a postcard that we have. On a fall Friday in 1906, the Keene
family, who lived in the house where we now live, were expecting friends
for dinner (supper was the evening meal). Their friends lived in the
north-west corner of the township, perhaps six miles away. When noon
came and then one o'clock and no guests, the Keene family must have
been sure something had gone seriously wrong at their friend's house, or
had they simply forgotten the dinner date? A few days later a postcard
came, mailed from Empey post office, saying, “I suppose you were
blessing us on Friday but the threshing machine showed up about ten
o'clock. That finished our thoughts of going.” This meant that they had to
get dinner for a crew of hungry men. There were seven post offices in
Madoc Township at the time: Empey, Bannockburn, Keller Bridge,
Eldorado, Cooper, Remington and Hazzard's Corners.

However, communications were beginning to change in rural Ontario.
The 1908 Lovell's Directory listed Hazzard's Corners as having “a post
office, a store and a local and long distance telephone exchange.” We
presume this meant that one could go to the general store at The
Corners and, for a small fee, make a phone call.

While we certainly do not want to give up our cell phones, we look
through the dozens of old postcards in our collection, read a few, and
imagine life in the Hazzard's Corners community a century and more
ago.

MARMORA PUBLIC SCHOOL
On Wednesday June 22 we had a fabulous Celebration of Dance event!
Big thanks to our lead dancers for keeping us on track, and to 7/8C
for teaching us a dance they created in class this year!