Family cradle returns home to Creemore Log Cabin
As a child, Alexis Hester spent summers visiting her grandmother and uncle at their home in Creemore – the home that would eventually be exposed as the village’s last existing pioneer era log cabin.
A community effort resulted in the log cabin being dismantled and rebuilt on Library Street, open to the community as an event space and visitor’s attraction. Hester was in Creemore recently to donate a wicker cradle that soothed four generations of the Shaw family, the last residents of the house.
“I have always wanted it to go to the log cabin, that is why I have held on to it for so long,” said Hester.
The cradle was made by her great grandfather, James Veitch, for his daughter Hazel and her husband Robert Henry Shaw, who were married in 1917 and had their first child in 1919. In total a dozen children through four generations of the Shaw family would sleep in the cradle.
Although Creemore Log Cabin has intentionally not accepted museum pieces, given that is without climate control and is penetrable by critters, the management board agreed to accept the cradle because it is hardy and has a direct link to the cabin’s residents.
Hester also donated a photo collage of the family’s time at the house when it was located on a five-acre lot at the corner of George and Mary streets.
The 22-by-28-foot cabin was constructed in the early 1870s, made of timber from the immediate area. It is believed the house was built by Henry Mathers, a wagon maker who became one of Creemore’s most prominent citizens. It was rented by James and Abigail Scarrow and their 10 children – the cabin’s first known residents – and it was eventually sold to James Veitch. The house was clad in red insulbrick and had two floors with a kitchen, living room, and a bathroom on the main floors, and three bedrooms upstairs. Hester recalls there was also a long narrow closet on the upper floor, which served as a bedroom. She remembers fondly how all the children used to fight over who got to sleep there when there was a full house.
“I have wonderful, wonderful memories of visiting my grandmother in Creemore,” said Hester.
The last resident of the cabin was Marlyn Shaw, who lived there alone after the death of Hazel in 1980. Marlyn lived in the house for 20 more years until a stroke forced him to move to the nursing home in 2004.
His 2013 obituary described him as, “A proud, stubborn, spirited man who ultimately became trapped in an uncooperative body.”
Marlyn had cerebral palsy and his memory board, also on display at the cabin, includes a certificate from The Home for Incurable Children in Toronto where he attended school and learned accommodations for his physical condition, which caused him to only have use of one side of his body. It also includes photos from a time when the townspeople pitched in to get him an Isetta, a small car that he could operate with his right arm and leg.
He made a living by fixing and selling bicycles, cutting grass, and delivering the Toronto Telegram using a tricycle and later his car, receiving many accolades as a dedicated ‘Telly Carrier.’
When the new owner, Kevin Ralph, began demolishing the house to make way for new homes, he discovered the log structure beneath the siding, which put in motion a community effort to save what was considered a precious piece of Creemore’s history. In 2011, the cabin was relocated to a lot on Library Street between the library and the jail, funded through community donations.
“It was very nostalgic to see the old house at George and Mary streets stripped of its covering but that is the home I remember so well when my Grandpa Jim lived there,” wrote Marion Hester, Alexis’ mother, to The Creemore Echo in 2006. “There was no front porch on it. You walked up the path in the centre, past the lilac bushes and the old wooden bench that Grandpa sat on to read his Globe and Mail. The door was in the centre.
Though I was born in Creemore, I never lived there. These are memories of when I was little. I always felt so safe and loved there.”
The log cabin and the jail are managed by a volunteer board and are open to the public on Saturday mornings from Victoria Day to Thanksgiving.
Trina Berlo photo: Alexis Hester (from left) presents a cradle made by her great grandfather James Veitch to Creemore Log Cabin volunteers Marjorie Lang, Paul Vorstermans, and Michele McKenzie.
