Historian leaves lasting legacy
Creemore has lost an active community member, a man who had one eye on the past and one on the future.
Chris Raible died on Feb. 10, at the age of 92, in Seattle where he was living near his son and wife Pat, who is in memory care.
Chris and Pat have been a force in Creemore, leaving a lasting legacy of culture and preservation.
Amongst a long list of accomplishments, the Raibles founded Curiosity House Books in 1995. A former interpreter at Mackenzie House in Toronto and historical advisor to the Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum in Queenston, Chris is considered an expert on William Lyon Mackenzie and has published several books, articles and essays about the politician and journalist focussing on the printing press.
An intellectual and scholar, his impressive library was transferred to The Mayholme Foundation, a genealogical and historical research charity in St. Catharines when the Raibles were preparing to sell their Creemore home in 2023.
Friend Barb Mann said Chris was very sad to be leaving Creemore.
Chris was instrumental in the building of Station on the Green, acting as a key fundraiser.
Mann recalls Chris orchestrating a ground-breaking for the community centre, inviting everyone to bring a spoon to help dig. He also conceived of the idea for the book bash, a used book sale that would for many years raise funds for Station on the Green.
He was also the driving force behind the preservation and relocation of the Creemore Log Cabin, and was the long-time chair of the management board which was established in 2011, with Pat serving as treasurer.
Fellow board member and long-time friend Paul Vorstermans said the bookstore was an enterprise of passion more than finance.
“It was a personal project that they felt important and liked doing it,” he said. “This was the place to which he was most attached for sure,” she said. “He was a great friend and a great contributor to Creemore with the bookstore and the log cabin being his lastinglegacy.”
Chris met Pat, who grew up in Liverpool, through a Unitarian youth group in Manchester, England in 1954 and they were married within a few months.
“It was a whirlwind romance,” said their son David. “They both moved to the U.S. and my mother became a U.S. citizen.”
“They were inseparable, really,” he said.
Chris graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry in California and his work as a Unitarian Universalist minister took the Raibles to serve churches in Jamestown, N.Y.; Brookfield, Wis.; Worcester, Mass., eventually landing at the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto. Nearing retirement, they moved north and began renovating the heritage building on Mill Street that would house the bookstore.
Chris is remembered as being civically engaged, making appearances at council over the years on various topics relating to governance.
In 1965, David recounts, his father marched with Martin Luther King Jr in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march in Alabama, along with one-third of all clergy from across the country.
He went to the second Selma march, said David, after his colleague James Reeb, a Unitarian minister, was attacked and beaten to death. As a result of the beatings, King and other leaders issued a call for clergy from across the country to join them in the second march.
“My mom packed him a bunch of lunches,” said David, chuckling. “To make sure he had something to eat.”
Chris and Pat were dual recipients of the Creemore Legion 2013 Citizens of the Year award and the 2010 Ontario Historical Society Cruikshank Gold Medal. Both were active members of the St. Luke’s Anglican Church.
Chris was past secretary of the Ontario Historical Society and past president of the Town of York Historical Society.
He is survived by Pat; three children, John, David and Ann Beasley; six grandchildren; nieces and nephews; and a growing number of great- grandchildren.
A celebration of life will be held at a later date. Memorial donations may be made to the Creemore Log Cabin or St. Luke’s Anglican Church.
Image: Chris and Pat Raible at Curiosity House Books, when it was in its original location at 190 Mill St., with Bill Mann in a 1998 photo supplied by friend Barb Mann.
