Parkwood Servants' Reunions

When I arrived at Parkwood 13 years ago, I was surprised at how little the modern Parkwood museum family knew about the people who worked at the Estate over the years for the McLaughlins'. The archival holdings had omitted these people, the tour script referenced service staff, but that was all we knew. As someone passionate about social history, I wanted to know their names, the uniforms, the household rules, pay rates, etc. I guess I can be called nosy, I prefer curious.

In 2000, I set about collecting the oral histories of the staff we knew of. We posted press releases to discover/locate people that were out there and we didn't know. We asked for the living memories that were in the community and collected and collected. True to any oral history collecting project, people were wary of what we were up too.
"What do you want to know and why?"  "What are you using the information for?"  "I don't want to be videotaped or recorded."

We struck a committee, received training on collecting skills, and ethics around collecting oral histories and set about trying to find secondary sources of information to reinforce many of the stories/memories that we were hearing during the interview process.

(As an aside, researchers and historians have many reasons to be very wary of memories. Think about your own memories, and what is true to pure memory or what has been coloured over the years or influenced by life, photographs, suggestions. Multiply those outside influences by time, by decades. That is what I mean when I say that we need to reinforce the stories/memories being related to us in an oral history interview.)

Regardless of that aside, one of the successes we have had in collecting the oral histories of the former McLaughlin staff is the reunions we try and hold on annual basis. What a marvellous venture that has become. Former staff, from varying decades, reminiscing, and sometimes reuniting after 60 years, has proven to be one of the most remarkable experiences I have had at Parkwood. Tales of broken curfews; scoldings in the kitchen from a tired and stressed cook; lemonade arriving on trays in the Sunken Garden on a hot August day; the way the cold frames were designed and where they were situated on the property; have all proven to be valuable assets, even though the "tellers" think that we would find them mundane and useless. To the contrary. The fact that I can still pick up the phone and ask former staff about the brick foundation being painted or not painted in the greenhouse c.1960 and they can reference the stain colour on the floral benches is an amazing tool that I have to keep reminding myself is a rare privilege for a curator, and one that is finite.

 
Although, the fact that one day I shall not have the access to the Parkwood past through living resources, I still relish the fact that as I plan a reunion in the near future, I am very fortunate and looking forward to seeing my living artefacts ( though I suspect they may not find that reference as loving & genuine as I do!)