Friday, 29 April 2022 via Zoom
Speaker: Claudia Smith
Lecture Summary:
In this lecture farm life with horse power will come alive as I talk about my latest book — Horses of the Country An Homage. The book is a comprehensive account of our rural history with horses, much of which I gathered from around farm kitchen tables, research and experience.
The lecture will be a horse blanket of folklore, feisty horses, toil and adventures – from the earliest horses of the pioneering days of eastern Ontario and the Canadian horse to the heavy horse partners on farms and the light horses going to mill and market. I will share local stories about toll gates, stage coaches, the custom of “blowing the anvil,” and selling horse hair as well as information about horse drawn hearses, blacksmiths and the bonds between children and horses.
Memories of farming days past will gallop back or light will be shed on your ancestors’ lives when horses were indispensable.
Bio: Claudia Smith:
Horses have been an important part of my life and over the past 35 years, as I have been gathering oral rural history in Lanark County, any mention of horses was quickly noted down. I have documented the colour of rural life in several hundred articles published in The Lanark Era and in eight books that include When the Sugar Bird Sings ~ A History of Maple Sugar Making in Lanark County; Gypsies, Preachers and Big White Bears ~ One Hundred Years on Country Roads; and Barns ~ A Reflection of Changing Times. I am a resident of Almonte.
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