This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old photos from the collection and one from the present day, as well as the story behind them.
Nora Marshall’s years in Barrie brought art and creativity to the community and county.
It was while staying with kin, that she took some of the beautiful photographs that have become part of her legacy: stunning landscapes, pretty views of the town, tender portraits and simple images of ordinary people captured in every day moments ... viewed today, some are timeless, some deeply nostalgic.
Nora came from an enormous clan. Her great grandfather, James Butchart, born 1806 in Dundee City, a family that could trace their ancestors to 1750. Records from the 1840s show James and his wife Mary had seven children — six boys and one girl — all born in Dundee, Angus, Scotland, before they came to Canada, settling in Owen Sound about 1845.
Their descendants have often speculated how the Butcharts ended up in Grey County – it remains a puzzle to this day. James returned once to Scotland in 1875, to visit family. When he died in 1886, he was one of Owen Sound’s oldest pioneers and a most respected citizen.
James junior, a carpenter and cabinet maker, married Mary Jane Moore in 1852. Mary Jane had been born in England to Irish parents, and spent her childhood in Ireland before coming to Canada. The couple had nine children – Annie, James, Sophia, Margaret, William, John, Mary Jane, Charles and Augustus.
The two eldest children were born in Owen Sound, the rest in Sault Ste. Marie, where the family had moved about 1860. The Butcharts lived on the Garden River Reserve for a period of time, as James worked on the construction of the first two Shingwauk Industrial Homes in Garden River and in Sault Ste. Marie.
Butchart was known to have been involved in the construction of many of the early buildings in Sault Ste. Marie, including the first dock of relevance, for boats travelling the Great Lakes.
It was during this time in Sault Ste. Marie, that James volunteered in 1866, to help defend the international border against the Fenian Raids, organized by an Irish republican group based in the United States. When news was received that the Fenians were at Marquette, Mich., the volunteers stationed themselves on the beach of the St. Mary’s River.
They held their position for 13 days, and despite two alarms, returned to their homes with no incidents. Sheriff Carney, the first sheriff of Algoma District and a friend of the Butchart family, instructed Mary in the use of a firearm, should she encounter a raider.
James Butchart would later receive a medal and a grant of land in remote northern Ontario, which he never claimed, in recognition of his service and role in defending the settlement of Sault Ste. Marie.
It was truly pioneer times that the Butchart family lived in. With the exception of their boots, Mary made every piece of clothing that her family of 11 wore, stitching the garments by hand and often by the light of a candle, from tallow she made herself. Daughter Sophia told her own children how awestruck they were when the first coal oil lamp came to their household.
Soap was made by hand, and in the kitchen, Mary made her own yeast for their homemade bread. It’s difficult to imagine the hardship and effort required just to have the most basic elements of life.
As an aside, it’s worth mentioning James Graham Butchart’s nephew Robert and his wife.
Robert Pim Butchart and his brother managed the family hardware store and ship equipment business in Owen Sound. Jennie Foster Kennedy, who had lost both her parents by the age of 12, moved from Toronto to live with her aunt in Owen Sound.
After graduating the distinguished Brantford Young Ladies’ College, Jennie, a daring young women who loved flying and ballooning, declined a scholarship to study art in Paris, to marry Robert in 1884.
While honeymooning in England, Robert learned the methodology for making Portland cement, returning home to open the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company, becoming the first in Canada to produce Portland cement.
About 1902, the Butcharts moved to Vancouver Island, just north of Victoria, where Robert opened the Vancouver Portland Cement Company and a limestone quarry on Tod Inlet. Jennie, a chemist by that time, helped in the business.
The family home, Benvenuto – ‘welcome’ in Italian, was located near the quarry. Jenny created beautiful gardens on their estate and when the quarry was mined out, she transformed it into a sunken garden. The famous Butchart Gardens became a national historic site in 2004.
By about 1891, James and Mary Butchart had relocated to Toronto. Daughter Sophia remained in Sault Ste. Marie, marrying Joseph Albert Marshall, from the London, Ont., area. The Marshalls had five children: Karl, Keith, Edna, Helen … and Nora.
Nora Longford Marshall, born in 1894, graduated the Toronto General Hospital School for Nursing, with post-graduate work at the University of Toronto and the Institute of Child Study.
At the time of her retirement from the Toronto Department of Health in 1944 after 25 years, Nora was the head of St. Chad’s child health centre. While the details are unknown, during her lifetime, Nora became acquainted with Dr. Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin and Nobel Prize recipient. Nora somehow ended up with his badminton racquet, which is still in the Marshall family to this day.
Nora, never married, but was said to have had a great romance in her life. Imposing in stature, Nora had a strong voice and strong opinions to go with it. A nurse by profession, Nora was also a talented amateur photographer. While she lived with her brother Keith and his family, on St. Vincent Street, the home’s old coal bin was repurposed as her dark room, so she could develop her photographs.
Although she didn’t drive herself, she enjoyed going for rides, the excursions providing an opportunity to photograph the world around her. Before one of these family outings, her young nephew Paul overheard his dad comment to his mom that he was ‘not stopping so she could take photos’. Sharing this intel with his Aunt Nora resulted in some parental ‘feedback’ to Paul!
Throughout the mid 1940s, Nora was part of the Community Life Training Institute in Simcoe County, and did some freelance writing, focusing on welfare and old age problems. By the later part of the decade, she was living in the Samuel McCutcheon house at 3 Peel St.
Nora’s contribution to the creative community during this period was nothing short of remarkable. As one of the founders of the Simcoe County Arts and Crafts Association, Nora also served as its first president and as a member of the closely associated county recreational committee. She was a frequent speaker at Women’s Institute (WI) meetings and at night classes sponsored by the Federation of Agriculture.
At the 21st WI Convention of 1946, held at the Oddfellow’s Hall on Collier Street, Barrie, Nora, using an old-fashioned spinning wheel, demonstrated how she spun wool, and brought samples of her own vegetable-dyed wools.
At the first Simcoe County Winter Fair, held at the Barrie Armoury, the Simcoe County Arts and Craft Association gave demonstrations of handicrafts each afternoon along with displays of finished work such as weaving, wools, painting and leather work. Nora, as charter president, spoke to the accomplishments of the organization.
In 1946, Nora was appointed to a committee to discuss plans for a community centre and recreational facilities for Barrie. Nora Marshall was a driver of the county Quilt and Rug Fair with a vision for the event as a folk festival. Nora herself, was an accomplished rug hooker.
While doing research for photography and writing, Nora visited with Madame Juliette Gaulthier, the mezzo-soprano and violinist, at KIngsmere Lake, Que., in what was the summer home of railroad baron and lumber tycoon, John Rudolphus Booth. Mme. Gaulthier, a descendant of the founders of Three Rivers, with extensive knowledge of the Gatineau region, had acquired an impressive collection of indigenous and French Canadian arts and crafts and folklore.
So important was her collection and her learnings of the spinning wheel, loom, woodcraftsman and canoe-making, that the federal government purchased the historic Booth home with the intent of establishing and arts and crafts and folklore research centre. Nora was thrilled to be able to be able to visit the museum and spend time with the noted historian.
Back in Barrie, near the end of 1949, Nora wrote that one of the recommendations from Canadian artists to the Royal Commission, was to make exhibitions of paintings available to smaller centres – not just the big cities.
The Barrie Art Club arranged such an exhibit of Ontario artists, including loaned pieces from the collections of Constance Rooke and Thomas Mitchell. Nora stressed that pride in local art and artists, was important to tourism and that Barrie should own and display local work in the town hall.
In the early 1950s, Nora returned to a career in healthcare. Asked to take over the position of general superintendent of the Shelburne District Co-operative Nursing Centre, the board of directors requested that she reorganize the hospital, including supervision of nursing and hospital administration, a job she was quite qualified for given her experience with the Toronto Department of Health.
Founded by rural people, the small community hospital, once an elegant old home, finished its first year of operation with no deficit, its board of directors made up of hard-working, sincere people, 8 of whom were farmers. The centre even had “an excellent cook,” according to Nora. The successful centre later became the Shelburne District Hospital.
Nora would return to Barrie again to live out her remaining years, passing away in 1978. She leaves a gift of art.
