She’s retiring after 33 years spent poring over Collingwood’s rich history and, looking back, Carole Stuart wouldn’t change a thing.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we spoke with Stuart, 78, former co-ordinator of local history and genealogy at the Collingwood Public Library.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I grew up in Toronto. After I got married, I moved to Oakville. My husband was a teacher and a chaplain at Appleby College. I started working in the library there when my son was really small.
That made me become familiar with libraries. I learned how to catalogue cards and that sort of thing.
Q: For how long have you lived in Collingwood?
A: I’ve lived here since 1995. Before that, I was out on Silver Creek starting in the fall of 1989.
I started working at the library in January 1990.
Q: Have you always had an interest in books and local history?
A: Yes. My mother ran a travelling library in Toronto. She took books around to shut-ins, like older people who couldn’t get out. She would go to their homes and take a selection of books.
I studied history at the University of Toronto. I’ve always been interested in history.
It was kind of like falling on my feet when I came here.
I took courses online relating to setting up a local history and genealogy department and I started that here in 2008.
Q: Do you have any interesting stories from your time running this department?
A: Too many to tell.
One story that stands out in my mind started in the old library. I had a gal in, and she was from Alberta. She was looking for information on her great-grandfather. His name was James Asa Castor, and he was a photographer in Collingwood.
She wanted to find more information. I worked with her for about a week, I guess. I told her, when she got everything compiled, if she would like to donate a copy to the library, we could add it to our collection. I actively collect local history stories.
She went back to Alberta and sent me a copy.
About a year later, we had moved to the new library.
A lady came in, and she had a box in her arms. She was from Oklahoma. She wanted to do some research on her great-grandfather.
His name was James Asa Castor.
The box was a pile of photographs from the family, all of which related to Collingwood. I was able to put her in touch with the gal from Alberta. She had no idea she had relatives in Alberta.
It struck me as interesting that they didn’t know. One of the sons had gone to Alberta, and one to Oklahoma.
It was fun putting that together and connecting the two of them. They had similar names; both of them began with an ‘A’. I thought that was interesting too.
Q: What kinds of changes have you seen when it comes to the role of libraries in a community, in your time here?
A: Everybody thinks of libraries in terms of books.
We’re no longer just books.
We have physical birth, marriage and death notices here. There are probably more than 90,000. I purchased a program called the Obituary Finder. I had volunteers that would come in and put all the information on those obituary cards into the online database.
Now, all the information is stored on the town and library website.
I had one volunteer that started working on this in 2008. It took her until 2018 to complete it.
Sometimes people will come in and wander over and look to see if they can find their birth, or marriage notice.
One time, I had a young girl come in, and she told me I had wrong information.
She said her father’s information showed he had been married, but to the wrong person.
I looked it up, and she looked too. There was a photo with (the marriage announcement).
She said, “That is my dad, but that’s not my mother.”
She went home to have a talk with her father. I found him out.
Q: You’re moving into retirement now, with your last day at the library last week. When you look back on your time, why do you think local history and genealogy is so important?
A: I loved my job. For me, it was not work, it was just plain fun. The town has such a fascinating history. It is difficult not to get caught up in the story and it never ends.
People are curious to know their family history and where they came from. Shop owners want to know the history of their buildings. The same thing with residences.
I am truly happy I did not retire before the pandemic. My husband died in 2018, and if I had been on my own, I think I would have gone squirrelly.
When we were closed, I was able to take a lot of information home and work on it at my computer. I thought it was wonderful because there were so many things I never had time to get at because I was always busy serving the public. It suited me fine because I was in the vulnerable age group.
But, then, what do people do during a pandemic when they can’t go out? They get into family history.
I had a lot of people writing me who had looked at the online database and wanted to have the actual clippings. I was so busy, I still didn’t have time to finish some of the other things.
Q: How do you plan to spend your time now?
A: I love gardening. I’m going to enjoy the nice weather while I can. I may even start golfing again.
Come winter, I think I might start working on a book, about the personalities of some of the early people who lived in Collingwood.
There are interactions between the families that I find fascinating. The well-to-do married in with the well-to-do. There were the workers who worked at the Shipyards, and the managers and well-to-do merchants in town.
I’d like to write their stories.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: The library offers so much more than just books. People tend to think they can get anything they need online. There is so much you can’t find online that is only available through books.
I think it’s really important that they come in and be involved here.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we speak with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way, letting them tell their own stories in their own words. This feature runs on CollingwoodToday every weekend. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
