The Belleville Branch, 1965–1985

No history of the Belleville Branch was written while it ran. What survives is the notice of its founding, a Branch Report in most issues from 1965 to the early 1980s, the record of the two Annual Meetings it hosted, and the Life Membership citation for one of its founders. This page is assembled from that run, and every claim below names the issue and page it comes from.

Four members, enthused

The Society's Spring 1965 newsletter carries the notice under “BELLEVILLE BRANCH INAUGURATION”: “We are always happy to have new members join the CSCL, and when we receive an application from a group of people for Branch affiliation, we are particularly pleased as this brings in several members at once, as well as a new Branch. Mrs. Dorothy Harwood, 83 Octavia Street, Belleville, is President. We welcome this new Belleville Branch and hope its members find their association with the Society of great benefit.” (Spring 1965, page 2.)

• Inaugurated at the 15th Annual Meeting, April 1965; charter President Mrs. Dorothy Harwood
• Its members had worked with leather since 1958, as the Belleville Leather Guild
• Hosted the Society's Annual Meeting twice — the 24th, 1974, and the 30th, 1980
• Jack Layton, a founder of the Belleville Leather Guild, made a Life Member 1984 — designer of the Society's maple-leaf pin
• Dissolved to Members-at-Large status in 1985, together with Barrie

The branch's own report in the same issue explains how it came to affiliate: “The Belleville Branch was inaugurated at the Annual Meeting. Members of this Branch have worked with leather since 1958. After visiting our 1964 Annual Meeting they were so enthused that four members attended the 10th International Assembly in Toronto last May. These four in turn spread such enthusiasm that it was decided to apply for Branch affiliation with the CSCL. We look forward to news and reports of the activities of our new Branch.” (Spring 1965, page 3.) So Belleville had leatherworkers seven years before it had a branch charter, and it was a visit to Toronto — not a Belleville meeting — that decided them.

Officers through the later 1960s and 1970s

The Society's Spring 1969 table of branch officers gives Belleville's President as Mrs. Vera Farrara (Spring 1969, page 9); by Spring 1970 the branch's listed contact is Jack Layton, of 250 Bleecker Avenue (Spring 1970, page 6), and he is still the branch's named contact in Summer 1971 (Summer 1971, page 7). Doris Miles is named Belleville's representative in Summer 1972 (page 9) and Mrs. Katharine Lough in Summer 1973 (page 12). Winter 1973 records Vera Farrara demonstrating “Indian moccasins for infants” at a branch meeting (page 7) — the same issue in which the branch is named host of the next Annual Meeting.

Officers, 1975 to 1985

The branch's presidency after 1973 can be traced through the Branch Presidents lists the Society printed each year and the branch's own annual reports to the Annual Meeting. Irene Girling was President in 1975 and 1976; Laura Bush held the office from 1977 into 1978–79; Margaret Hunt is named President in the branch's own report for the 1979–80 term and again in 1980, 1982 and 1983–84, with Bush named Belleville's Past President in the 1982 slate; Girling returned as President in 1984–85, the branch's last two years before it dissolved to Members-at-Large status below. Where two documents give the office to two different people in the same year, both are kept rather than one chosen. (1975-summer, page 3; 1976-summer, page 2; 1977-june, page 2; the 29th and 30th Annual Meeting programmes; 1980-fall, page 10; 1982-summer, page 2; 1983-84-winter, page 3; the 35th Annual Meeting programme; 1984-85-winter, page 15.) Bush was also a working member throughout: she took Craftsman Ribbons and Awards in nearly every year from 1977 to 1986, among them bulrush-design bookends in 1981 and a brown morocco wallet and photo album in 1984.

Harold Connors was Vice-President in 1967 and again in 1969, when Mathel Alexander held the combined office of Secretary-Treasurer. Through the later 1970s the branch ran with Marilyn Harry as Secretary (1977–79), Lorraine Moon as Treasurer (1977–79, and again in 1982), Irene Girling as Vice-President (1978–79) and later Secretary (1982), and Mae Hollinger as Secretary in 1980. (1967-spring no. 3, page 12; 1969-spring, page 9; the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th and 32nd Annual Meeting programmes.)

Host to the Society, 1974 and 1980

Winter 1973 announces it first: “The annual meeting is to be held on May 4, 1974 at the Holloway United Church in Belleville. Belleville branch have been working hard to provide a very interesting and entertaining programme.” (Winter 1973, page 3.) The Spring 1974 newsletter reports the meeting itself: “Belleville was host to the 24th C.S.C.L. annual meeting held at the Holloway Street United Church, May 4, 1974 with 91 registered and 4 visitors.” A turkey dinner, dancers from the Mohawk Indian Reserve, and an after-dinner speech by Art Duncan, the retired Personnel Manager of Bata Shoe, followed. “Those remaining at the church realized what a wonderful job of effort and organization was put forth by the Belleville Branch.” (Spring 1974, pages 1–2.)

Belleville hosted a second time in 1980. January 1980's newsletter records that “The Belleville Branch extended an invitation for the next Annual Meeting” at the close of that year's gathering (page 2), and the Spring 1980 issue reports it held: “The 30th Annual C.S.C.L. meeting was held on a warm, clear weekend from Friday evening, April 18th, to Sunday afternoon, April 20th, at the Sun Valley Motor Inn, Belleville.” (Spring 1980, page 1.) The dinner speaker was Alma Wallace, a conservationist and taxidermist “who comes originally from the Belleville area” and by then lived in the high Arctic (page 2).

The Weston Trophy record

Belleville is named among the branches competing for the Weston Trophy through the 1970s without ever winning it. Summer 1975 gives that year's scores in full: “the winner of the Weston Trophy was the Woodstock branch with a score of 87.6%. … Barrie 80.2%, Belleville 66.2%, Hamilton 85%, Toronto 87%.” The same report records that Belleville was one of the first three branches — with Hamilton and Woodstock — to receive the new Larmour Memorial Library's travelling cases of books. (Summer 1975, page 1.) By Summer 1981 the branch had stopped entering: Helen Wheaton's Weston Trophy report for that year ends its list of scores with “BELLEVILLE: Did not compete. NORLAND: Did not compete.” (Summer 1981, page 8.) The same issue's Annual Meeting report still counts Belleville among the branches present at the gathering, in Jordan Station, Ontario. (Summer 1981, page 1.) (See the Weston Trophy roll.)

Jack Layton, Life Member, 1984

In 1984 the Society gave Life Memberships to May Corbett of the Barrie Branch and to Jack Layton of Belleville, presented by Membership Chairman Hilda Chynoweth (Summer 1984, page 2). His citation is the fullest single account the archive holds of the branch's founding generation: “Jack took his first lessons in leathercraft in the spring of 1955 or 1956. He was one of the first leather workers to help form the Belleville Leather Guild. He joined the C.S.C.L. in 1965, and has served several times on the Executive Council since that time. … Jack has been a great help to members of the Belleville Guild and also to the C.S.C.L. … Jack designed the small maple leaf pin which nearly all C.S.C.L. members use. Al Stolman was pleased to get one of these pins. Jack demonstrates for us at the C.N.E. every year that he is able to attend. He celebrated his 80th birthday in April, 1982. Throughout the years, Jack has served in every executive position in the Belleville Guild from President on down.” (Summer 1984, page 5.) The page prints Stolman; the saddle-making author elsewhere named this way in the Society's pages is Al Stohlman, and this citation carries the same printer's slip. His age at the 1982 birthday puts his own birth at about 1902, and his first lessons a decade before the branch existed — so Jack Layton, not Dorothy Harwood, was very probably leathercrafting in Belleville longest, even though the Society's own charter names her as President.

1985: converted to Members-at-Large

The Spring 1985 newsletter, under “BRANCH CHANGES”: “Illness and changes in membership have forced both Barrie Branch and Belleville Branch to dissolve their membership as a Branch, and convert to Members-at-Large status for their members. We hope that this will prove to be just a temporary measure.” (Spring 1985, page 11.) No later issue in the run reports a revival.

A general history of the Society printed in the same Summer 1990 issue that carries Kay Cloughley's Barrie retrospective states, in passing, that “there are now six active branches in Ontario — Barrie, Belleville, Hamilton, London, Toronto, and Woodstock” (Summer 1990, page 2) — five years after this page's own dissolution notice. That article's own facts stop at 1969–70 (its most recent named President is Irva Ford, 1969, and its most recent named Editor is Joy Hutcheson, 1970), so it reads as an older piece reprinted rather than a current report of 1990, in the manner of Robert Muma's history, which Spring 1975 reprinted unaltered from 1960. The dissolution notice is the more recent and more specific source, and this page follows it.

Assembled from Spring 1965 pp2–3, Spring 1969 p9, Spring 1970 p6, Summer 1971 p7, Summer 1972 p9, Summer 1973 p12, Winter 1973 pp3 and 7, Spring 1974 pp1–2, Summer 1975 p1, Summer 1976 p2, Summer 1977 p2 and 3, Summer 1978 p10, Summer 1979 p2, Spring 1969 p9, Spring 1967 (no. 3) p12, Winter 1983/84 p3, Winter 1984 p15, the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 32nd and 35th Annual Meeting programmes , January 1980 p2, Spring 1980 pp1–2, Summer 1981 pp1 and 8, Summer 1984 pp2 and 5, Spring 1985 p11, and Summer 1990 p2.