The Petrolia Branch, 1957
← Branch histories · assembled from a single notice in the newsletter, 1957, and the Society's own reprinted history, 1960 and 1975
No history of the Petrolia Branch was written while it existed. What follows is everything the surviving newsletters and the Society's own printed history record of it — a single notice announcing its formation, and two later mentions of it by name alongside the Society's other branches. Every claim below names the issue and page it comes from.
A branch application, 1957
The newsletter's regular “Branch Meetings” notice for Fall 1957 lists Petrolia for the first and only time: “PETROLIA Branch application has been received. For information regarding time and place of meetings, contact the President, Mrs. Dorothea Alexander, Petrolia, Ont.” No later notice, officer list or meeting report for the branch has been found in the surviving newsletters. (Fall 1957, page 4.)
- A branch application from Petrolia was announced in the newsletter, Fall 1957, under President Mrs. Dorothea Alexander — the only officer the notice names
- No further notice, officer or meeting report for the branch survives in the newsletters after 1957
- The Society's own reprinted history names Petrolia among its branches in 1960 and again in 1975, alongside Toronto, Hamilton, London, Peterborough, Tillsonburg and Barrie
Named in the Society's own history
The Society's own retrospective, “The Society's First Ten Years” by Robert Muma, written for the tenth anniversary, names Petrolia among the Society's branches: “This organization as we see it today is a mature tree with a number of Branches in Toronto, Hamilton, London, Peterborough, Tillsonburg, Barrie and Petrolia.” The same sentence, word for word, was reprinted for the twenty-fifth anniversary in 1975 — the same recollection restated, not a fresh count of branches still active. (Spring 1960, page 7; Spring 1975, page 2.)
Every other appearance of the name Petrolia in the newsletters — four notices of the Society's Travelling Exhibition stopping there, one list of Assembly registrants in 1959, and a single member’s address forty years later — names the town, not the branch, and is not evidence that a Petrolia branch was still meeting.
Assembled from Fall 1957 p4, Spring 1960 p7, and Spring 1975 p2.