{"id":15069,"date":"2016-08-24T15:37:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15069"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:37:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:37:25","slug":"share-your-memories-large-and-small-to-celebrate-150th-anniversary-of-town-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/share-your-memories-large-and-small-to-celebrate-150th-anniversary-of-town-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Share your memories \u2013 large and small \u2013 to celebrate 150th anniversary of Town Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Town Park was a Mecca for music on Saturday night as thousands from across Aurora \u2013 and beyond \u2013 gathered there to celebrate the legacy of the Tragically Hip.<\/p>\n

Whether you were there as fans of the Hip, or just to spend a musical night out with your family, chances are you left after the third encore with more than a few lasting memories. <\/p>\n

You might think these memories might be small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, yet they are anything but, according to Shawna White and Michelle Johnson of the Aurora Museum and Archives.<\/p>\n

Ms. White and Ms. Johnson are hard at work collecting memories residents past and present have of Town Park ahead of the park\u2019s 150th anniversary.
\nTheir project, which is being carried out with funding through the Virtual Museum of Canada\u2019s Community Memories Project, will chart Town Park\u2019s history from Canada\u2019s First Nations, to its development as a community gathering space and culminating in this past weekend\u2019s farewell to the Hip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to talk to people who were at the concert or little kids playing in the park to get their perspective on what this park means for them,\u201d says Ms. White. \u201cThere were some little kids here the other night saying, \u2018When I was little, we used to\u2026\u2019 and we want that multigenerational input.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Aurora Museum and Archives has a significant amount of material related to the history of the park through the 1970s, memories, photos and artefacts from the 1980s to present day are few and far between, and that is just what they hope this project will remedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, memories are identified as trivial or routine and they pass them off, but know they are not trivial,\u201d says Ms. Johnson. \u201cThat is the stuff we want because it is the stuff we don\u2019t have. That is the stuff that will often be forgotten because it isn\u2019t some big, monumental event. That is why [our slogan] is Be A Part of History. We want to know those small, little stories so we can get into the larger story of Town Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were speaking to a mother recently about the outdoor skating rink and her first time here. The mum remembered everything about what the environment looked like, the sun shining, how it was freezing cold, and now she plays hockey for the Aurora Panthers. She came here and was learning how to skate on that outdoor rink. That also speaks to the value of Town Park and it is a pretty good moment to reflect upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to Town Park, there are some facets of its history that are well known to a good portion of Aurorans, including it being the location of Edward Blake\u2019s famous \u201cAurora Speech\u201d, visits by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and, given the historic Aurora Armoury on its northeast corner, as a site of drilling and practicing for the Queen\u2019s York Rangers and Army Cadets, as well as a marshalling place for these soldiers before heading off to fight in the First World War. <\/p>\n

But there are little things too that Ms. White and Ms. Johnson feel are also very interesting and are clamoring to uncover.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 20s, people would drive up when the automobile became more affordable and they would camp here,\u201d says Ms. Johnston. \u201cThere are reports about Americans coming up and camping in Town Park, and all the different purposes it has had and different uses. Its use as a constant community meeting place reveal a lot of really good stories. This is the B-side of stories that we\u2019re collecting from people and it is really exciting. Some of the stuff we have heard are things I never thought we would uncover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Ms. White: \u201cThe best image we have so far is the gentleman who didn\u2019t give away any names on who the culprit was, but who brought his new car and hooked it up to the newly installed flag pole in Town Park and took off and bent it over. Sure enough, there it is in The Banner with a photo and a firsthand account of someone who witnessed it. We want all the shenanigans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of the \u201cshenanigans\u201d they are also looking to fill in a few blanks, including firsthand stories from Wells Street Public School students, who used the park as their playground before the school itself was decommissioned and sold, as well as the whereabouts of Aurora\u2019s Boer War Memorial Fountain. This three-tiered fountain, originally placed on Yonge Street designed as a water fountain for dogs, humans and horses, was eventually moved to Town Park and the subject of considerable vandalism over the years.<\/p>\n

However, after the 1950s, the fate of the fountain, its whereabouts and why it was removed, have fallen off the historical record. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt survived the war, so it wasn\u2019t melted down for that,\u201d Ms. White muses. \u201cI would love to know if it is in somebody\u2019s back yard because at least we know it was saved!\u201d<\/p>\n

To share your stories, photos, home movies, and mementos, contact the Aurora Museum & Archives, or head over to a Pop-Up display at the Aurora Public Library next Tuesday, August 30, from 12 noon to 3 p.m. and talk to Shawna and Michelle.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Town Park was a Mecca for music on Saturday night as thousands from across Aurora \u2013 and beyond \u2013 gathered there to celebrate the legacy of the Tragically Hip.<\/p>\n

Whether you were there as fans of the Hip, or just to spend a musical night out with your family, chances are you left after the third encore with more than a few lasting memories. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/2016-08-25-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3V3","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-30 13:54:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}