I went for my morning walk here in Cranbrook, and met the manager of the local Save On Foods store who told me that I could go shopping between 7 and 8 am, a special time for the elderly during the Corona virus crisis. (Yes, I have reached that age where I am considered elderly ...
The streets were very quiet unusual for a Friday morning and there were signs in many windows along my way announcing they were closed indefinitely.
On my return home I said hello to the guard in front of the liquor store who was limiting the number of customers who would be admitted at any one time.
From what I have been reading, similar scenes were taking place across Canada, and indeed the world.
"In the blink of an eye.."
I decided to take a look backwards to the early beginnings of Chapleau.
in my book, "Sons of Thunder ... Apostles of Love' which I wote to mark the 100th anniversary of St. John's Anglican Church in 1985, I wrote "The winter of 1885 was very strenuous for the early citizens of the fledgling community. It must have been for they had left their old way of life to build a new one far from any comforts they might have known. Apparently it was a bitterly cold winter and disease was rampant,"
In 1885 instructions were given to put a spur for a boxcar to be set out at mileage 615 on the Canadian Pacific Railway line which was in the centre of the present community of Chapleau. The boxcar became the first station, office building and train dispatcher's office... A station and office building were under construction and Chapleau had become a town made up of surplus boxcars and tents. The population consisted of about 400 people, ninety five percent of them men.
Not quite like the health care crisis we are facing today perhaps but the illness of the winter of 1885-86 most assuredly frightened these good people.
There was no hospital in Chapleau until 1914 when the Lady Minto Hospital opened and medical doctors would come and visit periodically.
But these good people overcame the challenges and by the end of 1886 permanent structures were beginning to appear and the thoroughfares w er being being blazed replacing the forests. General stores were being built as well as churches and private residences.
In 1888 a major health care crisis occurred. Life was not easy for the early inhabitants. An outbreak of diptheria of a most virulent type inflicted the residents. Several including young children died from the disease.
But Chapleau survived the threat presented by the diptheria epidemic, and other scares throughout its history, up to and including today. I follow Chapleau on Facebook and daily see the efforts in the community to deal with the threats posed by the Corona virus.
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