How absorbing to come across an old diary or journal and get caught up in the daily life of the writer! The handwriting can be challenging to read and the spelling irregular but the voice from the past can be heard loud and clear. From the Archives of Ontario comes an exhibit to explore this subject - A Lifetime - Day by Day, Five Women and Their Diaries will be on display at the King Township Museum for March and April.

Researchers are finding that the diaries, family letters, and accounts of our predecessors are valuable records of individual lives, activities, interests,
and ideas of the time. By studying them we can see how important they are as documents of our collective history.

However, there are challenges associated with using these sources. The researcher must understand the frame of reference in order to appreciate
the context in which the entry is written. One must also consider what the author took for granted and did not directly address. Further challenges can include eccentric spelling or unusual words and phrases. Handwriting and unfamiliar names, places, and relationships can make it hard for the
researcher to study these chronicles.

Famous Canadian diaries include those of Anna Jameson, writer and literary figure who used the “travel-diary form with the author as heroine” in
writing about Upper Canada in the 1830’s.

Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada was written as a diary but edited to make it more saleable; when reading her entries that consideration must be kept in mind. However, her writing presents her personal view with a freshness of tone and exactness of detail that make her entries come alive. An entry from December 20, 1836 is telling in its directness and her apparent displeasure with her situation. “What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present
its appearance to me, a stranger, is mostly strange and melancholy.”

The exhibit from the Archives of Ontario will be appealing as it highlights “unknown” Ontario woman and their lives in the last half of the 19th
Century. When we read about these women's day to day experiences, the roles they played and the tasks they performed, we have a window into the society in which they lived. Please visit the museum to view this exhibit starting March 4 until the end of April. The museum thanks the Archives
of Ontario for the loan of this exhibit at no cost.

The King Township museum is at 2920 King Rd., in King City.
Call (905) 833-2331 or e-mail to kingmuseum@king.ca for more information.