STONEACRES: Gone, but Not Forgotten

Sorry, I know it's been awhile ... Have spent the part year wrapping up mum and dad's estate (with my brothers) and I have moved to a new home in Eastern Ontario ... 

Today, I want to share some parting photos shot during my final year at our childhood family home, along with an article written last year, (never published). It sums-up, to my mind, what Stoneacres was all about, from the distant past to the present day. Our family owned and improved it for 70 years. 

'Stoneacres' may be gone, but it will never, ever, be forgotten, by me. I really loved that unique house and property. That one-of-a-kind fine old stone house was made so special by so many, but most importantly, by Mum and Dad's constant care and up-keep. It really was a wonderful place to grow-up ... 

I've not been back since I left the area in June. I doubt I'll ever return. That chapter is over. In a few days, I'll be adding a new post that introduces you all to my new home. I was lucky to find it. To my mind, it too is an unsung beauty.

In the meantime, please ENJOY this WRAP-UP of 'Stoneacres', my childhood home - 

Stoneacres - with Persian Lilacs in Bloom

STONEACRES: A LOVE STORY - Collaboration by Jeff Mahoney & MLHolton

The house and the grounds it is on have a name, two names actually, which tells you something about it right away (my house, for instance, doesn’t have a name; just a draft).

'Stoneacres' is grand, and its history is deep; pre-war deep - as in pre-War of 1812 deep. Napoleon was an actual emperor, not just a pastry, when it got its first build. Grand and historical, yes, but not pompous, theatrical or affected. It started as a settler homestead in 1810.

House in 1958

Every bit of this now magnificent edifice (interior and exterior) has been defined by the vision of those who have lived and built it over the centuries. 

Hard-working hands added a new stone addition in 1850. An overall restoration began in earnest in the 1950s when Margaret Lindsay Holton’s parents bought it.  

Her parents gave it the name of 'Stoneacres'. One look at it, you know why. Self-explanatory.

View: Niagara Escarpment & Lake Ontario

 

 

A solid, stately, Georgian vision-on-a-hill greets the eye in simple pleasing rhythms of field-stone and glass accented with some of the finest coursed, dressed stone you’ll find. 

A “land" mark, yes, but one that rides the hill overlooking the lake almost like a ship rides a wave. Like Noah’s ark, this ship abides while all else around it - symbolized by the traffic whizzing by below - drowns in floods of change. 

That’s the stone. The acres - it sits on 10 of them - alludes to the picturesque surroundings.

'Stoneacres'. That’s the one name.  

Margaret Lindsay Holton, (she goes by 'Lindsay'), a multi-disciplined Canadian artist, has another - “it's a love story.”

“When mum and dad bought this stone shell of a place in 1953, there was no plumbing or electricity. An out-house out-back and a well in the basement served the old farmer who lived here well enough. It was derelict. Today, the house & property is a monument to the grit, love and determination mum and dad had - to draw-out its potential."

Newly painted walls & Dad's trim

They added their own addition - a 3-bay garage - in the 1970s.  

Lindsay's parents also transformed the interior. The existing Georgian centre-hall plan has been brought up to scratch.

They restored the two existing fireplaces ~ and added two more. Uncovered the boarded-up bread oven. Built distinctive shutters for the century-old windows on stone sills (six-over-six wood sash), added solid wood doors with period cast-iron locks, installed electricity, laid down beautiful wide-plank flooring, added 16-inch baseboards, installed period door trim.

Lindsay grew up in this fine old house. She shows me the fine antique four-poster she slept in as a child.

A love story? Yes, it was. Lindsay’s parents met in England during that other war, World War Two. Her father was in the Canadian tank corps. He was billeted to Mary Margaret Lindsay Allan’s parents house in London. Love at first sight, they married on her nineteenth birthday in 1945. 

Mary Margaret, (aka 'MM'), came over to Canada by ship, the Aquitania, as a war bride. The newlyweds first lived in downtown Hamilton but they both longed for something rural - and romantic.

While driving by the house, 70 years ago, the century-old lilacs in bloom at the front of the house sealed the deal. 

Persian Lilacs at the Front

Building up a family, along with the house, occupied so much of their lives over the decades, Lindsay thinks of the house as a kind of living embodiment of who they were. They were, says Lindsay, "hard-working idealists" - "true classics of that Great Generation.”  

“And they both left 'feet first',” she says with a smile. Both died peacefully in Stoneacres, leaving it for good when their coffins were carried out. Her father went in 2002 in his 79th year. MM just this past February, age 96.

Since MM's passing, Lindsay has been 'sorting' through their long family life there. Memorabilia, books, papers, records, the furniture. There is so much. The place, as Lindsay walks me through it, is rife with stunning antiques. A Queen Anne sideboard, an earlier Tudor chest, Chippendale side chairs, Georgian end-tables, Williamsburg chandeliers. Much more. There are studded brass chests from Africa and a leather-wrapped tribal sword from the Sultan of Zanzibar. 

Sorting, Packing, Sorting, Packing ...

Lindsay’s mother, it turns out, spent her early years in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. MM's father was a colonial administrator involved in the transfer of German East Africa to British East African rule. Those colonial facts shimmer in the artefacts, startling remnants of a by-gone era. “Mum did speak some Swahili,” Lindsay adds. 

MM's family returned to England pre-WW2. 

Lindsay’s father was a gifted cabinetmaker. Among her parents' effects, Lindsay found an old leather-bound Rudyard Kipling anthology awarded to him when he was 17 - in 1939 - by the head-master of his school for 'Excellence in Woodworking'.  

Fireplace built & trimmed-out by Holton

He, in time, ran his own fine furniture-making business so successfully from the basement of 'Stoneacres' he had to open a larger shop in Hamilton in the 1980s. 

Many may still remember it: Holton Fine Furniture on Canada Street. 

There are many examples of his work in the house today, including gorgeously turned mahogany plant stands, tables and chairs ...

Let’s go outside. 

Once fallow and denuded when the Holtons arrived, there are now sweeping gardens that offer a painting-like vista. A great thickness of trees dominate the rippling lawns. Expressive weeping willows loom over the wild duck pond at the back. 

The pond is a brilliant mint green in the summer months and, Lindsay assures me, "it's a perfect skate in winter." 

It's quite the place.  A lovers dream made real. 

Indeed, a 'love story': Stoneacres.

Spring Thaw - At the Pond

--- Additional photos: Copyright MLHolton.

Back Garden PREPPED for the SALE

Back Hall - Trimmed & Painted

Dad's version of Sir Edwin Luyten's Garden Bench

Had to start camping out as furniture was distributed or sold ...

A late spring storm!

View from Upstairs to the Pond

View from the Well to the Pond. Mum & I put up the last martin-house ..

My Stargazer Garden Bench - ready for storage, and now at my NEW PLACE ...

Porch window. During the summer, mum would put her baby carriage out there ...

My childhood bedroom - empty. (Loved that view from my room ...)

Final snow before sale of Stoneacres

Finishing-up paperwork by the kitchen fire.

Last supper in the diningroom with an old, dear friend.

 

 

 

Mum & Dad's Bedroom - empty.

Heirloom - sold ...

Front Steps - Built by Dad

.... sunlight and shadows - everywhere ...

Full Moon over the House - (Photo taken from the back lawn.)

Front Door

Final Christmas Tree at Stoneacres - With mum. 

 

___

Mum and Dad - in the Garden at Stoneacres

 

December Letter, 2022

 

Good afternoon all - Checking in again, finally.

First up, an apology. I have not had much desire or interest in creating 'new work' over the past nine months since mum died. To be sure there's been grief, but also, settling her - and the residuals of dad's estate - has been very time consuming. 

Not only is my parents beautiful centuries-old farmhouse for sale now, but we (my brothers and me) have had to empty it. After 70 years of accumulation and family living, that's no easy task!

Stoneacres, the well-known house and property, has been chock-a-block with fascinating remnants of the bygone decades. Not only did we jettison dad's 40-year old electric jig-saw (made in Guelph, Ontario), but we've tossed toys, school clothing and home-making artifacts from our youth. We've also chucked numerous domestic devices mum accrued over the years, (like 3 ironing boards in various states of collapse - as well as metallic sock and kid-glove stretchers!)

In truth, it's been a somewhat painful process. Sure, those items are of little use or interest today. However, they do bring back loads of memories of a somewhat blissful and carefree childhood ... 

We did have a happy home as youngsters.

I was looking through mum's cookbook cupboard the other day. Nestled above the stove, those pine shelves hold an amazing compendium of books, magazine and articles she saved. They succinctly document her transformation from a dutiful, meticulous and ambitious 'housewife' to an independent and 'liberated' female who was finally 'released' from kitchen drudgery by the invention of the dishwasher and microwave oven. That's not to say, mum was a 'woman's liber'. She wasn't. But, inherent in the cultural evolution of the 60s, 70s and 80s, she went through her own feminine evolution. Over time, she became separated from the repetitive and dull tasks that had previously defined her principal 'role' within our family as 'the cook'.

When first married, mum brought the best of continental training to her kitchen. She'd been trained as a teen in the 'Domestic Sciences' at the Atholl Crescent School in Edinburgh, Scotland. (She won Honours in baking, linen repair and monogram stitching ...) Her first hand-written recipe book in the cupboard meticulously catalogued the early dinners she prepared for her new husband and herself as a newly-arrived war-bride to Canada. Entertaining 8 to 12 friends over busy social weekends was not uncommon. Her handwriting at that time was precise, neat and small. There's also a curious self-congratulatory tone in those early written recipes. Mum loved entertaining with semi-exotic souffles, spiced beef and 'cocktails'. After five years of war-rationing and deprivation, they were living up the good life in their mid-to-late 20s - and were proud of it. She'd write, "Very Good!!"

By the 1960s, after her third child, mum's recipe books transformed into a filing card system with quick and easy to prepare healthy meals for us all. Porridge recipes, chicken pot pies and hearty lamb stews. Her handwriting evolved too. It was looser, freer, more open - yet decidedly firmer and more mature. The entertaining novelty had worn off. She knew what she was doing and she just efficiently recorded what worked and what didn't.

Claw bathtub abandoned in orchard circa 1980s

 Overall, Mum was a very good cook. 

 I especially remember her delectable soups. She made a variety of delicious cold soups - from an exotic tomato-sipper consomme to a garden-grown cold and creamy asparagus. 

She worked hard in the kitchen - and she fed us all very well. 

When dad died, she began to lose interest in cooking. The last recorded recipe - in her by now strong and definitive hand - was from 2001: the year he died. It was for special Christmas cheese cookies she knew he liked. I could find nothing else - no notes, no cards, no clippings of any food that interested her after that. If family were visiting, she'd buy prepared frozen casseroles and toss a salad. Otherwise, she preferred a light diet of eggs cooked in a variety of different ways, raw vegetables, periodic fillets of fish and her favourite dessert, rice pudding with dollop of Lyle's Golden Syrup. And tea, always lots and lots of tea ...

... I was going to add more photos to this post, but haven't transferred over the images yet. I was just conscious I hadn't written in a while, and I wanted to let you all know, I've not forgotten or given up. I've just been very, very busy - sorting, packing & sorting through the rich legacy mum & dad left us. 

When I get the photos done, I'll load them in. Until then - 

Season's Very Best to You All. - Eat, Drink & Be Merry!

with nothing but Good Cheer for the New Year!

- mlh - 

 

End of an Era: A Tribute to Mum

In mid-February of this year, my dear old mum died of natural causes. She was in her 96th year. By all accounts, she was holding up pretty well. But continued public and private restrictions re: COVID greatly curtailed her social interaction with those she loved most - her family and dear friends. 

Mum's engagement photo

During those two years of imposed isolation at the farm with limited  care-taking staff: in winter, we would gesture through the glass door, blowing kisses and holding up signs. In summer, through the screen door, we wore masks and gesticulated wildly. In the spring and fall, she would station herself at the back door wrapped in a blanket, so we could mouth our words to her. But in the end, it just wasn't enough. She was basically 'cut off' from us - her family. Personally, I believe it was this, the 'social isolation' from those she loved most, that did her in ...

Mum, by nature, a Gemini, was a very social creature. She LOVED entertaining - and being entertained. She always was the first to have a 'good story'. She loved to amuse others and make others laugh. 

She was also a phenomenal organizer. Over the years, she devoted herself to charity organizations, large and small. She was constantly giving, giving, giving - in order to make life better for others.

Mum, as a child in Dar-es-Salaam

 Over the past few months, I have been at the farm sorting through her things. For one so charitable and social, it is astounding how private she really was ...

Early photos of her life - before us - reveal a rare 'social exoticism' few would understand or even appreciate today. 

Mum grew up in colonial East Africa, the first born of a Scottish lawyer. Her childhood home was the former German Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam. That house was massive. 

Multiple images of mum with assorted house-help paint a striking picture of ease, prestige and privilege. Yet, mum only spoke of those early years with great warmth and affection. Ali, the head house man, her personal favourite, was her constant companion and, she always said, her friend. He taught her to converse in Swahili. (Periodically, even in her 90s, mum would drop in a phrase she learned from her childhood.)

One year, Ali carved a foot-high wooden soldier for her - to protect her on her journey through life ...

At the farm, decades later, that little foot soldier held open the door of my parents bedroom. 

When mum finally died, as was her wish, the little soldier, with his tattered, worn-out military cap, was placed in the coffin beside her. 

I never really understood that childhood connection until recently.

--- 

At eight, mum was shipped off to boarding school, (literally, by ship around the Cape of Good Hope.) From there she was shipped off again to England. 

During the Second World War, her father was involved with munitions and they re-settled in war-time London. 

When she, at seventeen, met dad, on shore-leave in England, it was love at first sight. They maintained a loving correspondence while he continued to roam and fight across Northern Europe in a tank. Their tender, youth-filled love-letters reflect that tumultuous near-forgotten era. 

Mum and dad were married in Edinburgh on her eighteenth birthday in 1945. 

Luther and Mary Margaret Holton

As a Canadian war-bride, mum's adjustment to a her new life in Canada - so far from all that she had known - was a bit bumpy at the start. No more metropolitan cities, no house servants, no more diplomatic privileges. 

Life after the war was earnest for most.

After several years in an shoe-box apartment, then a Hamilton town house, they bought a run-down farm house in Halton County, with no water or electricity. (Mum always said they bought it because it had stunning century-old Persian lilacs out-front.) 

Then, for the greater part of 70 years, they turned that rambling property into their dream home. Our home. 

Looking at the early photos of 'how-it-was' to 'what-it-has-become' is kind of mind-blowing. They both worked - and played - HARD to make it better for themselves, and for us, their children. They sacrificed, they scrimped, they saved, they invested. They did this - and much, much more - to create a 'good home' for us all. And, clearly, none of it was ever 'easy' ... 

Well done Mum! - Well done.  

We miss you. -- Every single day. 

Mum, masked, in her 96th year.

 

 

Greetings from Canadian Artist & Author, MLHolton

'Good Vibrations' by MLHolton, acrylic on canvas, 6'x20", 2021

Ok, 2022, here we come ....

... I painted the above, 'GOOD VIBRATIONS', at the tail end of 2021, to send to you all ... 2021 was, without a doubt, a very difficult pandemic year.

With growing proof the initial 'COVID19 virus' was man-made, we are now beholden to 'for-profit' Big Pharma to 'save us' from the mutating variants with more experimental pharmacology ... Talk about a perfect storm!!!

Yet, as long as COURAGE and HOPE remain, we CAN STOP the intentional, (or accidental), deployment of genetically-modified, gain-of-function viruses designed - for no other purpose - than bio-warfare.**

Sensible and compassionate human beings MUST stand-up for future generations against this reckless, unnatural and heavily-subsidized wickedness. -- What to do? Start by signing this ADVOCACY PETITION. Then, please, pass it on through your social media networks.

Enough is ENOUGH - WE MUST STAND UP! 

In other news ...

I'm very warmed by the positive response to my new short story ebook collection, STICKS and STONES released last fall. Originally written to offer solace to attentive readers during these troubled times, it is a very good introduction to the way - and why - I write. 

Set primarily in Canada, the stories explore delicate, yet deliberate, human interactions within families - between children, parents, adults and seniors. STICKS and STONES is now available as a paperback.

... It is my hope that the short stories will lead readers to the "epic" tri-family saga,TRILLIUM, set in the beautiful Niagara wine region ...

... and/or ... the 2020 Edition of The Gilded Beaver, a "well-crafted" 'faction' about an extraordinary Canadian fine furniture design commission for a wily Toronto-based financier.

Both novels are available in ebooks or paperbacks. TRILLIUM is now a stellar 14.5 hour audiobook - (best via iTunes!)

So, that’s it for now. :)

My plan this year includes more painting, writing and thinking about us all ... Trust me, that's plenty.

Stay Safe, Sensible & STAND UP!

Margaret - LINDSAY - Holton

Canadian. Artist & Author.  Proudly serving CANADADA since 1975. 

p.s. ATTN: Global CO-PRODUCERS: My 'pitch package' for the 9-part series, based on the award-winning, well-loved, Niagara-centric novel, TRILLIUM is ready to go! - Please contact me for a review copy. - Think interwoven Irish, Italian, Mexican, German & Canadian family dynamics playing out on two very different vineyards. A global Win-Win!

 

MLH BOOK LINKS on AMAZON

- - - 

 
**  AUXILIARY LINK via independent journalist Glen Greenwald

 re: GAIN OF FUNCTION RESEARCH ...

Year End Thoughts from MLHolton - 2021

Starting to wrap up the year now, 2021, the true year of COVID - the gain-of-function man-made plague that decimated the heart and soul of humanity ...

It became clear in the spring of this past year, many were having far greater difficulty adjusting to 'the new normal' than their jolly social media accounts let on. At one point, a person-to-person phone call, or zoom or face-time chat provided the only convivial human interaction so many desperately needed. We all know that this form of communicating wasn't and isn't 'perfect'. Video calls lack the sheer physical warmth of another human being in our churning electrical presence. We do need, most now realize, genuine living-breathing interaction with another fellow human for our mental, physical and emotional good health. We are social creatures, not typists.

To augment this, I completed two projects this year to help facilitate and bolster human discourse across a broader spectrum. You can read one or listen to one. The short story collection, STICKS and STONES, is available as an ebook for now and will soon be released as a paperback, in January of 2022. The album, GROUP THINK, came out last fall. (Links below.) It is a compilation of musical threads that I've been developing since 2017. Both projects have been produced under the looong shadow of COVID. Both intend to meet it, address it, and offer solace. I hope both efforts do assist others to get thorough this very challenging and transformative period. 

We, as a species, simply cannot go on as we have been doing. Mothership Earth just can't take it anymore, and neither, increasingly, and apparently, can we. 

We have to re-align. We have to re-think our relationship to the planet - and to each other.

This re-imagining has been variously - and often viciously - called the 'Great Reset', 'The Great Awakening', the 'Singularity' or the 'New Beginning', etc. All conjectures swing wildly from horrific dystopias to blissful utopias - with little reasonable or livable 'middle ground' in-between. Too many are manifesting 'all-or-nothing' catastrophic thinking. We've all been hyper-stimulated by our plugged-in devices to become the ascending 'stars' of our own burgeoning media empires. Everyone is now a King or Queen at the epi-centre of their Fiefdoms ... (ok, dramatic flourish. Call it what you will. You know what I mean.)  One thing for sure though, something far greater than the sum of our parts is taking hold of our sensitive psyches. 

This transformation is filling many with fear and dread. It is also filling many with great hope and courage. People everywhere are increasingly aware that humanity IS - gosh, darn it - a global family. And, as such, we increasingly understand we all have responsibilities towards each other. Thus, it no longer makes sense to devastate an entire eco-system in one corner of the globe to prop-up consumption in another. It just isn't viable anymore. Paternalistic and exploitative colonialism, as we've long known it, is over. 

However, as is evident, this generational transition will not be easy. When an old order falls away, a new order will take its place. For now, the problems decimating the current era are manifold. There is no 'easy fix'. Not one nationalistic elitist group has all the answers to the questions. Die-hard free-market libertarians or staunch communistic oligarchies under dictatorial rule do not have a pat single solution. In fact, the whole idea of 'nation states' is collapsing. In their place, tech giants, with market support from savvy global investors, are surpassing the GNP of many middle-sized countries. The techies are taking over accepted mainstream media, local political theatre and increasingly, even the basic mechanics of banking. It's a new and unprecedented phenomenon - and we are all witness to it.

What can - and should - make a sustainable difference moving forward is our very personal and individual capacity to empathize. We do need much more compassion at this moment than we need destruction. We need to rally and support each other, not isolate from each other behind cellphones, tablets and screens. We need to be better humans IN PERSON.

We can all do it. - Do it small. Do it daily. Do it neighbour to neighbour. Village to village. Town to town. City to City. Tribe to Tribe. Nation to Nation. We can all put our best and bravest foot forward. 

Sticks & Stones: Table of Contents

Simply put, we can no longer shirk our global responsibilities as caretakers of ourselves and the planet. Nor can we allow ourselves to continue on as 'beasts of burden' for unscrupulous soul-sucking over-lords. We need to stand our ground and not let loud, belligerent or moneyed bullies take advantage of our fundamentally Good Natures. 

Instead, we must strive to be forthright, sincere - and fair with each other. Above all - we must be kind. Mano o mano. oh, and humor helps. Use humor. Now. Get outside of your silo.

---

If you do have a moment after all that, perhaps you will consider my new short story collection - (it makes a Great Gift to PASS ON) - or my new album. I did do both of them for YOU - to help all of us get through.

1. GROUP THINK ALBUM - download here.

2. STICKS and STONES: 10 Canadian Short Stories

Season's Greetings: with a Merry Christmas to All!!!

Here's to a healthy & happier New Year  - Keep in touch!

M. Lindsay Holton  - Canadian Artist/Author 

(p.s. And add this insightful hour-long film to your 'watch later' list ... then, Pass it on)

Midlife Musings: On Fire - and Tea, Toast & Trivia

Two opportunities arose recently that offered unique platforms to share several thoughts about the aging process, particularly from a mature female perspective. The first was the opportunity to submit a non-fiction essay/story to a book publication about the challenges I faced while working UP into 'A Man's World'. The second was an opportunity to discuss the broader holistic perspective that a woman does gain with age. 

The first, 'Midlife on Fire',  shares the perspective from 20 women who really do 'tell-it-like-it-is', for better and worse. A mature woman, with a wealth of lived experience, does have an enhanced ability to evaluate both positive and negative circumstances. For those who'll consider it, older women offer a lot of quiet wisdom to an evolving humanity. 

The second opportunity was as a  guest on the 'Tea, Toast and Trivia' podcast, hosted by the ever-affable Rebecca Budd from Vancouver. Rebecca and I chatted about a wide range of topics, and touched on the aging process. How do older dames stay 'grounded' in a world that seems increasingly 'adrift'? Have a listen here.

There is plenty of discussion on social media these days about 'the patriarchy'. In my wide-eyed youth, in the late 1950s and 1960s, I was well aware of this reality, but, (aside from my own observations of how men did seem to hold greater monetary power everywhere), little was done or said amongst my female peers to challenge or usurp this entrenched 'authority'. - 'It was just Life. It was just the way things were'. (As an aside: I never did resonate with my early indoctrination in Christianity with its dominating Holy Trinity who were completely devoid of anything to do with 50% of the species .... ie. the Feminine! - What's up with that??!)

Well, seemingly, we've come a long way, sisters ... 

Today, regardless of the congratulatory noise and media hype, the primary issue between women and men continues to be: 'equal-pay-for-equal-work'. The rest of the hype, to my mind, is somewhat irrelevant. (As example, it is impossible to equate the innate upper body strength of men to the innate pelvic design of women. We are simply constructed differently. Biological Fact. The unfortunate and diverting fall-out from many of the bold and current challenges to 'the patriarchy' has been the wide-spread invention of numerous 'sexual identities' across a wide 'sexual spectrum' ... Good grief: what a a waste of energy!) -- Why? Because the primary issue continues to be - Economic Parity - 'equal-pay-for-equal-work'. Women have still got some ways to go on this front. Working women continued to be paid far less than men for EQUAL WORK.* Until women, (and the wonderful men who support working women), get this equation sorted out, we all continue to exist within 'the patriarchy.' When the data and statistics change, we're making progress. Until then, it's just more distracting noise as far as I am see ...

Pick up MIDLIFE on FIRE HERE-- And listen in to Rebecca's and my chat on Tea, Toast & Trivia HERE. (Available as well on Audible, Spotify, iTunes, iheartradio, etc.)  Enjoy!

* https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-gap/

* https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/the-gender-pay-gap/

*  https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm