FROM THE ARCHIVES BY MARY WATSON
SEA SHELLS IN THE SAND
I was always intrigued by this postcard which shows two children gathering shells from our beach. I
happened to go into the Archives last week and a lady was there donating another copy of this very
postcard. It turns out that she was the child in the picture, shown on the left. Of course, I had to know her
story.
Sylvia and her family starting coming to Wasaga Beach from Toronto when she was two years old. She
and her family would stay at either Inglewood Lodge or Spinning Wheel Lodge in the 1940s. Those
lodges were located by the Nancy Villa Motel, one on the same side of Mosley as Nancy Villa and the
other across the street. The lodges were owned by sisters and if one lodge was full, people could stay at
the other one. Sylvia’s family would stay for two or three weeks and she recalls loving every minute of her
holiday. When they would go on excursions to other places, her mother would ask her if she liked it, and
she would always say: “It’s not as good as Wasaga Beach!”
Sylvia and the young boy shown on the postcard became summer friends and spent hours on the
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beachfront at the foot of 3 Street, gathering shells to make necklaces and bracelets. If you look closely
at the postcard, you can see her stringing the little shells together. She tells me that she would take them
back to the lodge, paint them with clear nail polish to make them shiny and then finish her creations,
either to keep or give away. The picture for this particular postcard was taken around 1945. The message
on the back says: “The weather is perfect, swimming every day. I feel grand. Don’t send any more letters
here as I’ll be coming home soon.” The postcard shows a King George VI three-cent stamp.
Lodges often took group pictures of their repeat visitors, so they could take them home and reminisce
about their wonderful holiday, much like school class pictures are done today. Sylvia provided three such
photos, and the one shown here has young Sylvia holding the sign and her parents in the far right back
row. It is dated Inglewood Lodge, July 17, 1945.
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Sylvia’s mother bought a cottage on 40 Street in the 1960s, and Sylvia, with her husband and children,
continued to come here every year and spend part of the summer at the family cottage. Sylvia tells me
that the cottage is still there but has been substantially renovated.
Sylvia and her husband bought Bayview Campground on County Road 29. They changed the name to
Bayview Trailer Park and operated it for 25 years. It was subsequently purchased by Parkbridge and is
now known as Wasaga Dunes.
In 1995, they bought a home in Wasaga Beach and have lived here ever since.
To me, this story is another example of the old local adage: once you get Wasaga’s sand between your
toes, you always come back!
Don’t forget that the Archives now has secure storage facilities and we are able to add large or small
items of an historical nature for our future museum. Either e-mail at the address below or call and leave a
message with the Town Clerk at the Municipal Office 705-429-3844 ext. 2223, and we will get back to
you. Please give a description of the item as well as its size so that we can determine if we can use it and
make arrangements for pick up.
Mary Watson is Archivist for the Wasaga Beach Archives. If you would like
to contact Mary with any historical information, pictures or questions, you
can e-mail her at [email protected].
First printed in the Wasaga Sun on 13Apr2013