Special people drive their communities - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

One of the great things about a small town is that it’s a perfect place for dreamers - the people who want to be their own boss.
Our local small towns are surrounded by people who want to be their own boss on all the small and large farms that make up Huron County’s countryside. Meanwhile, in towns and villages, a smaller percentage of people want to run a business while the vast majority are happy to take a job working for someone else who will have the worry of finding enough business to keep the whole thing going.

 

I grew up near a small town and I worked in one for more than a half-century. When I started in the newspaper business, our towns’ main streets were lined with people like Max Oldfield in Brussels and Grant Sparling in Blyth. It wasn’t just men. One of my favourite clients was Helen Gowing who ran The Needlecraft Shoppe in Blyth and was head of the business association. Helen was prominent in helping get Blyth Memorial Hall in shape to host the Blyth Festival in the 1970s.

 

There was a time when hamlets like St. Augustine, Auburn, Londesborough, Belgrave, Walton, Ethel and Cranbrook all had small shops. Over the years, as transportation improved, people drove further to larger stores. Mega-stores like Zehrs and Walmart came to dominate the distribution and the shops for clothing, furniture, etc. in small towns, could not find enough customers to stay in business. 

 

And yet new businesses have sprung up to replace those that had to close. Our main streets are mostly full of stores accommodating other businesses. Some, like Blyth, can depend on the Blyth Festival to bring people to town and feature art galleries, restaurants and other tourist-oriented businesses.

 

I’m always amazed when I turn on an urban television station and see people being interviewed who have accents from nearly every country in the world. Farther from the main centres, our population hasn’t changed nearly as much. But the merchant class has led the way to change. My pharmacist, grocery store owner and variety store owner all come from distant countries and see Canada as a chance to grow, just as merchants of the past did.

 

The change in farming areas has been less significant, in part because of the cost. When my father returned from fighting in the army in World War II, he bought a farm - a whole farm of nearly 100 acres for the price equivalent to  about one acre at today’s prices.

 

Yet, the greatest change in our rural population has come from the influx of farmers from The Netherlands in the years since the war. Crowded out by the expense of land in their homeland, more and more Dutch farmers sought to buy land in Ontario, and Huron County was a popular destination. Today, the grandchildren of the original immigrants are taking over the farms from their parents.

 

But our population doesn’t change quickly since we’re miles from the nearest multi-lane highway. I always find it surprising that Canada’s population today is over 40 million people, more than double that of the days of my youth, despite the fact that, between birth control and women seeking jobs outside the home, we have so few children our population would be falling if not for immigration.

 

When people are new to this country, they tend to seek out people with whom they are familiar. You can see it in the original settlers of this area. One town or village, like Lucknow, was settled by Scots Presbyterians, while another, like Dublin, was settled by Irish Roman Catholics. Only later did the communities diversify. So, different urban suburbs have different ethnic populations, and few immigrants seek life in smaller rural communities.

 

One of the ways we diversified was to allow more women to express their entrepreneurial ambition. I mentioned Helen Gowing, one of the first, but, little by little, women have played a bigger part in the business leadership of our communities.

 

If you drive in the cities, you’ll see small stores along the streets, but the major shopping areas are the malls, filled with branches of the same national or multinational chains. When I was a student at Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University), I used to regularly browse at Sam the Record Man or A&A Records, both long gone. Today people shop in malls like the Eaton Centre, filled with stores carrying the names of the big chains.

 

Still, whether in big cities or small towns, the desire to be your own boss affects enough people that we retain our small businesses - and often the driving forces that seek to improve and build their communities.

 

So when you shop at one of the small stores that line our streets, take a moment to thank these people who mean so much.