Commercial Hotel

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Mens' pockets have always held a wide assortment of interesting items. In the early 1900s it would have been commonplace for Tavistock men to have a Commercial Hotel fob stashed in their pocket, readily available for any number of good uses.

Reading The Gazette In A Brand New Way

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Searching for Grandma’s wedding picture? Want to find out about Uncle Albert, the uncle everybody called “the skeleton in the family’s closet”? Interested in learning more about an organization in Tavistock?

All of this and much more is now available in the digitized Tavistock Gazette newspapers accessible on the computers at the Tavistock Library.

Souvenir of Tavistock

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This small 5 1/2" plate was an early donation to our collection. The wording reads:

LUTHERN CHURCH, SEBASTOPOLE, AND
SOUVENIR OF TAVISTOCK, ONT.

The picture is a well-rendered drawing of Trinity Lutheran Church surrounded by maple leaves. It doesn't take an experienced curator to quickly note two interesting aspects:

(1) Look at the wording. Put on your schoolteacher glasses for a closer inspection. Two spelling errors in a two-line title? Yes, there are. It should be Lutheran, not Luthern and Sebastopol, not Sebastopole.

The AHA Moment

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This picture was a mystery. It's obviously a Post Office but which Post Office? The answer came unexpectedly one day while waiting for the traffic light to change in Shakespeare. Looking at the buildings on the northwest corner it was suddenly very obvious. One of them was the Post Office in our picture. The Shakespeare building has changed over the years. It's no longer a Post Office. A second story was added on. And, of course, the bunting and decoration recognizing Queen Victoria's death in 1901 is long gone. Overall, it's still recognizable.

The Missing Link

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Sometimes an item has more questions than answers. This “picture” was found in the Tavistock Men’s Club Hall in a standard-issue black wooden frame with a handwritten “circa 1917” note on the back. It was only when the frame was removed that we realized the “picture” was a “postcard”.

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