Charles Louis Cooper (1933-2023) was born on 2 July 1933 in Berlin to a German father and English mother. His family hid in the Germany countryside during the Second World War. After the war, Cooper moved to England and studied at Cambridge. He moved to Canada in 1957.

He got his love for trains when lived in Europe and always wanted to work on the railway. He ended up working in insurance and trains became his pastime. He was an honorary member of the Lindsay & District Model Railroaders and had a large model train set-up in his basement.

Cooper also spent his time researching railroad history and writing books. Rails to the Lake was published by Boston Mills Press in 1980. Hamilton’s Other Railway expanded on the first book and was published in 2001.

Narrow Gauge for Us recounts the history of the Toronto-Nippissing line that partly ran through Kawartha Lakes. It was published in 1982.

After Omer Lavalleee passed away, leaving his manuscript incomplete, Cooper took on the role of seeing the book to completion, and Canadian Pacific to the East – the International of Maine Division was published in 2007. That year the book won the Canadian Railroad Historical Association’s book award.

Cooper also kept a lively website at Charles Cooper’s Railway Pages.

Cooper passed away on 13 February 2023 at the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay.

Books:

Rails to the Lake (1980)

Narrow Gauge for Us (1982)

Hamilton’s Other Railway (2001)

Canadian Pacific to the East – the International of Main Division (2007)

Sources:

Charles Cooper’s Railway Pages.

Nolan, Daniel. “Obituary: Historian Charles Cooper was fascinated by Hamilton railways”. Toronto Star. 13 March 2023.

“Honorary L&DMR member and renowned author Charles Cooper“. Lindsay & District Model Railroaders. 14 February 2023.

Born on November 4, 1924, Hendrikus van Oudenaren (1924-2020) emigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in October 1950 after serving for two years in a forced labour camp in Stettin, where he worked as a tool and die maker and built boats. For 17 years Harry worked at Pogues Garage on Boyd Street, learning the auto-repair trade. He returned briefly to the Netherlands, long enough to get married, and came back to Canada. The family settled in Bobcaygeon where Harry set up an auto repair garage in an old schoolhouse, while establishing his home with his wife Johanna and six children across the street. For a while, his son Pieter ran the garage until he decided to take up cheesemaking.

Harry began to collect archival and historic information and images about Bobcaygeon. His family formed a friendship with another Bobcaygeon historian and author, Dorothe Comber. She and Harry shared information and upon her death, she left her collection to Harry.

The school that housed the garage business was the former Rokeby School, or Verulam School Section (S.S.) No. 6 at 35 North Street in Bobcaygeon. The northern section of Bobcaygeon was originally called Rokeby when it was first founded, but when it joined with the southern neighbouring areas to form a town, the name Rokeby was lost in favour of Bobcaygeon.

Harry also collected objects of historical interest, which can be found in the Harry van Oudenaren Museum at Kawartha Settlers’ Village, established in 2018. Harry’s son, Pieter, gives a tour of the museum on YouTube. When his collection became too great to stay in his basement, Harry had a building constructed and moved to the Village property.

In 1992, Harry published some of his collection in a book, Bobcaygeon: a picture book of memories.

Harry passed away at his home in 2020 with his family by his side. His collection of items relating to the Boyd family went to the Boyd Museum and his items went to Kawartha Settlers’ Village.

Books:

Bobcaygeon: a picture book of memories (1992)

Coboconk resident and graduate of University of Windsor, Barbour is the co-author of The Flora of Kawartha Lakes.

Anne is a retired professional librarian and earned her botanical skills with the Essex County Field Naturalists, and later the Kawartha and Carden Field Naturalists. She has a long history of volunteer positions with KFN and is currently assisting Kawartha Conservation in monitoring new invasive aquatic species.

https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/kawartha-field-naturalists-launches-the-book-the-flora-of-kawartha-lakes

Her co-author, Dale Leadbeater, describes how the book came together:

My contributions started when we collected field data for 10 years including pressing, drying, mounting, photographing, labelling and entering data into a custom database thanks to funding from the Stewardship Council and the ROM. Over 100 volunteers from all walks of life including students from Fleming College and almost as many landowners who often provided lunch. My co-author, Anne Barbour, hosted so many mounting days and her husband, Brian, made endless gallons of soup! We could publish a cookbook with all the great meals we ate!

Then Anne and I spent countless hours combing through other published lists for CKL to update names and to determine whether they were real or errors, tracking down specimens from colleagues and those filed by historical figures such as John Macoun, the first Canadian Botanist who accompanied the Sir Sanford Fleming expedition across Canada in 1872. It was a trip not only through space but also time. Truly amazing.

https://www.slrconsulting.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/slr-ecologist-wrote-book-local-flora

Book:

The Flora of Kawartha Lakes (2022)

Retired from consulting, Leadbeater continues to volunteer for favourite projects, including the Couchiching Conservancy Land Trust as well as Harcourt Park Incorporated. A graduate of the University of Toronto, her focus has been on mitigation of climate change effects through land acquisition and management.

Along with Anne M. Barbour, she is the co-author of The Flora of the Kawarthas: An Illustrated Checklist of the Flora of the City if Kawartha Lakes, which includes reflections on historical ecology, occupation and how the current vegetation patterns were formed. The book is comprised of 14 years of research.

Any paddler will tell you that it’s not a good idea to stand up in a canoe or kayak. But that is exactly what Dale Leadbeater did when she noticed the distinctive bladders of American Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia) growing on the bank of the Black River where she was paddling with two friends. “It couldn’t be, could it? Have to get a specimen to be sure!” She very carefully stood up in the kayak, while her friends exclaimed “Are you crazy?” Dale had to reach over her head to clip off a fruit-bearing twig. Then she had to sit down again… nearly as risky as standing up. But with the help of sturdy Red-osier Dogwoods for balance, she did not get wet. It turned out to be the only location in the entire City for this large shrub.

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/opinion/contributors/2022/03/11/flora-of-the-kawartha-lakes.html

Book:

The Flora of Kawartha Lakes (2022)