The March meeting of the Bloomingdale Women’s Institute was held on Thursday March 10th at 2 p.m. in the Bloomingdale United Church. President Pauline Wieland welcomed all the ladies and opened the meeting with the Ode and Mary Stewart Collect.
Membership fees will remain the same as previous years and will be collected at the next meeting April 14th which is the Annual Meeting. Members are also asked to contribute ideas for future meetings. This meeting will take place at 12:30 with the ladies to bring their own lunch.
While the ladies worked on quilts – some lap top and others a little larger two ladies presented a program. The lap top quilts will be donated to Community Living in Elmira and the larger ones to the Grand River Hospital Pediatric Ward.
Sharon Bettridge spoke on an abandoned town she had recently seen. “Little Egypt” is on Highway 9 east of Kincardine in Bruce County on the edge of the Greenock Swamp and there is a side road that states Egypt Side Road . It had no businesses or downtown but did have a school house which was torn down in 1980. A Mr. John Bell, who was a pathmaster (a man responsible for the maintenance of a particular road) was a real slave-driver and a Mrs. John Reekie from the area gave him the nickname and everyone started calling him “the Pharaoh” and “the King of Egypt” The area that he was responsible for came to be called “Egypt”.
Lorrie Snider brought a scrap book of newspaper articles which had many happenings that had taken place in the Bloomingdale area and this had many members reminiscing and adding comments.
