Tracks through time

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2021 (1575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Writer Brenda Suderman continues to explore the attics and corners of the city’s community-run museums while they remain closed due to public health orders. Today she takes you to the Transcona Museum, 141 Regent Ave. West, home to eclectic collections of insects, magic props, rocks, flamingos, and artifacts from the early years of the community of Transcona, named after the Transcontinental railway and Lord Strathcona. Check out their collections and virtual programs, including weekly craft events and community scavenger hunts, at https://www.transconamuseum.mb.ca/

 

After decades of performing as a sidekick for a magic act, Jerry has a well-rehearsed vanishing act.

Stored inside a large black suitcase with leather straps for most of his life, the wooden-faced ventriloquist’s dummy makes an occasional appearance in and around the Transcona Museum, where he’s lived for about two decades.

“He’s been out for Halloween exhibits,” explained curator Alanna Horejda.

“We made a YouTube video where we made it look like the museum was haunted and Jerry was in several scenes.”

For much of his nearly century-long existence, the red-haired, plaid-suited puppet made people laugh with the help of Melvin McMullen, a Transcona lumberyard manager, school trustee and town councillor, who purchased the Jerry from Chicago artist Alex Cameron. Cameron also created Charlie McCarthy, the sidekick of famous 20th century American ventriloquist, actor, and comedian Edgar Bergen.

Jerry may not have had the same notoriety as his puppet cousin Charlie, but McMullen — who went by the stage name of Len Vintus — had his own brush with stardom, co-founding the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1922 and holding membership card No. 1.

As a longtime resident of Transcona, McMullen, who died in 1999, got heavily involved in the life of his adopted community, as well as boosting tourism for all of the province in his role as provincial manager of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce and deputy minister of Manitoba’s Department of Industry and Commerce.

“Mel McMullen was also known as Mr. Manitoba,” explained Horejda.

“He did a lot to drive tourism in Manitoba.”

Located in a heritage building that once housed the Bank of Toronto, the Transcona Museum’s collection ranges from the slightly disturbing looking Jerry (his face has a rather pasty look from a bad putty repair job) to the first steam engine that rolled out of the Canadian National Railway yards nearly a century ago.

The collection attempts to portray all aspects of life in this eastern suburb, which incorporated as a town in 1912 and joined the City of Winnipeg in 1972, says Horejda.

“Our goal here is to tell a Transcona story. If it doesn’t tell a Transcona story, we don’t add it to the collection.”

Sometimes those additions to the collection walk into the museum, as was the case with the council chamber chair presented to the first Transcona mayor, Colin J.E. Maxwell, who retired after only eight months in office. He took the maroon-upholstered oak chair with him when he moved to Montreal and later Vancouver Island. More than a century later, his family donated the chair to the museum.

“It’s an amazing piece of early Transcona history,” Horejda said of the chair, which has a small, engraved brass plaque explaining its origin.

The museum also houses artifacts with a less direct connection, such as the C.S. Quelch Lepidoptera collection. It features more than 8,000 butterfly and moth specimens from around the world collected by former Transcona teacher and principal Christopher Stephen Quelch, who went by Steve. The museum also boasts a few oddities, such as the 30-centimetre-long beluga fetus floating in a jar of preservative.

“When the museum started, the board wanted it to be solely Manitoba history, but Transcona was only 50 years old so we do have some things in our collection not collected in Transcona,” said Horejda, explaining the unusual artifacts.

One of those artifacts includes a large lava sample, obviously not from a province without a history of volcanoes, but without any documentation of where it was found.

“I really would love to know the story behind this,” she said of the rock donated in the 1970s.

Recently, museum staff discovered more of the backstory of the many travel slides and paintings donated by John Russell Armer, who moved to Transcona to apprentice at the railway shops in 1912.

After his retirement, the avid photographer and hobby artist spent his winters in St. Petersburg, Fla., staying at a boarding house run by two women in the same family. Their address is printed on his camera case, a fact that came to light after the granddaughter of the boarding house owner contacted the museum.

Possessing some of Armer’s signed paintings, the granddaughter searched online for more information about the artist and stumbled upon a presentation Horejda made about the Transcona man.

“She has more of the collection and she is looking to donate it to us,” says Horejda.

“We have to balance what she in has in the collection and the space we have in the museum.”

At least one artifact with an obvious Transcona connection will never fit inside the 1,000-sq.-ft. museum. Locomotive CN 2747, acquired by the museum in 2015, has been parked outdoors at Rotary Heritage Park on Plessis Road since 1960. The museum is in the midst of a capital campaign to create a permanent shelter to protect its largest, heaviest and most visible artifact from further damage.

“This will protect it. The back wall will have interpretive panels,” said Horejda of the proposed metal shelter and fencing, projected to cost nearly $500,000. Construction is expected to begin in 2022.

With a truss-free metal roof deterring birds from perching underneath, the shed-shaped structure will cover the first steam engine to roll out of the Transcona shops and explain its relevance to visitors.

“It is a significant historical piece of Transcona’s history that is in the community,” she said of the 1926-era locomotive used as freight hauler in Alberta before pulling troop trains from Wabowden to Churchill during its last years in service.

After sandblasting and painting the engine last summer, the museum plans to undertake more repairs before it can go on display, she said.

Over the years, many parts went missing, including the original number board mounted under the headlights and Horejda suspects it might still be close to home, hanging in someone’s basement.

“It’s a real possibility it could be out there and if somebody does have it, we’ll accept it back no questions asked,” she said.

Horejda remains on the hunt for other Transcona-related artifacts, especially those that tell stories of more contemporary times. For instance, the museum owns older communications technology, such as wall and rotary dial telephones, but would welcome electronics, computers and other items from the more recent past.

“A lot of the collection is the really old items,” she said.

“We’re trying to tell the story of Transcona up to today.”

brenda@suderman.com