Search Results for: Harry Verran

Most Pleased to Have Met You, Harry Verran

I can’t quite remember when I first crossed paths with him. All I do know is when I did, I took an immediate liking to Harry. If anything, I liked his grit, for lack of a better word. Maybe it was a kind of chemistry, the kind that spans the decades, penetrating time itself. You see, Harry was born almost two centuries ago. Now, the only remains left of his life, any hint of the strong and lamenting heart that…

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Remembering Roger F. Sweetman

When a loved one dies, many go to great lengths to ensure their memory and identity—what made them special—is preserved. It’s a profoundly personal period of our lives. Even if a loved one would prefer not to be remembered with a headstone or anything serving as permanence, it still matters. “Just think of me when the crocuses you planted bloom,” they may say. One day, I was wandering around in Mount Carmel cemetery on Placentia beach, a part of the…

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Blenheim House – Reflection of a Union of the Saunders and Sweetmans

Modern duplexes now sit on a location in Placentia where years ago, the Sweetman family built Blenheim House. This would’ve been in the latter eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The Sweetmans were a noteworthy and eminent merchant family in Placentia during the 18th and 19th centuries. The name chosen for the house in Placentia was identical to Blenheim Lodge, the estate of the Sweetmans in County Waterford in Ireland. The Sweetman family was well-established on both sides of the Atlantic….

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Written in the Walls – Class Divisions in Outport Newfoundland and Labrador

“The idea which underlies all is simply this. The family constitute one community: the servants another.” Robert Kerr, The Gentleman’s House, Or, How to Plan English Residences, from the Parsonage to the Palace, 1871 The O’Reilly House Museum and Rosedale Manor Bed and Breakfast are two well-regarded highlights of the heritage landscape in Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. The latter is owned by local artist Christopher Newhook and Lori Pretty, a primary schoolteacher. Meanwhile, the Placentia Area Historical Society own and…

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