Longtime Community News columnist Jean Campbell was guest speaker at the February meeting of Writers Unite, Drayton.
Campbell described how she compiles the Mapleton Historical Society’s Mapleton Musings column from the research stage to the finished column, featured weekly in the Newspaper.
Campbell learned from her 17-year experience as clerk -treasurer with the township to be factual in her writing. As secretary of the Mapleton Historical Society, Campbell seemed a natural fit when the organization decided to publish a Newsletter. As she was taking the minutes of the meetings already she was given the position of establishing the society’s Newsletter.
“My dad wrote for the volunteer Young Adults of Zion United Church in 1933. Maybe he passed his talents on to me,” Campbell said.
In 2006, Marilyn Streeter began writing a column for the Community News titled Mapleton Musings. She contributed weekly to the column until 2008, when health issues prevented her from continuing. At that point, the society decided they would coordinate the writing of the column among its membership. Four members, including Campbell, wrote columns until October of 2008 when Campbell became the solo columnist. The only guideline laid out for the column was that its content had to be about happenings in the township.
“I have been writing the column since that date. Inspiration for my weekly topics come from history books and Newspaper clippings. A lot of people give me historical articles to read. I do read a lot, even the back of cereal boxes,” Campbell said.
Local historical books, the Drayton Advocate and the Wellington County Museum and Archives census and land records are sources of information Campbell uses in her writing.
“The employees of the Wellington County Museum and Archives are very helpful and their services are free. The only expense to patrons are photocopying fees. We pay for it out of our taxes so why not use it?” Campbell commented.
While doing research in the historical society’s archives, Campbell found a label or flyer inscribed with the wording, “sweet souvenir of Queen’s Bush.” After hours of researching, Campbell wrote a column about what she had found in conjunction with the label/ flyer and asked Musings column readers to respond to her findings. She was particularly interested in confirming that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had visited the Drayton area.
Readers responded to Campbell’s inquiry and confirmed that one family had a photo of a two-year-old boy, coincidentally named John Diefenbaker, who had met the prime minister after a two-hour delay.
“I don’t write anything offensive and I don’t try to make mistakes but people will tell me if I do. It’s hard to come up with human interest stories,” Campbell explained.
Campbell takes items from people and checks their sources, sometimes using her own knowledge and she has been known to use the minutes of past council meetings to confirm authenticity of stories.
She takes family stories at face value.
Campbell stated that Newspapers are truthful and contain facts and are great resources, but she has found errors in some history books.
“I didn’t set out to be a writer,” Campbell said. “The Musings column takes about six hours from start to finish. I do put it away for a couple of days and sleep on it. Most of my writing is done in the morning and I enjoy the historical aspect of the column, which keeps me learning every day.”
