ELORA – The Model Village: A History of Elora, the book late historian Stephen Thorning started to write in the 1970s, is now available to pre-order.
An official book launch will happen on May 8 – Thorning’s birthday.
After his death in 2015, Thorning’s family found the manuscript in his office – two binders full of manually typed pages with hundreds of endnotes exploring details of the village’s history dating back to the late 18th century. The finished book is over 600 pages with hundreds of illustrations.
Elora historian Elysia DeLaurentis, the book’s editor, said the process of turning Thorning’s unfinished manuscript into a completed illustrated book was “long and involved” but also “rewarding,” with an end result she calls “spectacular.”
“Steve was such a great historian, such a great writer,” she said.
“The fact that this is published after his death will be special for everyone in the community who read his columns and enjoyed them.”
STEPHEN THORNING
Thorning wrote several history columns in local newspapers, including the Elora Sentinel, the Fergus Thistle, the Fergus News Express, and the Wellington Advertiser.
DeLaurentis “filled in gaps” in the manuscript using content Thorning wrote later in life in his columns, master’s thesis, PhD dissertation, and research notes, trying “to keep it his work as much as possible.
“Any additions reflect his voice, his research,” she noted. “I think he would have been pleased to see it.”
The book was Thorning’s first “foray into local history,” DeLaurentis said, and he collected an “outstanding quantity of information from archives all over the province.”
The book’s publisher is the Wellington County Historical Society. Volunteers from the society started the process by transcribing the manuscript into a digital format.
The Model Village is “not your average local history,” DeLaurentis said.
The book tells a narrative of “growth and struggles of the community to grow and succeed and thrive,” including “personalities of village leaders” and local industry leaders in addition to “outside economic impacts.”
“It’s almost presented as a case study, within the context of the province and beyond,” she noted.
The book costs $65 and is available for pre-order through Elora’s Magic Pebble bookstore at magicpebble.ca.
