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Harriet Kideckel
Sudbury, Ontario
Notes from the periphery
Although I never worked at Dumont Press Gaphix, I knew many of the people that founded it. I was living in a co-op in Toronto and often traveled to K-W to visit with the people living at 192 King and 192 Strange. Many of us were student journalists at that time (prior to the establishment of Dumont). We talked a lot about freedom/press freedom, socialism, anarchism. My contact with people who later formed Dumont shaped a lot of my thinking - even today - about how people should relate to each other, share with each other, look after the planet, produce our own food. It wasn't all sweetness and light: we were struggling with our own backgrounds and upbringing, trying to live life differently.
Today I'm involved with a cohousing group that is working to establish an intentional community. A lot of the concepts around sharing community and shared governance are new to the other community members. It's like coming home for me.
Help me identify photos: It's Valentine's Day 2021 and I've spent most of the day scanning film from past reunions. I still have a way to go. I'm posting as I go along but I don't always remember everyone in the photos. So please view my reunion photos and put in the missing names in the comments. I can't believe I took so many out of focus photos!! But they bring good memories so I'm posting them anyway. Hope you enjoy them too.
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12 more photos in this story.
A document is attached to this story:
1991 Reunion.pdf
1989 Reunion in Oxbow Sask.
I took the train from Mattawa, ON (a whistle stop on the CN line but where I lived at the time) with my son, Jordan, then 4. We arrived a couple of days later in Moosomin, Sask at 2 a.m. Dorothy Wigmore was waiting there to pick us up. I had sent my tent and equipment ahead so that when we arrived at Ron and LIz's farm in Oxbow, we could just crawl into our sleeping bags until morning. It was a great reunion. My son was now old enough to hang out with "the guys", which he just loved. Here a few pics.
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3 more photos in this story.
2 documents are attached to this story:
Dumont reunion 1987 organizing invitation_20210117_0001_1.pdf
Dumont reunion 1987 invitation_20210117_0001_1.pdf
1981 Reunion - 10th anniversary
This reunion was just west of Waterloo at Glen Soulis' dad's place.
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11 more photos in this story.
Reunion Stories - an overview
It was so long ago that it's hard to remember all the stories from the early days. But the reunions - now that's a different story. I remember one reunion at Bruce Mines (then the home of Elaine Switzman and Michael Corbett) in 1987. I was a single mother of a two- year-old. Donna was into letting kids explore and do their own thing. There was painting available for the little ones. But I was trying to keep mine a little cleaner than painting would allow. I was so exhausted a lot of the time and the suggestion to just let my son get covered in paint to explore was more than I could handle, and I didn't feel I would get any help in cleaning him up.
I remember another Bruce Mines reunion in 1985, when my son was just over 2 months old. I brought my tent, but Elaine was so generous and said, since I had a baby, I could sleep in the house. What a relief!
In 1989, the reunion was at Ron and Liz's in Saskatchewan. Brian Iler and Arel Agnew had their youngest, Andrew with them. My son, 4 years, and Andrew, 2 or 3, were youngest ones there. But my son, Jordan, was so thrilled by all the attention from the adult males in the group, he was really annoyed by the attention from Andrew. He protested, "Why does he keep bugging me". Jordan's biggest thrill was going for a walk with John Dufort and, I think, Ron?, all by himself. He felt so grown up.
The reunion in 2000 in Ktchener:my son had died earlier that year; Arel and Brian had split up. Arel and I spent a lot of time in my tent, just talking. We formed a close friendship that continues to this day.
