A Collection of Note

By GREG NIKKEL, of the Weyburn Review (Posted Nov.12/97)

The efforts of a lifetime, spent in amassing Canada's largest private silver collection, went on display to the public for the first time on Friday, November 7, 1997, with the opening of the Charlie Wilson Collection at the Soo Line Historical Museum.

The Charlie Wilson Room, constructed specially to hold the collection of over 5000 items, is the result of two and a half years of work by members of the Soo Line Historical Society, along with museum curator Lavine Stepp and workers hired along the way through the provision of grants. The items range from around 1700 through to 1972, with a large number of the silverware from the 1800s.

The collection of silverware, glass, furniture and antiques represents the passion of Charlie Wilson, a Weyburn area farmer who died in March, 1995. He was a bachelor who travelled extensively throughout North America, England and Europe to add to and improve his collection, an interest he began in his teen years and carried on with into his senior years.

Charles Wilson was born in the Bell Hotel at Swindon, near Nottingham, England, in 1904, and emigrated to Canada with his parents, Frederick and Eliza Wilson, in 1907. Charlie's father bought the Waverly Hotel in Weyburn (now known as the King George Hotel), as well as a farm eight miles north of Weyburn. The hotel was sold in 1915 and the family moved out to the farm.

Charlie spent most of the rest of his life on the farm, making his living as a livestock and grain farmer. He was a member of the Anglican Church, the Masonic Lodge and the Shrine Club. He lived at his farm home until ill health forced him to move to the Weyburn Special Care Home a few months prior to his death.

In his will, he bequested his collection to the Soo Line Historical Museum, with a number of stipulations. One of those was that the entire collection had to be displayed at once, either in a special room or in a separate building; part of the bequest included some money to provide for display cabinets.

"We were very surprised to hear that we were going to receive his collection," said Mrs. Stepp, adding that when she, Isabelle Eaglesham and other society members went to see what was in his house, "we went into a state of shock to see all that. Going into the living room and dining room, everything was just plum full. We went into this one windowless room, his 'silver room', and it was completely packed from the floor to the ceiling."
Mrs. Eaglesham, who had seen the collection some years ago, was surprised at the magnitude of it.

"He didn't advertise too much that he had this collection; just a favored few ever saw it. There was so much more than when I had seen it before," she said.

A part of the collection - 437 specific objects, including silverware, cut glass, furniture and antiques - is protected under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, which has designated these pieces as having national historical importance. The Soo Line Historical Museum was designated a Category "B" institution by the federal Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, in order to be able to house these valuable items.

The designation came after a team went out from the museum, including Mrs. Stepp and historical society members Carla Kristensen, Jim Nedelcov, Mary Konotopetz and an executor of the estate; they packed it all up, brought it to the museum and had two separate appraisers identify and appraise the pieces. Once the appraisal work was done, the paperwork was filled out and an application made to the Canadian Heritage department.

A bequest also came to the museum from the estate of Noreen Robins, a longtime member of the historical society, which largely paid for the cost to renovate and build the special room. The room includes a display of the antique furniture and crystal on a second floor.

The society bought 19 cabinets from Family Pharmacy, and Larry Balog built two large double-sided cabinets and two smaller ones over the summer. Grants helped pay for temporary and student workers through the Human Resources Centre, the Wheatland-Souris Regional Recreation Association, Care and Company, the Young Canada Works program and the Summer Career Placements program.

A large part of their work was cataloging the pieces, and polishing the huge numbers of silver pieces; a total of 159 bottles of silver cleaner was used in this process.

The Charlie Wilson Collection covers several generations, with the silver pieces including tea service sets, cream and sugar sets, salt and pepper shakers, and group themes including all types of coasters, napkin rings, trays, platters, mirrors, bathroom sets, figurines, prints, pictures, frames, letter openers, evening purses, wax seals, shoe horns, binoculars, opera glasses and spoons.

Other items encompass the Art Nouveau and Victorian eras, with designs including the fiddle pattern and grape and vine patterns. The glass includes china, cut glass, Bohemian and Pinwheel crystal, along with antique furniture and household items.

Ernestly ?!

Silverware collection, another city first

By ERNIE NEUFELD, Weyburn Review Associate Publisher (Posted Nov.4/98)

It took me a while to attempt this column, because I could not think of a satisfactory excuse for not ever having mentioned (as far as I can recall) that years ago I saw, in part anyway, a collection that now has viewers from across the continent gasping with admiration and disbelief.

Ignorance of the law, it has been well established, is no excuse. But surely there are areas of life in which the naivete, unawareness or stupidity of youth may be grounds for a pardon. I wasn't really all that young, but any port in a storm, as the old saying goes.

What I am laboriously working up to is the admission that almost 40 years ago an eccentric single gentleman who farmed a few miles north of Weyburn invited me into his home (not long after I came to Weyburn from barbarian Manitoba) to view what I considered a hoard of silverware.

I now realize that it was an exquisite collection, however disorganized the display. There were trays, cutlery, utensils and numerous other items wrought of silver, on every shelf and in every cabinet in a number of rooms in the spacious farmhouse, and proud admissions that there was much more stored in crates and boxes on the premises.

I don't recall what prompted my admittance to this sterling counterpart of Fort Knox. Perhaps I merely happened to be in the neighborhood for some unrelated purpose, and was invited in as a courtesy. Whatever the circumstances, I left wondering why anyone - particularly a human male - would want such an accumulation of tarnished metalware. Charlie Wilson, I am certain, viewed my departing back with disbelief that anyone could be so insensitive to the beauty and value of his collection.

Decades passed, and once every few years I would hear a reference to Charlie Wilson's silver collection, whereupon I probably admitted that I had seen it, never mentioning that I had not had the wit to write about it or take some pictures of it.

More years rolled by, and Charlie passed away (in 1995) at the age of 90-plus, and it soon became a matter of interest, and even newsworthiness, that his silverware had been left to the Soo Line Historical Society with the condition or understanding that it would be kept intact.

That was a few years ago, and last November, the collection was finally cleaned, organized and placed on display in a specially dedicated chamber of the Weyburn museum. I use the word "chamber" because "room" might be confused with a tiny, unused corner of the spacious former power house. Believe me, it is a chamber.

Naturally I vowed I would drop in and see it if the opportunity arose, but this might not have happened if a friend of my helpmate had not received a call from a lifelong friend in Toronto, who had heard glowing descriptions of the collection on the CBC. She urged us to see it before leaving Weyburn for the winter.

So we betook ourselves to the museum-sur-Souris soon thereafter, and even heeded (with mental reservations on my part) the admonition to allow an hour for the viewing. Heavens! I have covered entire museums in less than an hour.

Now I must tell you that despite my admitted lack of couth already humbly confessed, I not only managed to put in a full hour, but was left awed, stunned and fascinated by the collection, and admiration for the interesting organization of the display.

The foregoing should serve as assurance that regardless of how little you may know about silverware, or how shallow your interest in it, you will not regret a visit to the museum to see the Wilson collection. (And if time permits, there is a lot more to see in the museum).

I could not even begin to describe the treasures but I must pass a long a special bouquet to an individual other than the donor. By the time we had seen just a bit of the collection, I made the sage observation that the museum obviously had brought in an expert to see to the arrangement.

The expert, we discovered, was curator Lavina Stepp, working with the assistance of a student. Excellent work!

The Charlie Wilson collection, thanks to CBC publicity, information on the Review's internet home page, articles in this and other newspapers, and further exposure I don't even know about, is quickly gaining importance as a Saskatchewan (and Canadian) treasure. See it yourself, recommend it to visitors, and take justifiable pride in another Weyburn first.

Charlie Wilson, I have since learned, was born in England, and came to Weyburn in 1907 with his parents, who owned and operated the Waverley Hotel (now the King George). The family also bought a farm eight miles north of Weyburn, and moved there in 1915.

My address (also listed on the Review's Website) is ernestly@pathcom.com.

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