Where was Blue Bonnets in 1897?

Speaker: Fred Parkinson
When: Thursday, September 15, 2022, 19:30 - 21:00
Where: Centennial Hall,
             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

Growing up in the 1940’s in Alberta, each school year began by filling out a registration form that included one entry asking where my mother was born. She had told me the answer was Blue Bonnets, Québec. I never gave it much thought, but the name seemed mysterious, even exotic, and it would pop up in my memory from time to time. However, recently it has been coming to mind so often that it has become an obsession. In an effort to learn where Blue Bonnets was, and hopefully to locate mother’s birthplace, I joined the Quebec Family History Society. With their guidance, as well from other experts in the field, I have spent the last two years researching information that could provide the missing details.

This illustrated lecture leads us through the local Montreal history, beginning with the Blue Bonnets Racetrack, the only locality still bearing the name in 2003, back to where the community of Blue Bonnets was located, and even to the farm home where my mother was born.

Fred (Evans) Parkinson, retired Consulting Civil/Hydraulic Engineer, spent a 45-year career working in the fields of hydro-power development and river navigation. He was associated with a number of studies to improve the Seaway lock operations during ice conditions and participated in studies on physical hydraulic models to widen and deepen the navigation channel downstream from Montreal. At the same time, he was retained to develop new operating systems for several locks on the Rideau and Trent Canals and overseas for the Panama Canal. He gave a lecture on the St. Lawrence Seaway in November 2017 to the Société historique Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield members.

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