Having first opened in October in 1910, the Bell HomeStead National Historic Site is one of Ontario’s oldest historical museums.
Looking to be closer to their son and his family in Washington, DC, Alexander Melville Bell and his wife, Eliza Grace Bell, packed away their belongings, auctioned off their furnishings and sold their family home in Brantford in 1881.
The property later passed through six owners before the Bell Telephone Memorial Association acquired the property in 1909 and immediately deeded it to Brantford’s Board of Park Management who opened it to the public a year later.
“In the early years, the caretakers were living in the house but the grounds were open,” said Brain Wood, Curator of the Bell Homestead. “In its earliest existence as a public place, it was all about the surroundings and the parklands.”
The property was officially deeded to the City of Brantford in 1917 and in 1926, the president of the Bell Telephone Company had become interested in the idea of trying to furnish rooms inside the house.
With the help of Dr. Bell’s two daughters, Elsie May Bell Grosvenor and Marian Hubbard Bell Fairchild, the company managed to collect enough original pieces to furnish the home’s drawing room and open it to the public by 1930.
Officials later had the home moved forward 80 feet from its original spot near the Grand River, and closer towards Tutela Heights Road in 1935 due to the erosion occurring nearby.
“At that time, Dr. Bell’s bedroom was the museum and that’s where they put the telephone exhibit,” said Wood. “Gradually, more and more pieces of furniture started coming back as people who had purchased the items when they were first auctioned off, got word that this was happening and they were willing to donate the items back because it was an honour. Through the 1940s and 50s, even more pieces started to come back to the point where they were able to open up the other side of the house. Bell Canada’s historical people always had a vision of trying to open up the entire house and restore all the rooms with original furnishings and period pieces.”
Wood said that since then, they’ve acquired over 400 original Bell family pieces through descendants.
In 1969, the Henderson home, Canada’s first telephone company business office, was moved from its original location in downtown Brantford to the Bell homestead and it was converted into another part of the overall museum.
By the time the early 70s rolled around, the Bell home underwent its first big restoration and the caretakers were moved into a separate building on the property so that the entire home could be opened to the public; In 1994, the home underwent its second big restoration project.
“We discovered a lot about the house during that restoration. We had very astute restoration architects working with us on the project, and they made discoveries of certain things along the way, including the original exterior colours of the house,” said Wood. “When the Board of Park Management started looking after the place as early as 1910, at that point, the Art Deco colour scheme was coming into fashion, which was often black and white, and that’s when the homestead was painted. In 1995 we took it back to green and white but because we had made that change, some people were absolutely flabbergasted with us because they thought it had always been black and white, but that was just what they had been seeing for so many years.”
Wood said that interpreting how the house would have been originally set up has always been a challenge, but that with the help of the original family letters they’ve been able to restore it to the best of their knowledge.
“This house and the property have really gone through an evolution.There were several changes that the subsequent owners had made after the Bells and we had to reverse a lot of the work that was done over the years,” he said. “In taking this place from a parkland space, to having one room open to the public and later the entire house open to the public, we’ve really used the original family letters to be able to interpret and restore the house back to how Eliza Bell would have managed it through the 11 years they lived there. When I first started reading those letters, I realized that even the interior rooms of the house weren’t being interpreted properly and so we made even more changes.”
He said that because the property was so sentimental to the public, he felt that it was important to start having the letters published so that the community could read it for themselves.
“We weren’t just doing all this because it was fun, we wanted to really be able to tell the story the best way we can and to this day, that’s what we’re doing,” said Wood.
In 1997, the Homestead was chosen to honour Queen Elizabeth when she visited the Homestead on June 28, 1997 and during her visit, she officially designated the property as a Canadian National Historic site to recognize the achievements made by Alexander Graham Bell.
These days, over 30,000 people interact with the Bell Homestead staff and volunteers through onsite visits, school programs, special events, virtual programs and off site activities annually.
Wood, who has worked at the homestead for 36 years now, said that he’s honoured to be a part of bringing the Bell home and its grounds back to life.
“I love what I do. For me, the best days here are when I pull myself away from my desk and I go do a tour, or I go help with a school program, because for an hour I’m getting to talk about this family, and I’m taking the group through the house and it’s just enjoyable to be able to share those fun little anecdotes and see the people’s reactions,” he said. “When I hear them say things like ‘that was so great, we learned so much about the family,’ that’s when I know I’ve done my job. In many ways, this place has become a second home to me and so I want the community to look at it in that same way.”
While Wood’s first time seeing the house was when he was seven-years-old during the centennial celebration in 1974, he never ended up returning until he started working at the Bell Homestead as a summer student in 1988.
“I was in my second year university at the time and it was very much just a summer job because my goal at that point was to get my teaching degree and teach in a school, but after that first summer things kind of changed for me,” he said. “I still wanted to educate people and I still wanted to work with people but I realized that I didn’t really want to be in a classroom day in and day out; Being here, it really opened up a door for me in terms of being an educator in a museum setting because now I get to see people everyday and I get to teach them about this incredible family so it really worked out.”
After working at the homestead for two summers, Wood was later asked to stay on full time as the assistant curator when he finished university in 1990 and for the next five years, Wood went back to school to work on getting his certificate in museum studies. When the lead curator’s position opened in 1995, he was offered the position and has been in the role ever since.
“This place has become a big part of me and the Bell family has become a big part of me and my interest. It’s just been the best time and I’ve loved it every step of the way.. When the time comes to leave this place and hand the reins over to someone else, it’s going to be a very difficult thing,” he said. “I’ve made lots of great friends from working here and I have so many good memories because so many exciting things have happened in those 36 years. We hosted a royal visit. I’ve met countless descendants of the Bell family and have become very close to many of them through the different anniversaries that we’ve hosted, and of course we’ve just done so much to build it up to where it is now.”
He said that being able to see the house evolve and being able to share the stories with the community and the younger generation has been a highlight of his career.
“The part that I’m most proud of, is being able to be a part of the evolution of the property and the houses. I know now that we’re really doing good by this family, that we’re telling their story the best way we can and showing the house in the best way we can,” said Wood. “The fact that I’ve helped to even change the thinking around this place from being ‘just a tourist attraction’ to being a real community hub that educates and entertains people has been so special. If I happen to stay in this role until I’m an old dodger, when my memory is gone and I have no idea who I am anymore, I know I’ll be sitting there still happily talking about Bell family history. It’s ingrained in me.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
