Carl Ahrens Day Journal

April 28th, 2007

After many long months of preparation, Carl Ahrens Day was finally here. I was amazingly calm about the speech I had to give later in the afternoon, finding it better to only allow my nerves to focus on one thing at a time. Far more daunting was the idea of meeting at least half a dozen people I had been only corresponding with for ages. Due to my website, they all knew what I looked like. For me it would be "Hello, Greg? Rick? John? Mike? Laird?" or "So happy to meet you, Crystal? Maxine? Paula?" Not to mention that every Ahrens family member (the branch that remained in Kitchener) was likely to show up. My number of known cousins would quadruple in a matter of hours.

I could never have imagined such an event would take place because years ago I offered to contribute material to the Ahrens file at the Kitchener Public Library. My contact there, Susan Hoffman, was very glad to accept my offer, as the file on him was a little on the slim side. I sent the material and I thought that would be the end of it. One day Susan decided to put me in contact with rych mills (he spells his name in lower case), the president of the Waterloo Historical Society, an act for which I will forever be grateful. He and I e-mailed back and forth for a bit about the book I am writing. Finally he asked if I might be interested in writing a little blurb for the WHS annual volume. I jumped at this chance, of course. Over the course of the next few months my little blurb grew to 5,000 words, then 6,000 as rych suggested additions. In the end, the publishing committee gave me the front and back covers and the majority of the color pages in the center of the volume. By this point I realized this was going to be a big deal and mentioned that I might want to come up there for the launch.

"Maybe you'd like to give a little talk. Are you comfortable with a hundred or so people?" rych asked.

"I taught at Iowa State for a couple of years. It'll be like old times."

Once it was decided that the great-granddaughter of the artist was coming, rych began thinking aloud about the possibility of turning the day into an event. Did I know anyone who may loan work? When I was able to rattle off half a dozen potential names, it became clear this could not be held in a church basement somewhere. The Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery must be involved. Thankfully, the director, Alf Bogusky, agreed to it, and Cindy Wayvon and Tasha Ethelston worked with rych on the planning. After a couple of newspaper articles went out calling for lenders, many paintings emerged from obscurity.

Originally I had planned on attending the event alone, but then my mother said that she wanted to be there on such a special day for me. My dad was working over in Tunisia at the time and it is difficult for him to get away, but he was also determined to come. (Carl is his grandfather). Dad was equally determined to get his sister, Siegie, there. Siegie is currently battling cancer and he felt she needed something to look forward to. She has been my biggest cheerleader in the process of writing this book, so it meant a lot to me to have her there. My cousins Chris and Keila accompanied her. The family reunions did not stop there! We are all descendants of Carl and his second wife. We were thrilled to have two descendants of Carl and his first wife there as well, Betty Purdell and Martha McGowan. This was only the second time that members of the first and second families had ever met. Martha and I met in September of 2006 at the Roycroft campus in East Aurora, NY. The irony of the location was not lost on either of us. Carl had met my great-grandmother there, and ultimately split with Martha's great-grandmother because of it!

I arrived at the art gallery around nine, as that was when lenders would start to arrive, many of whom I had corresponded with over e-mail but never met. My good friends Mike and Wendy were there when I arrived and Mike had unexpectedly decided to bring two of his paintings because he wanted to show them to my father. Rick Taylor was the next to show up. He and I had been in touch for quite some time, and he had proved himself a wonderful detective and found Winfield, the town of Carl's birth, the Lambton Mills residence (where my grandmother was born) and very likely the Meadowvale residence as well. He is also my painting expert, as he is a professional artist himself. Not only did he bring his Ahrens painting and a very rare book of images from the Mercer Collection, but also one of his own works. I had been drooling over it less than a week before on his e-gallery and certainly had not expected him to GIVE it to me. I will be honored to hang it on my wall.

The next hour was a blur of familiar names and unfamiliar faces. Greg Chard is a descendant of the Mercer family, and brought a watercolor and an etching. The Allans and the Croziers brought their paintings. Mr. Palvetzian contributed his stunning oils, which my mother unfortunately did not get good photographs of. (I am hoping my cousin, Chris, got better ones). My second cousin, Laird, brought his portrait of my great-uncle Laird (Carl's son) all the way from Michigan. It was wonderful to finally see a portrait in person. Carl was initially famous for portraits and it was easy to see why. I overheard a couple of people wonder aloud why he ever gave up painting them.

My "medical consultant" Mike Ahrens (no relation, but I'll adopt him) brought his oil all the way from Iowa to attend the event. I did not get much time to talk to him there, but knew he would be in town for a couple of days and that we would get a chance to catch up.

The only time I saw the gallery staff get at all concerned was when Gillian Reddyhoff, the curator for the Government of Ontario, kindly brought "Ripe Corn Time." It is a very large painting and by the time it arrived easels were in short supply. They gave it a place of honor on a counter in the reception area where it would be the first piece of art people would see when they walked in.

I knew the event was a true success when I saw gallery staff scrambling for more chairs. They had initially set up 100, and that was not going to do.

The reunion between Carl's first and second families happened over lunch. Carl had cut all ties with his first family when he married my great grandmother. My grandmother had two half brothers and a half sister that she had never met. Thanks to the internet, I have remedied this situation while some of the grandchildren of Carl are still with us. Thanks to the passage of time, there are no bitter feelings, and I am confident that I speak for everyone when I say we all consider each other family.

Through all this time, I occasionally ran into rych, who was busy helping the gallery staff, for which I am sure everyone was thankful. A couple of the top members of the WHS have said to me that his nickname in the group is "the energizer bunny" and that is pretty accurate. He may be the same age as my dad, but he could run circles around most people my age that I know. He is also a walking encyclopedia of local history - I could not ask for a better tour guide in the next few days.

I wished I had more time to simply look at all of the work. In all there were about forty paintings, etchings and sketches at the show, many of which I had not seen before. I hoped my mother and cousin got good photographs because I couldn't imagine all of these pieces of art being in one place again.

The meeting began around 1:00 in the afternoon, at which point I realized that I had only had two bites of a submarine sandwich all day, and there was no more food around. I hoped people would hear me over my stomach growling. The hunger was likely a blessing, as it gave me something to focus on as I took my place in the front row right beside John Milloy, the member of the provincial parliament for Kitchener-Centre.

After rych opened the meeting, Carl Zehr, the mayor of Kitchener, gave a quick greeting, followed by Alf Bogusky, the director general of the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery. Susan Hoffman introduced the annual volume and its authors. Cindy Wayvon, the curatorial assistant for the KW/AG spoke a bit about some of the Ahrens work held by the gallery, then kindly replaced one of the paintings up front with a watercolor my parents own. I planned to refer to it at the end of my speech. John Milloy then spoke about his late mother's research on Waterloo County artists. The most memorable speech in my mind is the one by Paul Tiessen, a professor of English at Wilfrid Laurier University, about the Waterloo County art world in the 19th and 20th centuries. He told a story of Carl inadvertantly running naked through a mennonite picnic. I was familiar with the tale, of course, as it has often been told in my family, but elected not to tell it in case it would offend anyone. In any case, Paul began speaking about an obscure diary entry written by a mennonite around 1880, and led the audience to believe that it was about Carl for quite some time before he said he was kidding. I had been convinced he was serious, as had my entire family!

Around 2:00 rych gave a little talk about the Ahrens' family's place in mid 19th century Berlin (now Kitchener). While he spoke I made sure that any relatives prone to tears were going to be out of my line of sight, as requested. The lecturn, unfortunately, did not have a shelf for water. rych kindly had a stool brought over and provided me with a fresh bottle in case I needed it, but I knew I was unlikely to reach for this. While I was not particularly afraid of talking in front of the crowd, I was mortified at the thought of potentially dropping the water or worse, suddenly feeling an urge to run to the restroom!

Once I started speaking, though, even these fears left me. There were about 150 people there, all of whom wanted to learn about Carl. I did not focus much on biographical details, as those were covered in depth in the annual volume, but rather on family stories and little known details, things that would bring Carl to life for the audience in a way he has always been alive for me. Hearing myself highlight things my great-grandfather and I have in common confirmed for me that I am the only one who can get into his head enough to tell his story. Knowing how much this day meant to my family had at first been a burden to me, but as I spoke this became an inspiration instead. I watched the faces in the audience change from expressions of curiosity to earnest interest. It did not surprise me in the least that a couple of the lenders who had been considering selling their pieces saw them in a different light and fell in love with them for the first time.

A real highlight of the event was when I saw Jennifer Watson, the former curator of the KW/AG. I can't say 'met' because we had technically met before. When I was eight years old, my parents and I drove through Ontario on our way to Maine and stopped in at the gallery. She was curator then, and was in the process of researching for an exhibition of Carl's prints. Seeing that between my parents and my aunts we have copies of all of his prints, our having shown up was a Godsend to her. My family loaned many pieces of art, as well as family documents that she used to help write the Catalogue Raisonne for the event. This Catalogue remains the only published document exclusively on Carl. I remembered her, as my time in Kitchener as a child is one of my clearest memories. I was deeply honored when she contacted me to say that she wouldn't miss the event for anything. Seeing her front and center during my speech was a wonderful boost for me.

After the meeting I had another hour of running around, trying to talk to as many people as possible.
One thing I did forget was to take photographs with everyone, which bothered me greatly once I had time to slow down and think about it. We took no photos of the reunion between first and second families. (I have photos of Martha and I at Roycroft). I have no photos of myself with Rick or Greg, who are two of my most regular correspondants. I have no photos of my cousin, Laird, or any of the other cousins I met that day.

An interesting thing happened shortly after most people (including myself) had left the gallery. rych was still there helping with the clean up, when a young woman and her boyfriend came in and asked about the event. Turns out that the woman, Laura, is a violinist, and she happens to own a violin with an Ahrens landscape on the back of it. She said that at the time she bought it she had googled his name and come up with very little and she had not tried since. The instrument has always been a conversation piece and she had, at one time, carried it around with her often. She has now switched to a viola, and so it is not with her as much. She and her boyfriend had come to the Centre in the Square for another event and happened upon a sign to Carl Ahrens Day after it was already over. Her question: Would I like to see the violin.

Would I ever! I knew all about that violin. To the best of my knowledge Carl only ever painted one. The violin once belonged to a Toronto musician named Broadus Farmer who was in a group called The Canadian Quartette with my great-grandmother, Madonna Ahrens. (Madonna was the singer.) Broadus was a good friend and Carl decided to paint his violin as a tribute. A photo of it even made it into the papers back in 1915. (My mother, rych, and I did meet Laura a couple of days later to see the violin - there is an image of it in the Carl Ahrens Day Photo Gallery.)

Around 4:30 an informal group met over at the Rum Runner, in the basement of the Walper Hotel, for a dinner. Here I finally got the chance to talk to my cousin, Paula, whom I have corresponded with for three years, and a woman named Maxine Graham, whose father was a friend of my grandmother's. I also got more of a chance to talk to the current owners of Big Trees, the Ahrens homestead in Galt, and we firmed up plans to visit there the next day.

April 28th, 2007 will always hold a special place for my family and I, and we give heartfelt thanks to the Waterloo Historical Society, the KW/AG, all of the lenders, and everyone who came to share the day with us.

I believe that somewhere, somehow, my great-grandfather is smiling over the whole thing.