Kate Rowley has always had a passion for volunteering.
But it’s her passion for doing work in a variety of volunteer capacities, and in particular working with the town’s heritage society and museum and archives, that has made her stand out – somewhat reluctantly.
The self described “city girl” moved to the area about 13 years ago when her husband, Dr. Chris Rowley, established his practice here.
At their home outside of town the couple is raising their three children, Michael, 17, Tess, 15, and Peter, 13.
“I have the greatest respect for her especially with a household of teenagers. “She is in here almost every day,” society member and museum volunteer Pauline Brown said of Rowley.
“She’s a real people person, a real organizer.”
Brown first met Rowley when Rowley attended a Mount Forest Heritage Society meeting to speak on behalf of the late Jean Weber, a community activist who spearheaded the efforts to secure the town’s historic post office building on Main Street as the home of the museum and archives.
At the time Weber, known as a tenacious supporter of the town’s history and efforts to preserve and grow it at the archives and museum, was ill and Rowley was asked to speak for her at a society meeting.
“She had a speech for Jean when Jean wasn’t feeling too well,” Brown recalled of their first encounter.
Since then a friendship has grown between the two, as is the case with most who meet and have worked with Rowley, a former history teacher.
Rowley’s first encounter with volunteering happened when she was 17 and a Grade 12 student at a high school in Toronto.
“We had a program at the school where we visited seniors’ homes,” she recalled. “We were paired up with seniors and we’d read and talk.”
The experience captured her interest and while attending teacher’s college she was made aware of the work done by Frontier College in Toronto, a volunteer literacy group teaching people who lack reading and writing skills.
“My most meaningful volunteering was with Frontier College,” Rowley said of her experience to that point in her life. “I was teaching adults to read and write.”
At the college she received instruction on how to assist and work with people lacking literacy skills.
One of her students was an immigrant from the Caribbean who had young children and was concerned she would not be able to teach them to read and write English.
Rowley said the woman was motivated and “walked in the front door” of Frontier College looking for help.
“She and I met for a year, one evening a week, and she got to the point where she could read and write to her kids,” said Rowley.
She worked with another student, a Canadian man she calls Edward, for about five years. His lack of reading and writing skills had been ignored throughout school, something Rowley knew from experience as a teacher.
“They got moved along and pushed aside,” she said of students who lacked the skills needed in real life that were not addressed in the school system.
Because of his lack of reading and writing skills, Edward was referred to the college through a community living program.
“He had learning issues and special needs.”
During their sessions, they would go over reading and writing skills, but they also went out to galleries, and even a hockey game, where the same skills could be learned in real-life settings.
Eventually the skills acquired were enough for Edward to move on.
At the same time, Rowley had met and married her husband, who was attending medical school in Ottawa. The medical studies meant they were apart for extended periods.
By coincidence, when her husband graduated and was looking to establish a practice, they drove through Mount Forest on their way to the family cottage in Southampton.
“We’re both big city people and we had no affiliation with Grey or Wellington (counties),” she said of a trip that, by chance, changed their lives.
“He said, ‘This is the kind of place I could be a doctor.’ I remember thinking, ‘I would never live here,’” Rowley said of her first impression.
“We drove up, looked around, stuck our noses in different places,” she said of the trip that convinced her the community would be well-suited to her family.
With the move made and Rowley electing not to go back to teaching, she decided to volunteer her time at the public school her children attended, something she continues with today.
She sat on the board of the local Kids ‘R’ Us group, a preschool adjacent to the public school outside Mount Forest, and eventually got involved with efforts to save the library at the school, which was slated for closure. The efforts paid off – the library was saved and still operates today.
It was a chance encounter with Jean Weber that got Rowley involved with the heritage society and eventually the museum and archives.
“Two years after coming here I was cornered by Jean Weber at the deli and she said ‘you’re the new doctor’s wife,’” Rowley said with a smile, thinking about how persuasive Weber could be in her own way.
“I hear you are a history teacher,” Rowley recalled Weber saying.
Weber then went on to tell Rowley the heritage society was meeting the next Thursday at 6:59pm, “and I have been here since,” said Rowley.
It was an opportunity to volunteer for heritage preservation work, something she held dear.
“At the time, I was thinking it has nothing to do with my family and I had always talked about heritage but done nothing, so I went to the first meeting,” Rowley said.
The society was in its early stages of trying to get itself incorporated and secure in the building it now calls home. That was achieved after Weber persuaded Wellington North council to allow the museum and archives to establish itself there.
Rowley was eventually named treasurer, a position she says she detested, and worked on securing a $64,000 Trillium Ontario grant to make the historic building accessible and to fix the roof and restore the exterior.
She would eventually become president for a two-year stint and keeps up her work at the museum.
Marlene Markle has come to know Rowley personally and professionally.
A member of the society and museum and archives where she volunteers as an exhibit curator, Markle said both she and Rowley were persuaded by Weber to join the society as directors.
“We both came on in 2003,” Markle recalled. “That was the result of Jean Weber, webbing us in.”
They share a passion for local history.
“Kate is very open, friendly, good humoured and willing to listen to everybody’s ideas and accept them or modify them,” Markle said. “We’re just really enthusiastic about things.”
Earlier this year her work was acknowledged by the community when she was named Citizen of the Year, and by Wellington County, which selected her for a Wellington Volunteer Appreciation Award.
She attributes the society’s success – in preserving and promoting the community’s history – to some 40 volunteers at the museum and archives.
“I’m most excited about taking this back north to Mount Forest and sharing it with the 40 volunteers,” she said after receiving the county award.
“Jean Weber is loving this. The Mount Forest Museum and Archives has become a second home for me,” she said after receiving the Citizen of the Year award.
“When you adopt a new home you never know if it will adopt you. We have arrived,” Rowley added at the same ceremony in reference to what the award meant to her and her family.
“There’s nothing better than a good volunteering gig,” she said.
