The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
Everyone in the Drayton area with a memory that goes back to the 70s will remember the first Drayton Tulip Festival.
That event took place on May 24, 1975, and was the first big event that year to celebrate Drayton’s centennial as an incorporated municipality.
Serious planning for Drayton’s centennial began in 1974. The village’s Kinsman Club played a central role in organizing the celebrations. They recruited most of Drayton’s service clubs, volunteer organizations, and church groups to look after specific events.
The idea of a tulip festival came from the Drayton Parks Board and its chairman, John Tamming.
In the years after the Second World War, the Drayton area attracted large numbers of immigrants from Holland. Most were farmers, and during the 1950s and 1960s they injected fresh vitality in the agricultural economy of Peel and Maryborough Townships and their main trading centre of Drayton.
By 1975 the earliest of the newcomers were celebrating a quarter century in Canada, and some were entering their retirement years.
The Parks Board believed that a celebration of the blending of Dutch and Canadian cultures would be an excellent way to help mark Drayton’s centennial. Their idea was inspired by the success of the Drayton Maple Syrup Festival. Everyone involved with the centennial agreed that the idea was a good one. Organizers pencilled in a date of May 24, a Saturday, when tulip blooms should be at their peak and the weather favourable. It would be the first major event of the Drayton Centennial celebration.
A tulip festival requires tulips. Volunteers turned out in the fall of 1974 to plant several thousand of them in the public beds around the village. Many homeowners joined in, adding bulbs to their own flower beds. They realized the showing wouldn’t match that of the tulips in Ottawa, but they expected an impressive showing nonetheless.
To add allure to the festival, organizers invited two celebrities with local connections, though tenuous ones. The first was Lady Peel – not the stripper of that name; this was the woman who married Sir Robert Peel in 1920. As a child actress, she had played the Drayton Town Hall in 1912 and 1913 in an act with her mother and sister. The other invitation went to press baron Lord Thompson of Fleet. His wife, the former Edna Irvine, came from the Bosworth area.
Neither could be lured to Drayton. Both were 81 years old, and resided in England. Bea Lillie suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and Roy Thompson’s wife had died 24 years earlier, ending any connection he had with the area.
Plans went ahead without the celebrity guests, and during the winter several service clubs planned activities around the May 24 date. Tamming and the Parks Board lined up a group of Dutch klompen dancers from Holland, Michigan, where a huge tulip festival had been held for years. The troupe of 36 would demonstrate traditional dancing steps wearing ethnic costumes and wooden clogs. Drayton residents signed up to offer board and lodging to the visitors.
A co-ordinating meeting for the overall centennial celebration on March 13 was poorly attended, but the Kinsmen and their allies pushed ahead with plans. At that meeting those present agreed to encourage everyone to wear old-style Dutch clothing, or historic Canadian costume. Organizers hoped to attract a crowd of up to 5,000 people.
A major setback came with the spring thaw. The Conestogo rose to flood levels, covering the downtown streets, and causing much damage to the park areas and flower beds, and leaving debris all over the place. Tulip bulbs in some of the beds were washed away. Maryborough’s Junior Farmers stepped forward, and organized a cleanup on May 3, with follow-up work a week later. Volunteers gathered flood debris, topped up flowerbeds that had been eroded away, and brought the public areas of the town into a presentable condition.
Final plans were in place for Drayton’s first Tulip Festival by the first week of May. Wellington Street would be closed for the festivities beginning at 1pm. Stands and kiosks, staffed by volunteer groups, would sell various Dutch delicacies such as smoked and pickled fish, drageworst, croquettes, boerenkool, metworst, and other treats. For the unadventurous, there would be the traditional Canadian snacks as well.
Horseshoe pitching and shuffleboard would be offered. A novelty was a street washing competition. Musical presentations were scheduled all afternoon, interspersed with performances by the visiting klompen dancers from Michigan. A Queen of the Festival would be crowned in the afternoon, and a street dance, to music by Pierre Fransen and the Boomerangs of London, would conclude the day.
Competitors for the Queen of the Festival gathered at the Town Hall for a preliminary session that included public speaking. Eight young women had registered to vie for the title.
The weather turned very warm in mid-May, with temperatures in the record-breaking range. That produced another frustration for organizers. Tulip blooms opened early, and lasted only a couple of days before wilting in the heat. Few would be left by May 24.
The big day dawned without a cloud in sight, and it warmed up quickly. By mid afternoon the thermometer topped the 90-degree mark, or 33 on the Celsius scale.
There were warnings of severe thunderstorms that day but Drayton was spared; an area only two miles from town experienced a downpour.
Organizers spent the morning attending to last-minute details. By noon crowds began gathering, and at 2pm Reeve Lorne Bridge officially opened the festival. John Tamming of the Parks Board acted as announcer during the afternoon, and performed his task superbly.
After the final part of the competition, Reeve Bridge crowned Lorri Schieck Drayton’s first Tulip Queen. Runners-up were Fern Heitkamp and Debbie Murray.
Drayton’s Centennial Choir, under the direction of Annette van Houten, performed during the afternoon. Their selections included the first public performances of two centennial songs composed by local residents: One Hundred Years by Eileen Lambert and Everyone’s Invited by Gerrit Wimmenhove. Later in the afternoon, organizers presented Eileen Lambert with a commemorative tulip glass for her tireless work in helping to organize the festival.
The Drayton Community Bazaar Committee scheduled the opening of its shop for festival day. Set up in the store formerly occupied by Amy’s Tailor Shop, they offered homemade aprons, afghans, quilts, candy, preserves and other items. The Kinnette Club opened its Centennial Tea and Bake Sale at 2pm, with an impressive selection of homemade delicacies and fancy treats.
As well as the Centennial Choir, there was music by an accordion band, a brass band, and Drayton’s Elastic Band. Due to the heat, the visiting klompen dancers performed for only about 15 minutes at a time, but they appeared five times during the afternoon. Mrs. Seiny Klassen, wearing traditional Dutch clothing and wielding a large brush, won the street cleaning competition in late afternoon. A quilt draw proved very popular, selling $223 in tickets.
By mid-afternoon the crowd numbered about 2,000 – less than organizers had hoped for, but still a respectable total. Estimates placed the crowd staying for the dance at about 1,000. Visitors came from as far as Chatham, Hamilton and the Toronto area. Many had connections with Drayton and area through relatives and friends. As well, some former residents came home to enjoy the day.
Despite the setbacks caused by flooding and hot weather, the day was a success. Planning began the same day for the 1976 festival. Organizing and running the festival had been a mammoth task for a village with a population of less than 1,000 people. When all the numbers were added a few weeks later, the total receipts were $2,389, including $1,888 in admissions. Organizers had kept admittance low to encourage attendance and help make the festival a family affair. It had cost $727 to bring the dancers in from Michigan, $350 for the brass band, and $85 for the sound system. The advertising budget was a minuscule $128.
Organizers and volunteers learned a great deal from the 1975 Tulip Festival. That made work for the 1976 version much easier. The Michigan klompen dancers were delighted with their stay in Drayton, and agreed to return in 1976 for the second festival.
With better promotion coupled with word-of-mouth publicity, the 1976 Drayton Tulip Festival doubled its attendance to more than 4,000 people.
But that’s a story for another time.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on May 20, 2005.
