By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Even before its publication, the authors behind a soon-to-be-released book about New Hamburg’s many historic buildings – those still standing and those that have been torn down – are being recognized for their exhaustive research and documentation of the town’s history.
Twelve years of work by three New Hamburg authors and historians – one of whom was New Hamburg’s last mayor and Wilmot Township’s first mayor, the late Ernie Ritz – has resulted in the upcoming publication of a five-volume book on New Hamburg’s built history, The Historic Buildings of New Hamburg and the People Who Lived in Them, which was acknowledged last month by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) with its Stephen A. Otto Award for Research and Documentation.
“Ernie and I started it,” said co-author Marie Voisin, who researched and wrote the book with Ritz and co-author Kristen Hahn. “We wanted to know which were the original houses in New Hamburg and who built them and who lived in them. So, we started researching that and then from there, we went on to, ‘Let’s go back into the newspapers and find out what we can about all the people who lived in these houses.’ That’s how it became a five-volume tome.”
“After Marie compiled all the research, it was 1,450 pages just of research notes,” added Hahn, who joined the project in 2019 to help interview current building owners and take photos. “That’s information she got from the existent issues of the New Hamburg Independent, and then all of this was checked with census records and death records and parish certificates; all of that to kind of form what ended up being not only the story of the people of this town and who built these buildings, but almost like a genealogy of a town.”
In the early years of the project, Voisin worked closely with Ritz, who had a perfect memory of all the history he had researched for his own authorly endeavours, the stories he had written as editor of the New Hamburg Independent, the stories he had heard as a lifelong resident of New Hamburg and the stories his mother – who lived to 106 years old and had a memory that rivaled her son’s – had told him over the years.
“Ernie was the best,” Voisin said. “He didn’t have to write anything; we would just call him or email him and say, ‘Ernie, who lived at 75 Shade St. back in 1955?’ And he’d have the answer. He knew everybody, he knew all the stories, he knew about their parents and grandparents because his mom also had a photographic memory and she lived to almost 107. She told him everything about the history, so he remembered all of her things, all of his things.”
“He was also a historian,” Hahn added. “He wrote the first book about New Hamburg, so it wasn’t just he remembered all these things. He was deeply invested in the history of New Hamburg and Wilmot.”
After she had compiled most of her research, Voisin said she visited each of the 379 buildings in the book, or at least those that are still standing, and Ritz accompanied her on some of those trips. By 2017, she began writing and, thanks to the help of Hahn, a proofreader and a graphic designer, as well as numerous visits with Ritz, many of which were through his window at Nithview Home during pandemic lockdowns, she had completed a 1,174-page manuscript by 2021 and layout of the book began two years later. Currently, the team is proofreading the book’s fourth volume and proofreading of the fifth volume – a massive index of all the information contained in the first four volumes – will begin after that.
The final version of the book is expected to be sent off to the publisher early next year.
Voisin said Ritz often joked that if they didn’t finish the book soon, he wouldn’t live to read it. Sadly, Ritz was right and he passed in March earlier this year. While Ritz couldn’t be at the recent ACO award presentation physically, Voisin and Hahn made sure he was there in both spirit and in cardboard.
“I think he would have been just so pleased and happy and excited to go to Toronto to get this award,” Voisin said.
“He would have been so proud,” Hahn added. “Marie did a wonderful thing; she had a cutout made of Ernie so Ernie did come along with us to Toronto. … It’s such an honour (to receive this award). It’s a very respected organization and certainly with the organizing principle of the book being the built heritage of New Hamburg, there’s no better body to get these accolades from than the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. It really is a huge, huge honour.”
Voisin and Hahn hope their and Ritz’s work will become a reference point for anyone looking for historical information on individual buildings and properties in New Hamburg or the town as a whole, whether they’re realtors looking for information on an old house, journalists in search of background for a story or even local politicians considering the future of a heritage building.
Information about how to purchase the book once it is published next year will be posted at www.historicbuildingsnewhamburg.com.
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