LITERARY OUT TO SUPPER
The Seeley's Bay Methodist Church dates from 1877 although it was officially opened in January 1878. Typical of Methodist churches in southern Ontario it was built on a side street. Methodists needed to be humble so they avoided the main street. Methodists were in the vanguard of the Temperance Movement. They were somewhat successful in the Rear of Leeds and Lansdowne which was a dry township. Only the Legion had a license to serve alcoholic beverages. Many of the Methodists took the “pledge” vowing to never drink. In 1925 the Methodists joined with the Congregationalists and two-thirds of the Presbyterians to form the United Church of Canada. The United Church was and is a liberal Protestant denomination but old beliefs and habits die hard.
In the 1960s and 1970s a Literary group was formed: mostly very senior ladies of the Methodist heritage. The members got together to read “inspirational” books which they did from fall until spring. They would go out to supper at a resort hotel like the Opinicon or Kenney’s in the late spring. One year they asked the Legion Auxiliary to serve their season ending supper. The Literary ladies went to the Legion for supper.
Everything went well until dessert was served. Dessert was Crème de Menthe Parfait with a whole lot of Crème de Menthe and not much ice cream. One Literary Lady liked dessert and had seconds until she felt light-headed. Another lady commented that dessert was too minty.
My guess is that a couple of the ladies came from homes that had booze. They would recognize that the Legion Auxiliary women would not know that serving booze to the Literary was a no-no. But nobody said anything. Most of the Literary ladies had no idea they had inadvertently broken their “pledge”.
