by Margaret Katona, Library Manager
Rainy River District Law Association – LiRN
The Fort Frances Court House was built in 1913 to 1914. The contract was awarded to the Fort William firm of Seamon and Pernniman, and Mr. A.F. Scott of Fort Frances was appointed superintendent of works. The building was fixed at $54,719.00. Our building is similar to Kenora’s Court House and was identical to the courthouse built at Haileybury in the Temiskaming District which unfortunately burned down and was rebuilt to a different design. Our courthouse consists of three floors and a basement. The fourth floor was used by the Superior Court Judges and actually had an atrium. It’s unfortunate that’s all gone since they put the air conditioners on the fourth floor so that area is no longer used by any staff. At one time Harry Leon Bell, who worked as the Mining Recorder for the Department of Mines actually occupied the space that is now my office. The government transferred that Department to Kenora so we gained that extra space which is now my office and our main library which is on the third floor. We also have another area in the basement – the lawyers’ lounge. It has two washrooms, an area for women and men to hang their robes and two stations for computers.
I started to work at the courthouse in 1974 as a steno mask reporter and then became the first ever Clerk of the Court in the Ontario Court of Justice. In 1979 the lawyers did not have a librarian so along with my court reporting and judge’s secretary duties I helped them out without any pay on my part. In 1980 I was hired by the Rainy River Law Association as an Assistant Librarian and worked 20 hours a week, but when they wanted to appoint a Roving Librarian 10 hours were taken from my position and now I only work 10 hours a week. I work Monday and Tuesday 5 hours each day. I have now been with the library 45 years.
When I was first hired we found that there were numerous old books on the fourth floor which I undertook to bring down to our library. As I can remember it had to be the hottest day of the year that July when I went up and down stairs, no elevator up there, and when I got home I looked like a chimney sweep. Our ceilings are 20 feet high and those books are still up there – it’s a good thing I was only in my twenties at that time because now I only look at them. During that that time one of our Superior Court Judges, The Honourable Justice Shea who would come to Fort Frances from Thunder Bay, and also who at one time had been a librarian said to me “never let anyone take your old books from your library, they are part of your history.” He was impressed by all the old books we have and a lot of them are in pristine condition. I am very partial to our books and love showing and talking to folks who come into our library about them.
We acquired the original solid oak counsel table that is over 10 feet long along with 10 original oak chairs that they took out of the Superior Courtroom because of ergonomics. It is a real treasure and the lawyers have used it a lot over the years when they need an area to speak to their clients.
Some of our possessions include our original cash book going back to 1911- back then their handwriting so neat and beautiful. Their budget during those years was around $500.00 per year – now we pay that much for one book. We also have our original Accession Register dating back to May 1910 to 1940 and minutes of our Association going back to January 30, 1923 (annual membership increased from $15.00 to $20.00 a year in 1954).
We have a lot of historical books dating back to the 1800’s and I would say those books have been there since the library was opened all those years ago. They have glass doors covering most of them.
I have kept a scrapbook since I started working in the library of anything pertaining to our courthouse/library, our present lawyers, new lawyers, deceased lawyers, judges, new judges, visitors and old photos of lawyers, Justices of the Peace, and Judges that I have on top of some of my shelving units.
One of the things I have been doing, as I hate to throw things in the garbage, is keeping our old CLE Binders and donating them to the Salvation Army and, for the last couple of years, donating them to our 7 Gens College on Couchiching First Nations.
At the present time we have 22 members in our Association and many of them are in Fort Frances/Rainy River, but we do have some from Thunder Bay and some from Dryden.
Our courthouse and district encompass Fort Frances, Devlin, Emo, Barwick, Stratton, Rainy River and Atikokan.
I personally have sat in court for five murder cases which I have never forgotten, but there are a couple that really took a toll on me and even to this day I think of them.
The most notorious case was well before my time and it was called “The Hot Stove Murder” where three men were hanged in the courtyard behind our gaol for the murder of Viola Jamieson. I have excerpts of the trial – “The King vs William Schmidt, George Skrypnyk, Anthony Skrypnyk and Eino Tillonen.
On September 17th, 2014 we celebrated our 100th Anniversary of our courthouse and we have a book of memories of all of us that work and worked at the courthouse. We had a lot of visitors in our library and I heard so many times “we didn’t know this library existed” and were very impressed by the old books we have and the wonderful condition they are in.
Over the years there have been numerous changes to having books online, zoom meetings, having the accused on videos instead of meeting face to face with a Judge or Justice of the Peace. Zoom meetings are practical in some instances since we all live so far apart and that allows you to see and speak to people in other parts of Ontario/Canada but there is nothing like being at a table and talking to a person face to face like we used to. Technology has really taken over how we live today, some of it is good and some not so good. I will say as we age, I like the old way better. I have enjoyed working in our library all these years and I continue to enjoy coming to work and learning something new every day, and I also like to keep in touch with folks I used to work with and meeting new people.