Ottawa Branch lost one of its longest serving members recently when Alice M Hughes passed away int Merrickville on July 29th at the age of 92.
Alice recorded and donated to Ottawa Branch many cemeteries from the Merrickville area as well as a number of Lanark County cemeteries and there is a film of her cemeteries at LAC. She knew much about the history of families living in the greater Merrickville area and was regarded as the local historian for these reasons. Alice maintained a life-long interest in the history of the Merrickville area. The Ottawa Branch library contains thirteen publications written by Alice.
At one time she was secretary of the Leeds & Grenville Branch of OGS. Their library holds many of her transcriptions of the cemeteries in Grenville County, which she recorded before anyone else got involved in that work. The Grenville County Historical Society and the Lanark County Genealogical Society were also recipients of her efforts.
Alice was responsible, if not the chief motivator, for finding the location of the Merrickville Brick Yard, located just west of the Hughes homestead on the south side of the road to Jasper, from which came much of the characteristically shaped red brick that was used to build many of the old houses in Merrickville. A small billboard sign was mounted on the site some 25 years ago.
Alice was a prolific writer of all things genealogy. She was a charter member of the Lanark County Genealogical Society and will be greatly missed. When she was well over 80, she and her daughter wrote `Dear Old Golden Rule Days, a History of the One Room Schools of Wolford Township ( Grenville County )’ and LCGS used it as a basis for their Archives Lanark series on the Lanark County Rural Schools.
Alice Hughes was certainly a marvellous genealogist and historian. In 2008, she received the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award for Lifetime Achievement from Lieutenant Governor David Onley at a ceremony in Toronto.
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