150 years, 150 women, 150 stories in 150 words

Craig Bakay | Jan 11, 2017

As Canada turns 150 this year, Sharbot Lake’s Dianne Lake has come up with her own 150th project — 150 years, 150 women, 150 stories in 150 words.

“I thought I’d get the history down on paper,” she said.

Now, Lake’s not going to write the stories herself. The idea is to get others to write the story of female friends or relatives who’ve passed on.

“We’re limiting it to 150 words,” Lake said. “That way it’s not an overwhelming thing for someone to do and it will allow us to put them on large recipe cards, which is appropriate for stories about women from this area.”

Once the stories are on cards, Lake will have them laminated and they’ll be placed on tables for an afternoon tea (tentatively scheduled for July 29). The idea then is for the cards to be read and passed around. After the tea, they’ll be put in a binder and donated to the local library.

“We hear stories all the time about women who’ve passed on but made a big contribution to the community,” she said. “It’s these neat little stories that make us what we are as a community.”

Lake said she got the idea one day while looking at an old picture of the United Church Women with Pastor Jean Brown.

“Jean would ask ‘who was that woman?’ and I realized each woman in that photo had a story,” Lake said.

Lake wanted to tell those stories, in the words of someone who knew them, before those who could tell the story had themselves passed on.

And, it also seemed like a ‘fun’ thing to do. In fact, that’s what Lake has been telling her contributors to write — ‘fun little stories.’

“It’s not a who’s who,” she said. “It’s things like who their parents were, such as ‘she was the daughter of the station master in Tichborne’ or ‘she made the very best donuts.’”

They don’t have to have been born here (ie they could have been long-time cottagers), as long as they weren’t just “passers-through,” Lake, who’s lived in the community for 47 years, said. And it doesn’t have to be exclusively Sharbot Lake. Stories about residents of Arden, Mountain Grove, Parham, Tichborne, anywhere in the area will be welcome.

So if you have a story about a woman who lived in this community, Lake would love to hear from you at 613-279-2991 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

She said she already has about 40 stories and she’s been numbering them so when that number reaches 150, that’s it.