Wayne Townsend emerges from the back door of his red brick Victorian-style home carrying a tray of apple juice.
He sets the tray on a cafe set on the porch, which overlooks his verdant backyard garden.
His cat, Orange Lawrence — named after Orangeville’s founding father — streaks behind a bush.
Although the yard looks like a tranquil place to relax in and chat awhile, an inside tour is too enticing to pass up.
The heritage house was built in 1894 by Alexander Hill, a merchant tailor, and his wife Eliza. Townsend, 57, now lives there with his partner John Woolner.
As curator of the Dufferin County Museum and Archives, it’s not surprising he lives on a heritage property. But history is evident not just in the age of his home — it’s imbedded in the walls, hanging from the ceiling, adorning the entrances and filling its shelves.
In the kitchen, Townsend took broken crockery and turned it into a backsplash. Instead of kitchen cabinets, he uses antique furniture to store his pots, pans, dishes and cutlery.
He even took bits of glass from broken windows he collected around town and turned it into a window. The walls of his living room are lined with floor-to-ceiling glass shelves filled with collectibles; the house is also chock-a-block with artifacts such as 17th century pottery and Canadian art.
Townsend says his passion for collecting things was inherited from his mother, Alma, who passed away in August at age 84. His dining room table is a testament to her hobby — there are numerous boxes of antique jewelrey stacked there. Townsend is in the process of sorting through it.
As for his love of history, that passion was sparked by a couple of local teachers.
In Grade 8, Townsend, who was living in rural Monticello, left his one-room schoolhouse for a much larger one in Grand Valley. But a teacher, Don Richardson, helped ease the transition.
“There was some tension at the school between the town kids and the farm kids. They said we stank — and we probably did stink,” says Townsend. “Don taught me to be proud of where I came from.”
Richardson was also very knowledgeable about local history — which helped pique Townsend’s own interest.
In high school, Townsend had Hal Babcock as a teacher. “He was fresh out of school himself and full of energy. I fed off that energy,” he says.
But Townsend didn’t pursue his interest at college or university. Instead, after high school, he spent several years working as a manager in the graphic arts department at Drummond Business Form.
Then, in the 1980s, he co-owned and operated a restaurant in the historic American Hotel, just up the road from the original site of Orange Lawrence’s hotel.
Townsend and his business partner, Kim Peters, couldn’t afford to advertise the restaurant, which they called Paradise, so they painted the building bright pink — figuring people couldn’t miss it — and decorated it with pink flamingoes. They served homemade food and often had bizarre entertainment, at least by Orangeville standards, including reggae bands and male strippers.
Townsend is quick to say the eatery was a family place — “people came with their kids — it wasn’t like a bar. It was a place where people would go to meet others.”
In 1988, he applied for the job as curator at Dufferin County. At the time, the municipality’s museum consisted of a seasonal exhibit in Shelburne.
Townsend was hired and handed the task of developing a permanent museum for the community.
Just like his home, Townsend quilted together a place to house local artifacts, but it was also something more — a physical representation of the community.
It’s hard to miss the bright green barn with a red roof perched on a hill on the northeast corner of County Road 89 and Airport Road. The Dufferin County Museum and Archives threw open its doors in October 1994. Townsend says it was built in the style of a bank barn to reflect the region’s agricultural heritage.
Inside, there’s an array of objects — each representing a different part of the county. The ironwork spiral staircase leading from the main gallery to the mezzanine comes from the Orangeville Jail; the grillwork along the mezzanine is from Trinity United Church in Grand Valley, which was destroyed in the 1985 tornado; and the large locking gates are pieced together from grillwork from the court house and local cemetery.
Linda Dean, the county’s CAO, calls the museum “the jewel in the county’s crown.”
“It has a good feeling of community,” she says. “It so strongly represents the agricultural history of the community.”
If not for Townsend, she says, the museum wouldn’t have been built. Dufferin’s top staffer also credits him with drumming up community support for it.
“There’s a strong volunteer base at the museum that Wayne has worked hard to establish. You have to give Wayne credit for being able to convey the importance of the museum,” she says.
With those volunteers and donations coming into the museum, Townsend has been able to expand the collection. It now consists of artifacts as well as archival material related to the community’s historical development; there’s Canadian glass, ceramics, furniture, wagons, machinery, clothing, quilts, documents and photographs.
“The museum is an extraordinary example of what a museum should be,” says his friend and award-­winning TV and radio personality, Dini Petty.
The collection that has garnered the museum the most attention outside of the community is the annual Cornflower exhibit.
“Wayne started that exhibit and he grew it,” says Dean. “It was his idea, his brainchild.”
Townsend says the Cornflower exhibit was a way to attract a Canadian audience to the local museum.
“Everyone in Canada had a piece of cornflower,” he says.
In 2001, Townsend wrote a book on the history of the W.J. Hughes Cornflower Company that made the glassware pattern. Cornflower ­— Creatively Canadian was published by Natural Heritage Books.
He tried his hand at writing again in 2006, when he published Orangeville — The Heart of Dufferin County.
“It was time, Orangeville was ripe for a book,” he said.
But, like the way Townsend approaches most things, he went at this book a little differently. He wrote the history of Orangeville from his perspective.
“The editor was a little wary when I said I planned to write it from my own point of view,” Townsend says, laughing. “That’s quite an unusual thing for a history book. But that was the only way I could do it. I think it works.”
Townsend doesn’t just pen books ­— he encourages others in the community to write down their own life stories.
Mary Ann Parsons, service co-ordinator at the Lord Dufferin Centre, says Townsend has been involved with the senior’s residence since it opened 10 years ago.
“He is always telling our residents to write down their stories,” she says. “He tells them they may not think their life story is interesting, but when they put down the details of the things they’ve lived through, the times they lived through, it is interesting.”
Townsend spends a lot of time at the centre and organizes a variety of events for the seniors living there. Last year, he put together a First Century celebration featuring artifacts that were 100 years old.
“It was neat to see how much has changed,” Parsons says.
Townsend also regularly hosts an antique road show where people can bring in their antiques and he tells stories about them.
“He literally brings these antiques to life,” she says. “The show inspires some great conversations.”
Every year, Townsend leads a scenic fall bus tour through the community, which many Lord Dufferin Centre residents take part in.
“It’s about way more than seeing fall leaves. He directs the route of the bus so he can show people different sites — where there used to be a mill or where historic people lived. You feel like you’re taking a tour back in time,” says Parsons.
Dean says people who’ve been on the tour rave about Townsend.
“He has such a knack for finding little known facts and for digging out those things that make the story a little more interesting,” says Dean.
“The joy he gets out of history,” says Parsons, “he’s able to express it so well and he’s able to pass that joy and interest on to others.”
Petty says when Townsend shared his interest with her, it taught “her one of the biggest lessons of her life.”
He passed her a diary that belonged to John E. ­Spence from Amaranth. It was written in 1937. Before she’d met Townsend, Petty says she would have called the author “just a farmer.” But once she cracked it open, her attitude quickly changed.
“The diary reads like it belonged to a professor doing a dissertation on history. It’s absolutely brilliant,” says Petty.
She says it changed her outlook on country folk.
“There are a lot of people who come from the city and they underestimate country people. When city people come to the country, they are a little pompous. They think they’re better educated, more cultured,” Petty says. “Wayne taught me you can never under­estimate people.”
Although history is a big part of Townsend’s life, he certainly knows how to have a good time in the here-and-now. He’s renowned for his ability to host a good party — both at the museum and at his home.
Dean says Townsend threw a party at his home for a colleague that was leaving the county and “people are still talking about it. It was amazing.”
“He throws wonderful parties,” says Petty. “When I have friends come up from the city, they consider themselves lucky if they get to attend a party at Wayne’s house.”
In fact, it was at a party hosted by Kelly Walker that the two first met, Petty recalls.
“I’d seen Wayne around and I’d been interested in knowing more about him,” she said. “I approached him and liked him immediately. The more I get to know him, the more I think he is one of the most brilliant people I know. I just love him.”