A Brief Biography As Per Vignettes of a Small Town Also Scroll Down to Read How to Write Your Own Town History Born in Grand Bank on Newfoundland's historic South Coast, Robert C. Parsons already has four successful books published -- Lost at Sea Volume One, Lost at Sea Volume Two, Wake of the Schooners and Toll of the Sea: Stories from the Forgotten Coast. A significant portion of his spare time is devoted to archival researching and in collecting the true tales of heroism from the older residents who experienced life in Newfoundland's

In Vignettes of a Small Town, Parsons once again reminds us of what a rich and colourful place this island of ours is. This is a 300-page book (with over ninety photos) of prominent people, unusual and unique events, and intriguing titbits from Grand Bank, one of Newfoundland's oldest and attractive outports.

Many of Robert C. Parsons' articles of heritage and history have appeared in local and national magazines or newspapers: Newfoundland Quarterly, Newfoundland Lifestyle, Legion Magazine, Reader's Digest, Rounder, United Church Mandate, Decks Awash, Evening Telegram and the Southern Gazette. His award-winning entry in the 1995 Arts and Letters Competition was an excerpt from Vignettes of a Small Town.

He has recently retired as an educator (M.Ed.1982) stationed in his home town and has an active community involvement: past president of the Royal Canadian Legion, past master of the Masonic Lodge and a member of other various local committees. He has given several presentations on the writing of local events to teachers' provincial workshops and to Elderhostel groups. He is also a member and serves on the board of the Writer's Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and on the Newfoundland Historical Society.

Writing your town history is basically a job of collection. It entails searching for information in town and provincial libraries and archives for newspaper articles, collections, textbooks, scrapbooks, journals, diaries, genealogy lists, and memoirs. It means accumulating a file which eventually transforms itself into a pile. I began collecting in 1986. My pile peaked in 1996. By this time it had sorted itself into three hundred typewritten pages of interesting/not-so-interesting, significant/trivial, long/short morsels of information.

First, let me tell of an intimidating prospect I had to overcome before my hoarding not-so-magically transformed itself into Vignettes of a Small Town, a book on my hometown Grand Bank. Not only had Garfield Fizzard's town history Unto the Sea, (Grand Bank Heritage Society, 1987) made its appearance on bookshelves in 1987, but I considered it to be nothing short of a masterpiece: well-researched, suave, and interesting. Unto the Sea is, quite logically of course, chronologically written. Each chapter or historical event progresses smoothly into the next. My concerns for anything that I would write were twofold. Would people buy another town history seeing that a scholarly one had been written a few years previously? and how would mine differ?

Nevertheless I proceeded headlong into a paper blizzard.

I sorted out my articles, stories, listings, clippings, directories, and other related information and typed what I wished to use onto a computer disk. Mind you, this takes hours of tedious work at the keyboard, but little by little it grows on you and the material grows in stature.

There were two main sources of material I wished to include in my piece of work: articles written by someone else and those written by myself. The information and material written by others tended to be capsule histories of the town (very appealing), biographies, accounts of local events, descriptions of buildings or institutions, and statistical data (not so appealing or useful).

The second source of material was my own. Over the past several years, I had been busy writing and submitting historical articles to four basic outlets: Evening Telegram, Newfoundland Lifestyle, Southern Gazette and Newfoundland Quarterly. These snippets and tales centred around unusual or significant events in local history and several found their way into Vignettes (shortened form of title).

I arbitrarily chose eight broad categories or headings which eventually became seven chapters -- history, prominent people, industry, sport, landmarks, unusual events, odds and ends. The statistical information was appendicized.

All told, by 1994, I had approximately fifty stories or sections falling under, (as I noted above) eight chapters and twelve appendices. It was now a matter of shaping each story to fit what I wanted. Here's how it worked out after initial planning.

Four historical pieces, arranged chronologically, provided the background for the town history in Vignettes. One most unique and sharp items describing what it was like to grow up in small town Newfoundland in the 1950s I saved for the last chapter. This became a sort of a summing up, or conclusion the whole.

Prominent people paraded past more or less chronologically. These nine men and women were not necessarily born in the town, but had lived here, were memorable, or they had influenced its growth.

Next, industry which was of the sea. Nine new stories of old ships, again arranged in order of occurrence from 1892 to 1962.

The fourth chapter on sport, mainly soccer, was short but had not been previously documented to any large extent. This naturally divided itself into the early years and the modern era.

Every town, large and small, has landmarks, buildings, structures, institutions. I interpreted landmarks not only to be structures but also objects which people wore, used or built: clothing, churches, schools, buildings, monuments, shipyards, boats, meeting halls. Eight articles seemed to be about things and places and each was included under the chapter "Landmarks".

Three local stories of unusual events which could not be easily categorized became a chapter (Odds and Ends). Finally I closed off with a "looking back" as outlined five paragraphs previously. This section, as well as two or three others, I end noted heavily.

End notes served two purposes: they explained to the uninitiated the meanings of local terms and language; secondly, I worked in much background history which otherwise would have been omitted. In effect these little anecdotes became stories within stories adding greatly to the overall personal tone of the book.

Discard the trivial? Sparingly; for what seemed to be of little importance to me may be a boon to another. Thus, practically all bits of information were kept and worked into the whole some way, somehow. Many of the lists, charts, population directories and grave stone markings became appendices.

Thus the overall picture was arranged. It a matter of time to pull it all together into a cohesive unit. For those articles written by others, I cleared copyright where necessary or possible.

As I collected, assorted and wrote, I composed the foreword and added to it piecemeal as the structure of the book worked itself out. Editing and revising, a never ending process, was done from day one to day the last.

What became one of my most significant features (to me at least) was the idea to introduce each vignette, or story, with an author's note. This too personalized what could have been a drier, detached local history. Also the author's introductions gave insights to a casual reader on how, where and why a particular story was created. These were lightly written, funny, or showed a particular quirk of the writer.

Photos became a problem area for many important or unique photos had been already used in other books. Many I had were not entirely suitable or were too dark to use. But in the end about fifty visuals were selected and, in addition, I included relevant newspaper clippings, concert and school programs, a recipe, a gravestone rubbing, postcards, and sections of an old letter. Line drawings are effective eye catching visuals, and Vignettes uses several.

I realized when about half through that this was basically a book of short pieces; each piece or story an entity unto itself. Not wanting to call it "Notes, Stories, Postcards (or Post-it Notes) from the Edge" I decided on the title "Vignettes" which is a French word for a view or particular intimate scene. That title suited me fine for short looks or snapshots was of the essence.

Two difficulties arose with this title: there are some readers, albeit a few, who have difficulty pronouncing the word (and thus may not pass the title on to others). Secondly, and this comes from my publisher, a subtitle e.g. "A Personal Look at Grand Bank" would reveal to potential buyers exactly what town is vignetted.

Seeing Vignettes of a Small Town was a book of short articles or stories, I hoped it would have appeal to not only those born and bred in Grand Bank, but also to any lover of Newfoundland trivia and history. To the end in which I have succeeded in this, remains to be seen.

So there you have it. Enjoy your writings of your home town. Remember this; even if your material never sees the light of day as a book, someday, someone will be grateful you have attempted to record the past.

Throughout the above are key words (in bold) which will hopefully lead you to write your town history:

- search, accumulate, collect

- sort, type

- write, submit

- chose, shape, plan

- arrange

- discard, keep

- compose, edit, revise

- select visuals

- introduce, entitle, personalize

- succeed

- enjoy

Copyright Robert C. Parsons

February 20, 2000