LCVI archives now under city’s care

School was built in 1889

Lindsay Collegiate and Vocational Institute (LCVI) is transferring its collection of archives to the City of Kawartha Lakes for better safekeeping and storage. The archives contain many items, some over a century old given the school was founded in 1889.

Last year, Angela Fornelli, the city’s manager of corporate records and archival services, and Mark Cossarin, the principal of LCVI, agreed the LCVI archives would be better taken care of if they were in the city’s care.

“The archives have been sitting in that storage closet for so long, and I felt that this would be a great opportunity to organize and house the archives in a more appropriate environment,” said Cossarin.

The city has more resources to care for and preserve the records for the long term. It will also be able to promote the LCVI archives’ existence better and will allow the records to be available to more researchers.

One item in the archives is a list from 1921 of teachers and students from LCVI who fought in the First World War, with stars beside the names of those killed in action. The list was to be made into a memorial.

Another item is a newspaper from Monday, Nov. 20, 1965, with an article about Isaac Ernest Weldon’s death along with his last will and testament. He gave a generous amount of money to what was then the Victoria County Board of Education. When Lindsay’s second high school opened it was named I. E. Weldon because of that.

One of the oldest items in the school’s archives is a newspaper clipping from Tuesday, Jan. 22, 1889, announcing the formal opening of the “Lindsay Collegiate Institute.”

The “Vocational” was added to the L.C.I. in 1963, when the school introduced a vocational department with options like a shop program (woodshop, machine shop, electrical and more). This happened at many high schools across the province as curricula changed during the premiership of John Robarts.

Archives represent how the world has changed over time and LCVI’s archives show how the school has grown. From 1889 to 2021 there have been many changes to the school. There have been changes to everything from the structure of the building itself to the way the students and staff dressed. The dress code is especially different from 1889 to what it is now. Girls were expected to wear dresses or skirts up until around 1970 when pants started becoming acceptable for them. 

While the school was built in the late 19^th century, the current school building contains areas that were built in 1954, 1976, and 2002, according to the Trillium Lakelands District School Board’s website. The two-storey structure occupies about 137,000 square feet.

LCVI has also gone through many different school newspapers, too. The first school newspaper was named L.C.I Birds of Passage in 1921; it then changed to The Tatler from 1926 to 1927, and later in 1991 it was named The Spartan Banner.

“Archives are the history of the everyday person, and we need folks who are passionate about those records in order to give them the best care,” said Fornelli, explaining why people should be interested in archives as a profession.

Soon the high school’s archives — filled with history and important information – will be preserved for future generations.