About Reg
BOOKS feed my thirst for knowledge of every kind. I began to collect them when I was eleven years old, and sixty eight years later they still arrive, often before food, if a choice has to be made. They cover my walls with amazing patterns, each one eliciting a response from me as I walk by, and, it may be said, keep the house warm and the walls standing.
Photo by Trevor Gillingwater
For those of you who do not know me this brief chronology of my life may help understand where I come from.
Born November 23, 1943
March 1944 – August 1958 in Tignish
In March 1944 my mother left me in Tignish with my grandparents. I stayed with them until it was time to go to Montreal in August of 1958 finally to live with my mother. During the Tignish years I completed my first 8 years of school, learned English, became an altar boy, sang in the choir, read every book I could lay my hands on, explored the deep woods, collected rocks and, with a toy microscope, became passionately interested in pond life. The town librarian, Margaret Conroy, was my mentor and guided my reading in critical ways that formed my future personality.
August 1958 – June 1962
Attended Cardinal Newman High School in Montreal
In August of 1958 my mother finally allowed me to go and live with her in Montreal. There I completed my four years of High School in a boys’ school run by the Christian Brothers. The school curriculum – typical of those times – gave me the basics of a classical education. I met various boys with whom I explored the city of Montreal, a wonderful place far removed from the simplicity of my childhood village.
September 1962 – 1965 Student at Loyola College
and substitute teaching 1965-66
After graduating from High School I was accepted at Loyola College, a Jesuit-run school with the highest standards. There my academic performance was poor because i only responded to those courses that interested me. I pursued many other intellectual avenues passionately and met fabulous mentors among the faculty who changed my life around completely. I skipped classes but learned prodigiously. My library grew and I got a Honda 50 scooter which I used to explore this city of cities. Taking an enforced break from Loyola I worked at this and that for a year and in the fall of 1966, until the FLQ bombs started to explode.
Summers of 1964 – 1968
The Tignish Arts Foundation Experiment
Elizabeth Cran was/is my greatest mentor ever, and my Classics professor at Loyola. In 1963-64 we convinced people in Montreal, Charlottetown and Tignish to set up the Tignish Arts Foundation Incorporated. Every summer we brought in art and music teachers to provide instruction to people of any age and had organ, piano and even harpsichord recitals. I collected folklore, unearthed and explored local history and got very heavily involved in the work of local songwriters and singers – Alec Shea being the most famous. His songs will be published in this blog.
October 1966 – September 1967 in Tignish
On impulse I left Montreal and went back to spend the winter with my grandmother in Tignish. She had electric lights now, but no plumbing. Partway through the year I got a job as substitute teacher. It was then that I began to realise what being a school teacher really was.
1967 – 1970 Student at Mount Allison University
In September of 1967 I began my studies at Mount Allison University in Sackville where I completed my BA degree in 1969 and took a degree in Education in 1970. It was at this time that I soaked up every course in Art History and related subjects that I could find.
September 1970 – July 1980
Librarian/Resource Director at Tantramar Regional High School in Sackville, NB
I was hired by the local School Board to to set up a library and audio visual resource centre at a new massive high school being bult on the edge of the Tantramar Marsh called Tantramar Regional High School. I asked to teach a full year Introductory Course in Art History. The Principal enthusiastically agreed. Many of my students are still in touch with me. By then I had begun to work part-time at the University teaching Social Studies Methodology in the Education Department, and teaching evening Art History courses in Moncton and Amherst. In the summer of 1979 I was accepted at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens to do their orientation to Greece year compressed into the summer months.
July 1980 – December 1981
Research Associate at the Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison
Mount A offered me a full-time position at the University as Research Associate at the Centre for Canadian Studies. I would continue to work with the Education Department where I added a course, the first one in the Maritimes, on Audio-Visual Theory and Practice.
January 1982 – 1988
Program Director and Curator of Exhibits at the Heritage Foundation, Charlottetown
In 1981 I was invited to come to take the position of Executive Director at the PEI Heritage Foundation at Beaconsfield in Charlottetown. I began work there in January of 1982 and the next five years were the worst I have ever experienced in my entire life.
1988 – 1999
Self-employed as Heritage Consultant
In 1988 I left the Foundation, had a rest, and set up as a Heritage Consultant with wild success until illness brought my working life to an end at the end of the 1990s. Appropriately my last projects were all connected with the Tignish 1999 Bicentennial Celebrations.
February 2000 until the present
Retirement in Belle River, PEI
In 2000 I moved with the cats, books and pictures to an empty farmhouse in Belle River where I spent years restoring the interior, planting a garden and trying to become academically active again. In more recent years I created a blog call Reg Porter’s Prince Edward Island Heritage Blog (regporter.com ) which contains over fifty essays on aspects of PEI Heritage – Prehistoric, French Colonial and British Colonial. Various digressions tell how this long-term research influenced my personal life. Hopefully, health permitting, I will continue to add to this blog for the rest of my life.