Heritage Sarnia-Lambton will offer glimpses into how our communities evolved through personal experiences this week.
The network will host a new virtual Heritage Hour on Thursday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Lambton Heritage Museum Curator/Supervisor Dana Thorne said the hour-long presentation is titled "For Posterity’s Eyes Only: Historic Diaries, Letters, and Correspondence."
She said it will include a mix of items.
"It's based on items that are part of the different museum collections," said Thorne. "Sometimes we collect diaries and letters and correspondence from prominent figures and other times it could be just local residents that have donated this material to the museums."
She said some of the material dates back as far as the 1850s and 1860s.
"You can get some interesting perspectives," said Thorne. "People might have shared something in their private diary or journal that they might not share in other places. So, you can get an insider scoop into some aspects of what life was like that you wouldn't find reading a newspaper, or reading a book, from 100 years ago."
Thorne said Heritage Hour is free but registration is required.
"If [you] want to register, go to LambtonMuseums.ca and click on the link to register and then [you'll] get the link to the ZOOM meeting," she said.
Representatives from museums across the county will take part, including Kailyn
Shepley from the Sombra Museum, Fiona Doherty from the Moore Museum, Nicole Aszalos from Lambton County Archives, Erin Dee-Richard from the Oil Museum of Canada, and David McLean from the Forest Museum.
Local history expert Greg Stott is also participating and Thorne will moderate the presentation.
"We started doing [virtual talks] during the pandemic and attendance was very high. I think now that people are out of the house, we don't have as many people come to the virtual talks, but we do post the talks on YouTube after they're done. I find that we get a lot of views on the YouTube channel," said Thorne.