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Antique stores can hold a treasure trove of unique and rare items that are often hard to find elsewhere. They are often of high quality, with a history and a story behind them.
This is the story of one such treasure found at one such Oakville treasure trove, Turner Chapel Antiques, 37 Lakeshore Road East.
Turner Chapel was an African Methodist Episcopalian Church that opened its doors on January 1, 1892, to replace an earlier structure that had burned down. It was named for Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, the first black chaplain in the Union Army, appointed by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.
Oakville had been a terminus of what became known as the Underground Railroad since at least the 1830s, becoming a sanctuary for enslaved persons fleeing that "peculiar institution," as the practice of enslaving humans was sometimes euphemistically known in the U.S. at the time.
By 1860 their numbers were significant enough (up to 400 individuals in a town of about 2,000) to support a church, and the AME church was duly established by Sam Adams and the Reverend William Butler, members of that vibrant community.
It remained a church for over 100 years, until the late 1990s, when attrition finally took its toll and it closed.
In 2002 Jeb Gardner bought the church and its next door manse to house his burgeoning antique business. With guidance from the Oakville Historical Society the original structure has been preserved as is, and this sanctuary is used respectfully.
This leads to the treasure my wife and I acquired recently.
Mr. Gardner buys estates – that is, he buys what is left after relatives receive what was gifted to them in a will and other things that carry treasured memories are distributed to those who hold them. But many unhoused treasures remain. Not unwanted by the family but perhaps more accurately, not needed.
Which is where this tale begins.
We needed a large painting for a newly renovated den. Our taste can be characterized as outdoor Canadian landscapes – Group of Seven would be ideal but for budget constraints. We found exactly what we were looking for at Turner Chapel, an evocative study titled "The Bird River" Manitoba Painted Fall, 1964. There was no signature on the painting itself but the handwritten title was on a paper attached to the reverse.
Mr. Gardner’s staff tries to attribute anything for which attribution is unknown but they had been unable to decipher what appeared to be a scrawled signature below the title. But that didn’t matter to us; we loved it and bought it on the spot. It is perfect on our den wall.
That would be where the tale ended, but for a nagging question, where is the Bird River? Thirty seconds on Google provided the answer: a wilderness river that flows from Bird Lake, almost 500 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, into Lac du Bonnet and thence via the Winnipeg River to Lake Winnipeg.
So, we returned to the scrawl. Maybe that’s an "R." And could that be a “K”? Our next search was "Winnipeg art galleries," where we found Mayberry Fine Art. Lo and behold on their website was one Robert Kost, whose impressionist style was like our painting.
We emailed the principal, Sean Mayberry with the picture and the possible signature. This was his reply:
Hi Geoff,
The painting might be by KOST but the signature on the back doesn't appear correct. But the style is indicative of Kost’s work from the 1960s, so maybe its by him.
Hmm. Now what? We turned to Legacy.ca and found the obituary of Robert Kost, a Manitoba painter who died in 2003. Our man if the signature could be authenticated. A celebration of his life was held at the home of a son, Anthony.
On to LinkedIn. There was an Anthony Kost, associated with a Winnipeg data management company. We called and confirmed he worked there but "he’s on holiday in Mexico for the next few weeks." We asked our new contact to forward this query to him:
Anthony, I understand one of your colleagues spoke to you about my enquiry a few weeks ago, and that you said Robert was indeed your father and that you would be receptive to my contacting you, hence this email…
The email contained the picture and signature. We received this response from Anthony:
Hi Geoff,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you; I am just returning from a terrific vacation in Mexico.
I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that this is my dad Robert Kost’s handwriting and also one of his paintings. Nice score; I hope for your sake that you were able to acquire it for a song! I really like it.
Problem solved! We didn’t acquire the painting for a song (it’s that good), but the point for us is, we loved it when we bought it, but it’s no longer just a lovely landscape painting of something, somewhere, by someone. It’s a Robert Kost. There are several websites devoted to his painting, including Wikipedia.
We wondered, who was Robert Kost the man, not the painter?
It turns out he was also a fiddler in at least two bands, with his sons as the Buddy Bluegrass Band, and another, Ain't No Mountain Boys, which played at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in the 1990s.
He was an avid golfer and played an early role in the development of the Granite Hills Golf Club on Lac du Bonnet, near where he was born and lived most of his life. It’s an hour and a half northeast of Winnipeg in the Canadian Shield. And, importantly, he was fun to be with, "happiest when spending time laughing with his family," according to his obituary.
He sounds like a delightful, engaging, accomplished man whose life was cut too short, at 66.
We are now planning a summer trip to Winnipeg on Via Rail’s The Canadian then to Lac du Bonnet and the Bird River (with our golf clubs), maybe to canoe down the wilderness river that inspired Robert Kost in those long ago days. And maybe we can meet Anthony and enquire about Robert’s bluegrass bands, a musical taste we share.
All this because we dropped into Turner Chapel Antiques one day. Oakville’s antique stores are filled with treasures – and great stories if you look for them. This is but one.