With the many festivals that occur during summer, I am reminded of a once popular event that played an important role in our communal prairie past and specifically in my family’s history: the Chautauqua.

Chautauquas originated in the United States in 1874. They began as a Methodist Sunday School teacher training camp on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in New York state. Eventually this evolved into traveling shows featuring entertainment and lectures. The performances came to Canada in 1916 and were encouraged by the United Farmers of Alberta. Emanating from company headquarters in Calgary and traveling over the prairies (as well as British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec), the Chautauqua engaged local sponsors and would have a summer event of three days or a week depending on the size of the community.

This traveling variety show was organized in a circuit, so that the performers of the first day arrived, appeared on stage and then moved to the next locale, as the rest of the performers arrived in turn. Productions were conducted in a large oblong tent, surrounded by an opaque fence (to prevent any sneak peeks at the show), with a smaller tent outside the fence serving as the ticket booth. Performances included music, singing, and stage plays. Lectures were also featured and they often had a moral, religious, or political element. Chautauquas reached their height of popularity in the 1920s, when people were hungry for education and for connection with the broader world they had been exposed to by the recent Great War. The last Canadian circuit Chautauqua ran in 1935, extinguished primarily by the poverty of the Depression, although the advent of the radio age played a part by bringing entertainment to the masses right in their own homes.

When the Chautauqua came to town, the whole community was sure to attend and this is how the Chautauqua ties into the history of my family: my grandparents met there. One legend recounts that Grandpa, at age twelve, upon seeing my future Granny from afar, remarked to his mother, ‘I’m going to marry that girl one day,’ (to which his mother retorted, ‘She’ll never have anything to do with you.’) However, another tale states that when they were older, Granny met Grandpa for the first time while attending a Chautauqua with her brothers. Apparently the brothers knew Grandpa and introduced their sister to him. The clincher came when, during a meal there, Grandpa caught Granny’s eye, made a hole in his paper plate, and peeked through it at her! She fell for the man who could make her laugh.

If the Chautauqua plays a role in your family’s history, you can find information on-line through the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan and some actual documents at the Glenbow Library and Archives in Calgary. Unfortunately, I could not locate a program or record of the specific event from the early 1920s where my grandparents met. I did, however, find a program from Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan for a three day program in October of 1923 or 1924. I suspect this production of the Community Chautauquas of Canada to be very similar to what my grandparents witnessed. Each day was composed of an afternoon and an evening session. The first day included performances by a soprano, a violinist, a contralto, a pianist and a baritone as well as a lecture on the importance of point of view. The second day featured a comedy with ‘the message that in the hands of women rests the salvation of the world’ and a Broadway comedy/drama by A. A. Milne (of Winnie the Pooh fame). The third day had ‘a programme making good music popular and popular music good’ starring a contralto, a pianist, and a violinist. There was also a humorous entertainer (pictured in full Scottish regalia) and a lecture that was ‘sane, optimistic and full of good common sense philosophy.’ For a cost of two dollars one could see the whole three day extravaganza. What Value! What more could one ask for? – great entertainment and the chance to meet the girl of your dreams.

This article was originally printed in the Bergen News and is being reprinted with permission.