Don and Leona Lindstrom are downsizing.
Their kids and grandchildren have picked out items the two self-confessed former "garage sale junkies" have accumulated over the decades at their College Heights home and they've been sorting out hordes of treasures earmarked for the Prince George Hospice Society's Antique and Collectibles Fair, April 5-6 at the Roll-A-Dome.
Remnants of history are in every corner of the Lindstroms' house, garage and antiques shed. For starters, there's a old-style crank telephone, a tool collection Leona's grandfather started when he set up a sawmill at West Lake in 1938, a set of U.S. Army-issued snowshoes made during the wartime to outfit soldiers in the Italian Alps and a Singer sewing machine made in the 1940s which still works as well as the day it left the factory.
They have a set of ivory-handled fish knives owned by a war bride a century ago in England, a well-preserved CN Rail kerosine lamp used to communicate train signals at night, an antique collection of glass bottles found in the Vancouver dump, and a sewing kit recovered from a Lake Ontario shipwreck.
"It's stuff that you don't see, and I'm having a hard time letting it go," said Don Lindstrom. "A lot of this stuff is personal stuff that comes from relations down the line."
The Lindstroms are among a group of regular vendors at the antiques fair, which happens in the spring and fall and never fails to draw long lineups of customers. They bring a wide variety of items to the sale and usually pocket at least $2,000 for their weekend efforts.
"It all depends on who's coming in and what you have to sell, and you have to have variation," said Don. "If I went in with just my bottles, I wouldn't make much money. But if I have my bottles, my books, my tools, and all this stuff, I'll do well."
Fixing clocks is John Gall's livelihood and he's been going to the antiques fair every since it started 25 years ago at Peden Hill elementary school. He and his wife regularly make the trip up from their Quesnel home not only to sell a few vintage-era clocks but to spread the word about his repair work.
"I do not advertise anywhere else for repairs, I do all my advertising at the two fairs, spring and fall," said Gall. "People pick up cards at the show and we've had calls from as far away as Battleford [Saskatchewan] and down into the States."
At 83, Gall is still going strong with his business, which he learned in Guelph, Ont., after starting his clock work in his native Scotland. He makes regular trips between Prince George and Williams Lake and appears to have the clock repair market cornered.
"It unfortunately is a dying art, nobody is doing it," said Gall.
"Clockmaking has been going on for centuries in the U.K, Germany and France but it didn't really start in North America until the early 1700s. When they started, they were making all the movements out of wood and most of the wood they used was apple wood for the gears, because it has oil of its own, and maple wood for the front and back plates, which there was plenty of in this country. That's about as much of the history as you have to know."
Aloha Wenbourne has a large collection in storage that includes pinwheel crystal, old jewelry, furniture she will have that on display at her usual place on the far wall of the Roll-A-Dome. For nearly 30 years, ever since her husband got sick and could no longer work, she's been collecting stuff bought at garage sales that she takes to market at the antiques fair.
"He got really sick and wouldn't go to the hospital so I had to figure out some way to look after him, so I started garage-saling," said Wenbourne. "My doctor said I should go on welfare but I'd be so embarrassed to take a cheque like that. I said 'I will work for my money,' and that's how I looked after him."
Wenbourne's husband George died in 1995. His 80-year-old widow not only stays on top of snowshovelling duties at her Hart Highway-area house but she's kept up her business venture and she loves the social scene that surrounds the old gang she sees twice a year at the antiques fair.
"There are tons of us who go garage-saling together and have lots of laughs, it's a meeting place and I enjoy it," she said. "It gets people out looking for things that interest them and it's something to do. From the time the door opens at 8 o'clock, it's swamped in there and buzzing with people. Some of them might not buy anything but they are interested in the old stuff and the collectibles."
Wenbourne has made great friends at the fair, especially her garage-sale buddy Adrian Den Otter, whom she calls her "adopted son." She has great rapport with her best customers, like the man who always buys her Coca-Cola signs.
"I don't have trouble selling stuff," Wenbourne said. "Half of the fun is bartering and if people come to fair and see something they like, I've told them, make an offer or tell me you want a different price." She takes pride in finding great deals on antique furniture and turning a little elbow grease into tidy profits. She found a rounded china cabinet outside in the weeds at a yard sale she picked up for $30 and sold at the fair for $350.
"It was gorgeous," she said. "If you fix things up and clean them up, there's beautiful stuff, really. We find some of the best stuff at estate sales. Young people don't want to save anything their mother and dad had, they want all modern things."
Admission to the fair costs adults $4 per day and $6 for a two-day pass, while seniors pay $3 per day and $5 for the weekend. Vendor tables are $35 each per day. All proceeds from admissions go to the Prince George Hospice Society.
