As a collector of all things historic there is one well known area I have never indulged in. That is the art of scrap booking, an age-old hobby that dates back to the fifteenth century when it was referred to as commonplace books. It has continued throughout history under such names as friendship albums and evolved later into photo albums and modern scrapbooking.
For those of us working on historical research in our modern times there is a lot of electronic information available.  But this wasn’t always the case which brings me to the story of Mrs. Mary Mundie Mary passed away in 2003 in Blairmore at the age of 90, but for over thirty six years (1964 to 2000) she religiously clipped, labelled and mounted thousands of newspaper articles from the Pass Herald and other local and national papers. These snippets in time were lovingly pasted or taped into no less than 67 - 11 by 17 scrapbooks complete with occasional pen notes and dates where newspaper date banners were not included.  It is an astonishing collection that profiles every aspect of Pass life and many national and international events.  To open one of these books is to step back in time and remember or learn what was in the news in that particular year.  
Mrs. Mundie had an enormous respect for the Crowsnest Pass and its citizens and every wedding, funeral, accident or social event was carefully snipped out and added to that year’s collection.  I have only just begun to absorb some of the information she has so zealously kept but in doing so it is reconnecting me with my roots and Pass history in a wonderful way.
Flipping through the pages of older scrapbooks requires some care as the newspaper clippings are fading (bleached pulp) and the tape used has long since acidified, turned yellow and lost its stickiness.  It will take some time for me to assess her work but in the process I am coming to know more about her. What Mary saw as important or significant and the little notes and hand drawn arrows she added to local pieces tells me what brought her joy and what disturbed her.
Locally Mrs Mundie has pretty well all relevant events covered through the aforementioned time span.  Her hundreds of obituary clippings are little mini histories of Pass residents lost through the years and for an historian provides connectivity as you study that person’s life profile and family legacy. Wedding photos give one maiden names and the beginning of family’s now flourishing, pictures of disasters and accidents bring back painful memories and coverage of social events shows Pass residents in earlier years.
I can flip open to any page of any of her books and step back into those important moments in time that has brought us to where we are today. And that in itself is important because if we don’t study our history and evolvement as a community we won’t clearly understand where we are going. 
For most of Mary’s scrapping years I was away in college or living in Calgary or Fernie so I missed a lot of local history.
Flipping through the stories in this period there are two faces that show up on an almost unbelievably regular basis.