Maryboro Lodge Personality: Marian Godwin

Chester and Marian Godwin at Godwin's Store, circa 2000

Marian Otto and Chester Godwin were both alone at a dance in Kirkfield in 1938—that’s how they met. As was common in their era, after this chance encounter, they got to know each other on the ride home, and it was the beginning of a life together. Their daughter, Marian Ann, was born in 1940, as Chester decided to enlist in the military to serve during the Second World War. He was stationed at the Debert Military Camp in Nova Scotia. When the war ended, the young family returned to Burnt River and worked towards making their life together.

Chester worked for Joe Handley’s lumber company and wanted to purchase a truck to be better able to do his job. The family also needed a home, but it was a stretch to be able to afford it all. So they built their home from used lumber that they salvaged from a mining camp in Tory Hill, and Chester asked Marian if he was to build a store in their home, would she look after it to help their family get by. Godwin’s store opened in 1946, and Marian was very faithful, looking after the store for more than 60 years, even after her family had grown up and Chester had passed away. Marian (or Pud as she was commonly called) was a familiar face to practically everyone in Burnt River.

Godwin’s Store was on Burnt River’s main street, located just north of the railway tracks. The sales counter had been salvaged from John Handley’s store during the Burnt River fire of 1944. The Godwins invested in a freezer so they could sell ice cream, which was shipped in dry ice from Acme Farmer’s Dairy in Toronto on the train, along with popsicles. Godwin’s store also delivered ice to cottagers on Four Mile Lake.

When a customer came into the store, a buzzer alerted Marian, who would stop whatever she was doing to wait on them. For more than sixty years, she would record each purchase by hand on a ledger. By the 2000s, visiting Godwin’s Store was a step back in time, with its old cigarette and Coca-Cola advertisements, telephone box and weighing scale. As in the general stores of days past, the merchandise was kept on plain shelving behind the counter. Serving each customer as they came in, almost until the day she needed to go to a nursing home, Marian always believed in the importance of helping others—being part of the close-knit community of Burnt River.