in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
February 17, 2025
As an ongoing series in South Grey News, we have asked prominent local folks to share stories of the moments, places and/or people in South Grey that have brightened their lives. What we got is a definitive guide to happiness in our communities. Love of place — our place, South Grey — deserves love songs of its own.
This week South Grey News is delighted to publish the history-infused recollections of Robert Iantorno — writer, innovator, consultant, grease monkey and former Grey Highlands Museum Curator, still known hereabouts as Museum Rob.
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BY ROBERT IANTORNO — It's pronounced "Yahn - Torr - No." Iantorno. I owe the name to my paternal ancestry from the town of Gesuiti in the mountainous region outside of Cosenza in Calabria, southern Italy. It's spoken with a particular inflection that remains from the Spanish Jesuits who came through the area in the wake of the Inquisition ...but here in South Grey, they just call me Museum Rob.
Years ago, on Canada Day, 2017, I came up from the city, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in search of a better life in the country. My wife Maria and I along with our three dogs had sold everything and moved into a 15 ft Shasta Airflyte trailer with a generator and well water. Maria started a new business and her Masters degree. I left my career in commercial HVAC and industrial design behind me and focused all my efforts on turning our life savings into a house. I was doing just that and making progress despite the rocky hardscapes of our ragged lot in Singhampton — that is, until the Grey County winter came and halted progress.
Being frozen out of construction activity had left me practically climbing the walls with boredom — I'm not comfortable sitting idle. When Maria suggested that I try volunteering at "that cute little museum in Flesherton." The idea thrilled me. I have a history degree from U of T and absolutely loved museums and old objects but never had the chance to work in the field — plus, I was a total stranger to country life and was only starting to learn the customs and nuances of community. I sheepishly went into the Museum and asked if I could volunteer, and Curator Kate Russell mentioned that I could apply to join the Board, which I did. They accepted my application, and at 32, I was overjoyed to be accepted as the youngest active Board member by a margin of a few decades or so. I volunteered for every event and every opportunity that presented itself. The following summer, the opportunity came to apply for the position of Curator, so I dove straight into the deep end, bought the ticket and strapped in for the ride. Along with building our home, my involvement with The Museum became the conduit to my new life in South Grey.
I poured myself fully into the South Grey Museum and into the Community. Every day, every artefact was an adventure. With the support of an amazing Museum Board and as part of the team in Grey Highlands Economic Development, we drastically reduced the budget of the Museum while increasing services. I adopted the mantra that Museum is as Museum Does. I believe that the Museum is not just a place to visit, but rather that the Museum is a headquarters for an active ministry. We renovated the Museum and enhanced its use as a cultural hub that hosted every event we could. We even held 'guerrilla' events such as Markdale is Rad on Main St. to promote love and enthusiasm for the town (it worked). Our little Museum's attendance grew quickly, as did interest in local history. People could sense my enthusiasm, and it was contagious. We welcomed groups of elementary school students, and I worked with teachers to visit their classrooms with baskets of cool old stuff to share and explore. We brought on summer students with multiple grants, and those students brought their friends to hang out and even exhibit their artwork and photography at the Museum. I helped some of them start businesses and get jobs. I worked with the burgeoning Hanley Institute to teach and mentor local youth, and soon we had kids showing up every day to explore the Museum collection or take a historic walking tour through town. It was during a class with some kids that a little girl put up her hand and asked, "Museum Rob, can we come back tomorrow?" and so the name stuck — no one can pronounce "Iantorno" correctly anyway!
I love the people who I met while running the South Grey Museum: the wise-cracking Markdale Seniors, local eccentrics with treasures untold in their basements and outbuildings, the welcoming hippies and poets of the Flesherton art crowd, Rotarians, Kinsmen, Split Rail Painters, cultural and literary icons who frequented the Friends of the Museum's amazing Speaker Series, educators, the fellas at the Eugenia Men's Coffee, veterans, historians, photographers, illustrators, local business owners and members of community groups, professional curators, and even the occasional kook, curmudgeon or politician. These were people who I otherwise never would have met — every interaction was enlightening. Many of the people who I still consider dear friends today I met through The Museum.
I started the @SouthGreyMuseum Instagram and began to chronicle my adventures through artefacts, historical snippets and old places in Grey Highlands. The community responded and amplified — each post was a joy. That led me to start contributing content for local publications (like this one). During COVID, we really ramped things up, launching The [re]CALL Project Podcast, for which I interviewed seniors in Grey Highlands, and then wrote about their lives and shared their characteristic quotes. I was humbled to hear people's life stories, and to then encapsulate and share them with our community.
Adventures continued, leading me to magazine covers, radio, TV and podcast interviews, work with newcomers to Canada, and even the honour of representing the South Grey Museum alongside Queen's University and the Aga Khan Museum at the Ontario Museum Association. I spoke at dozens of events as a guest and panellist, even playing guitar and singing Amazing Grace. I explored and documented abandoned and forgotten spaces, unearthing local historical treasures like the original logbook from the former W.J McFarland store in Markdale and dozens of ledgers from the still intact upper floor of the F.H.W. Hickling store in Flesherton. Once I even had to drive Billy Bishop's boots back to Owen Sound!
After three beautiful years, it was time to move on to my next adventure — a chance to wrench on classic Ferraris. Throughout my time as Curator, I was overwhelmed by the response from the community. This community trusted me. I felt truly loved and accepted. I was welcomed into people's homes and businesses and clubs and classrooms and associations. We shared stories, laughter, and tears in our little museum. I poured my heart into the community through the South Grey Museum, and the community accepted me. Never before in my life was I able to be so creatively free and so unabashedly myself. I didn't set out to become Museum Rob, this community bestowed that title upon me. I am forever thankful for the history, culture, places and especially the people of Grey Highlands and South Grey.
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