QAHN

A Dutch-born businessman from the Eastern Townships who has spent two decades in various leadership roles with the Stanstead Historical Society is the winner of this year’s Marion Phelps Award for outstanding service to Quebec’s heritage community.

For Harry Isbrucker, described by colleagues as “resourceful, modest and courteous,” volunteering comes naturally. Twenty years ago he came to the rescue of a woman who’d driven her car into a ditch. She turned out to be the president of the local historical society, Irene Blandford, who immediately recognized in Mr. Isbrucker an excellent recruit.

Mr. Isbrucker has been a member of the board of directors since his recruitment and has served as president, treasurer and chairman or member of the Stanstead Historical Society’s most onerous and demanding committees—those relating to finance and the care and upkeep of Carollcroft, the fine, but deteriorating granite mansion built in 1859 that houses the Society and the Colby-Curtis Museum.

In nominating him for the 2007 Marion Phelps Award, the historical society’s governing board wrote, “It is impossible to overstate the longstanding commitment of Mr. Isbrucker to the maintenance and preservation of Carrollcroft. He has unreservedly brought his considerable technical and financial skills and experience to this task―to say nothing of his obvious affection for the building. His business acumen has helped to steer the SHS through years of difficult financing.”

Mr. Isbrucker has served on local and regional committees to consider the fate of heritage buildings. He was also closely involved in the development of the Massawippi recreational trail that follows a section of disused railway bed on the Canadian side of the Quebec-Vermont border. Recently he was a leading player in the rehabilitation of the Pioneer and Veteran’s Memorials at Dufferin Heights, giving unstintingly of his time and experience to this project, down to the micromanagement of construction and bookkeeping. He remains active in border region business circles, promoting the economic health of the area.

In his private life Mr. Isbrucker is a tree farmer as well as retired businessman. For him, heritage is not just about buildings and monuments; the landscape is important too. He is lovingly restoring acres of played-out farmland to handsome, productive woodland. Along with the land he is in the process of restoring a heritage farmhouse and outbuildings to their former dignity.



(Photo: Nancy Nourse)