Mother’s Day is the 25th anniversary of my column in Rural Roots.
Rural Roots was created by Prince Albert Daily Herald in 1990 and distributed free to homes in North Central Saskatchewan. It’s an area that I know well, having grown up in Tisdale.
I moved to Prince Albert as a bride in 1969 and worked for a year in the lab at Victoria Union Hospital, before returning to classes in Saskatoon to finish a Bachelor of Science degree. I interned at the Prince Albert hospital and became a Registered Laboratory Technologist. My first job was in the lab at Prince Albert Medical Clinic. In 1975 I left behind my science career to become a stay-at-home parent.
I started work in 1981 at the Daily Herald as the Women’s Editor. I thought it would be for just a year or two, but I ended up working 29 years for the Herald. I moved to being Assistant City Editor, then City Editor and finally Rural Roots Editor in 1997 and began to write this weekly column.
After my husband died in 2006, I became a certified fitness instructor. My first regular class was with seniors at the Heritage Centre. It’s an age group with whom I feel a special kinship.
Since 2009, I have been the instructor for the Easy Adult Fitness program offered by the City of Prince Albert at the Margo Fournier Centre. I also teach chair-assisted yoga at Abbeyfield House and Calvary United Church. At that point, I was working only half time at the Herald and I joked that my paid employment was getting in the way of the things that mattered… my exercises classes and volunteer work. Well, be careful what you wish for. In May 2010, when the editorial and composing functions of the Daily Herald were centralized in Moose Jaw, I was laid off along with eight other people.
You can see that the continuous thread through the last 25 years has been writing this column, which I continue to do from home. Writing this column has been a special privilege. I hope to be able to continue it for years to come.
