The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Harry Fedorkiw was from Valley River (near Dauphin). He was a farmer. Things were tough so he began "beating the trains" looking for work (around the late 1930s and early 40s). He managed to get to B.C. by jumping off the trains just before they stopped so he wouldn't get caught and he lived on vegetables that he was able to raid from gardens along the way. However, his luck ran out and he got caught while 'riding the rails' and he was given a choice. It was either jail or the army, so he took the army. Well, as luck would have it, during boot camp Harry broke his leg. Since he was no longer any use to the army, he went to work in B.C. Although Harry would vigorously deny it, he got very homesick so he headed back to Manitoba. Sometime after that, he decided to head for Flin Flon where he heard there was work underground in the mine. Harry worked there for a couple of years, when the homesick bug took hold of him again and off he went to Valley River! As it turned out the farming situation had not improved, so in 1945 Harry returned to Flin Flon and began his lifetime work underground at HBMS. He worked with such people as Bill Maluta, Alex Roncin, Black Mike Trubiak, Poker Bill, Teddy Bear, Ted MacKonka, John Nazar, Marian Pazdierski, Mike and John Mymko, Leo Lavoie and Walter Ariko, just to name a few. Harry's homesickness was about to be cured because in 1945 a young hairdresser named Ann Wasylynka came from a small community near Wynyard, Saskatchewan. She had answered an advertisement in the Wynyard newspaper for a hairdresser to work in a beauty salon above the Singer Sewing Centre (about where the federal unemployment office is now). See 'Ration' P.# Con't from P.# As it turned out, Ann was going to be living in the same boarding house as Harry on Hapnot Street, almost across from the Legion. It was owned by a man named Kornachuk. Ann and Harry were introduced by their landlady and the courtship began. Harry was no longer homesick, just lovesick. The couple were married in Ann's hometown in 1947. Their first home was at 47 Hapnot Street (just across from where Verona's is today) where they lived for one year and then Harry bought their present home on 12 Lake Street. The couple had one daughter Mari-Ann, and Ann became a stay-at-home Mom. She did her grocery shopping at the Blue and White. At that time the store sold groceries upstairs and dry good downstairs. The P&G Bakery was next door where Ann got all her fresh baking. In the early years of their marriage they had ration books and things like sugar, soap and nylons were rationed. For entertainment the couple would go dancing at the Legion every Saturday night. They also went to the show either at the Northland or the Rex theatres. Ann stated that the Rex seemed to be the most popular of the theatres. Once Mari-Ann went off to University, Ann started work at the Flin Flon General Hospital in housekeeping. The hospital was at that time run by the Grey Nuns. Ann earned 97 cents per hour in 1967! Shortly thereafter, the union came in and the wages improved, but only after Ann had to walk a picket line, which was unusual for her because she never really had stood up for herself till then! Ann spent most of her working career on the Maternity Ward. She worked with Ann Slugoski and Ann Scheiber. Harry passed away in 1984 and Ann continued work till 1986, when she retired! Anyone who knows Ann knows that "retired" is the last word you would use to describe her! She walks like the road runner whether it is at the Whitney Forum or around town. She even went in the Friendship Walk one summer from Bakers Narrows to Flin Flon and finished in time to go to work at the hospital for her afternoon shift! "The Nuns told me I could go home and they even paid me for the shift," she laughs! In her retirement, Ann helped with bingo at the Personal Care Home, takes exercise classes at the Seniors Drop In Centre, and plays bridge every Monday at the seniors centre along with about 30 to 40 other people. She also participates in the birthday pot luck supper held every month at the seniors centre. Ann spends a large part of her summers at her daughter Mari-Ann's home in Brandon. Ann is her daughter's personal gardener. taking care of the garden. As Mari-ann says, "Mom is a bush bunny, she loves the outdoors!" Ann also knits, even gloves. She used to take worn out socks and knit insoles for them. She has always been a hard worker. When it came to ironing she could often be seen ironing tea towels as well as the sheets and towels. But she smiles, "everything was hung on the clothesline so it had to be ironed to soften it up!" When asked what changes she has noticed in Flin Flon through the years, she says, "I love to live uptown and the shopping isn't as good as it once was. Even the Co-op is getting smaller and Main Street doesn't have the stores it once had." Thanks so much for sharing Ann. See, you too have a story to tell! The interview was great fun! Please Note: For the readers of Looking Back, I will be out of town for a while and will be featuring my next story later in October.
