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.
Effie Oystryk was born and raised on a farm near the village of Veregin in Saskatchewan, whose population was a huge 75 people. Effie was the fifth child born in a family of nine children. Mike Todoschuk was also born near that same village about a mile apart from Effie. He was the eldest of five children. They both attended the same field days, schools and, as it happens in a farming community, hauled sheaves of wheat during thrashing times and as they grew older attended dances together. In those days as Effie said, "Our school days were cut short. When we were 15 we were allowed to quit school and help full time on the family farm. We were raised through the Depression and times were tough! Supplies were hard to come by and money was scarce, but we had a carefree life and many happy times. We were sheltered from the outside world and had no worries about what was going on in the world around us." Mike and Effie were married just after the war in 1945. Effie smiles, "Getting a wedding dress or white shoes was next to impossible, but we did manage to get what we needed. Our parents managed to finance our wedding, as well as all the others in the family as they came along. Our parents worked very hard!" See 'Rocks' P.# Con't from P.# After two years of being married, Mike sold the farm and bought a blacksmith's shop in Theodore, Saskatchewan. However, because the farmers had little or no money to pay for his services, the business did not do well, and he sold the business and the family moved to Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Mike tried to do construction work wherever he could find it. By this time children Darlene and Dennis had come along. Mike built a 28-foot house trailer and he was able to move his family wherever he could find work. Effie states, "It was fun, we kind of lived like gypsies." Many young people had given up farming and were looking for something else to do. Effie said, "Life wasn't easy, but if you were a hard worker someone would hire you!" She went on to say that "Mike loved to do carpentry work as well as work with machinery. But his moving from place to place had to soon stop because the children were getting to school age!" "In 1952 we took a vacation and came to Flin Flon to visit my sister Pauline Klewchuk (her husband owned Willowvale Grocery). Mike was offered a job at Highway Motors that was owned by Dave and Les Alexander (where the Occupation Centre is now). "So we packed up all our things, put our trailer on the train and headed for Flin Flon!" Effie said, "I was scared to death! After seeing this place and all the rocks, hills and curvesÉ you had to be out of your mind to live here (coming from the flat farming area)." "But," she smiles, "it couldn't have been that bad 'cause after 53 years I am still here!" In 1953, Mike started construction on their new home on Dominion Boulevard. At that time Vic Pettersen's home was the only other one on the street. Effie states, "Money was scarce and it took Mike several years to complete our home and with the addition of three more children (Merv, Wendy and Wayne) it was small but Mike did alright!" Effie recalls how with Dominion Boulevard being a new development, there was just a trail from Manitoba Avenue. There was no water works, bush all around as well as being a dead end street, it was great for the kids. "We had no traffic worries, other than the people living here, the water truck, the honey wagon and the garbage truck, our kids were safe!" Once the kids started school they went over the hill and through the bush, crossed on Queen Street to Willowvale School. Effie smiles, "In the winter Vic Pettersen, who loved kids, would take a stuffed gunny sack and drag a path for the kids through the snow to Queen Street so that they could get to school!" People began to build and move onto the street: families such as the Pettersens, Olsons, Harapiaks, Brooks, Qualls Morrisons, Hagans Burrels, Kitzuls, Bowlers, Balfours, Urechkos, Psbenickis and the Wrights. Effie said, "It was a great time for the kids, they could build forts in the bush and often the kids from Queen Street would come over and occasionally they'd fight, tear down each other's forts. Bobby Clarke (future Flin Flon Bomber/NHLer) got himself tied to a tree one time in a fight." Waterworks was installed in the mid '60s and Dominion began to expand even more. "Most of the families were one vehicle families, so we walked everywhere, because our husband would need the vehicle to go to work. We often took the kids to Phantom Lake (at least five miles one way from Dominion Blvd.). We'd pack a picnic, put the younger ones in a carriage or stroller and away we'd go, never thought anything about it É that was just the way it was!" adds Effie. See 'There' P.# Con't from P.# "In the '60s a group of ladies got together and formed a 'birthday club'. We'd get together at whose ever birthday it was and have coffee and cake and just get to know the parents of the kids our children were playing with. This was also a great way to welcome new people into the neighbourhood!" smiles Effie. "We were there for each other and would often have house parties or play cards, things seemed much easier before television and telephones!" In 1968 Mike and Effie joined the Lucky Strike bowling league, bowling with Don and Gwen Brooks, Les and Lorraine Jeffreys and Jack and Emily Billy, and they bowled for 25 years in the league. At first they only bowled on Sunday, because of hiring babysitters and the pennies were still not plentiful. They also began to ski, curl and golf. "Ah, to be young again!" sighs Effie. Effie also loved to play baseball and did for a few years, with the Snowettes until practices began to interfere with "the making of the meals!" Mike worked in several garages throughout the years as a mechanic and auto body repairman. After he left Highway Motors he worked for Joe Gunis where Bernie's Service was (now Northland Ford), then for Joe Waselenko where the bus depot is now, then for John Kepper at Northland Motors. In 1976 Mike went to work for Clarence Peters at Star Auto Body in Channing until he retired in 1988. As a hobby Mike loved to work with wood and after he retired he made many pieces of furniture for his wife and kids or for anyone who wanted a computer desk, shelves, etc. Music was also one of Mike's passions. He had been given a dulcimer by his father. That is a stringed instrument played by tongs. Well, Mike took it apart and used it for a pattern and made three more. Mike also played in a group, for many years, who would play at seniors' residences along with Gary Overland, Fred Didyk, Henry Kudaba, Vic Pettersen, Blue Teneycke, Tony Linnick, Merle Hedman, Rupert Neidermaier, and Lawrence Halldorson, through the years. Mike loved to play and would practice everyday just for the pleasure of hearing the music. Effie was a stay-at-home mom. She said, "Even though money was scarce and my going to work would have helped I thought my being at home was important for the kids." However, once the kids grew up Effie took a job at the Flin Flon General Hospital in the kitchen as a diet aide for a few years. Then she found her niche when she took a job working with Home Care. She found she loved working with the elderly. She worked there for 16 years and still does volunteer work with the seniors. Effie also belongs to the Flin Flon/Creighton Seniors and found them a great support when her husband Mike died in 2002. Throughout the years Effie has belonged to the Flin Flon Horticultural Society and has the ribbons and trophies to prove it! When she first started in 1965 some of the members were Gordon Grindle, Ada Russell, Velma Inglis, Tom and Charlotte Willey, Dorothy Low, Josie Korte, Marj. Rumbal, Joyce Mitchell and others. When Effie quit in 1996, that year she had 101 entries in the fall show. She won 84 prizes and 12 trophies. She still continues to grow her garden and flowers but as she says, "It is getting to be more of a challenge as the muscles get stiff but I still find it challenging!" For many years Effie also taught the art of painting Ukrainian Easter eggs and making Easter breads. Only two of her children live in Flin Flon now, Wendy (has her own accounting office) and Wayne (an industrial mechanic at HBMS). Darlene, her eldest daughter, has retired and is living in Los Angeles, Dennis is Director of School Divisions in Dryden, Red Lake, Sioux Lookout and Keewatin in Ontario, and Merv has his own consulting firm in Red Deer, Alberta, after working at a oil refinery in Aruba for two years. Effie is the proud grandmother of 13 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She says, "I am happiest when most of them can come home at the same time and we reminisce about the good old days! We have such great memories and although things have changed in the past 53 years, Flin Flon has given me a good life, this is home and I am staying right where I am!" She ends with a quote she loves: "Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday and all is well." Thanks so much for your story Effie!
