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.
In honour of Flin Flon's 80th anniversary, The Reminder is profiling residents who lived here in 1933, the year of incorporation. We begin today with Philomene O'Reilly and Glen Campbell, both of whom now reside in Denare Beach. **** Philomene O'Reilly Philomene O'Reilly's vibrancy is impressive considering that she is almost 92 years old. Just as remarkable is how her long life has given her a unique vantage point from which to watch the rich history of Flin Flon unfold. 'I remember the board sidewalks and the mud holes on Main Street _ it was a big mud hole,' says O'Reilly. 'I remember when they dug up Main Street there a few years ago, I wondered if they found our rubber boots down there, because my dad used to pull kids up from the mud all the time.' Born in Zenon Park, Sask., on Sept. 27, 1921, O'Reilly was a little girl when her family moved to a young mining community called Flin Flon in 1929. Her father, John Floch, had arrived in the rough-and-tumble town two years earlier, working at HBMS and setting up Flin Flon Bakery, the first business of its kind in the community. O'Reilly has countless memories of the Flin Flon of yesteryear. One that stands out involves another Flin Flon pioneer, the colourful late mayor Jack Freedman. She remembers playing on the roof of his business, Freedman's Fall-In, which was next to the family bakery on Main Street. 'We played up there all the time with the Freedman kids,' O'Reilly says. 'Mr. Freedman would bring up those big jugs of ice cream to us all the time. We had a great playground!' Born a farm girl, O'Reilly in time took a liking to the customs of her new hometown. She took up curling, Flin Flon's official winter pastime (along with hockey), and enjoyed some success. One year, she was even on the women's team that won the Western Canada finals, then known as the Eaton's Playdown, in Winnipeg. 'At the time everything was in Winnipeg,' O'Reilly recalls. 'We wished it had have been in Vancouver, just to go somewhere!' But that desire to 'go somewhere' was not so strong as to pull O'Reilly away from Flin Flon. When it came time to start a family of her own, she proudly stayed put. In 1955, she wed a young man named Edward O'Reilly. Working underground at HBMS, he had come to Flin Flon with $25 in his pocket and a personal pledge to stay until he earned it back. Unlike many women of her era, Philomene worked most of her adult life. She was a secretary at HBMS, first in the personnel department and then in the pay office. She left the company to have children, but later re-entered the workforce, as a secretary with the Flin Flon School Division. Philomene retired once and for all when Edward announced he was calling it a career at HBMS and intended to escape the bitter northern cold by wintering in Arizona. The Arizona sunshine shone on the couple each winter from 1982 until 1999. Sadly, Edward passed away in 2000. Over the years, as so many of her fellow citizens and family members departed Flin Flon, Philomene was adamant about staying. 'It just became my home,' says this witness to history. 'I never wanted to leave.' *** Glen Campbell As a longtime photographer, Glen Campbell always found the Flin Flon area to be picture perfect. He must have. Having moved to the area as an infant in 1929, Campbell has never resided anywhere but here. 'I guess I don't know anything else,' Campbell says with a laugh when asked what makes this area special. See 'Still' on pg. Continued from pg. After he was born in Winnipeg in 1927, Campbell and his family moved north, first to The Pas and then to Flin Flon during the first year of the Great Depression. His father, Alexander, worked for a young company called HBMS. Like many men of the era, he was just grateful to have a job. Despite the lengthy passage of time, Glen, now 86, still has memories of Flin Flon in the 1930s. 'We lived at an area called 'The Point' and it was north of the smelter. It was an island, like a peninsula,' he says. 'We were kind of squatters there, I guess. There was quite a few people who lived in that area.' Growing up Glen was nicknamed 'Soup' by virtue of his familiar last name. The same went for his brothers, Alistair and Neil, both of whom are deceased. As an adult Glen would follow in his father's footsteps, hiring on at HBMS, where he worked in the assay lab. It was steady, secure work. But Glen, who by now had joined a local photography club and become a die-hard shutterbug, craved something different. Not yet 40, he executed a major career change in 1963 when he opened Campbell Studio and Camera Shop on Main Street. 'My dad thought I was crazy,' Glen recalls, but he himself was undeterred. 'I was interested in photography and people, and taking portraits.' His dad soon changed his mind about the venture, which turned out to be highly successful. Glen ran his business, located in what is now Sharon's Place, for 23 years, selling it and retiring in 1986. Another love of Glen's is sailboating _ and boating of all kinds, in fact. Once, around 1950, Glen built a hydroplane boat. He decided to test it on Ross Lake, with huge numbers of people watching from the shores. A cable came loose and the next thing he knew, the boat was mindlessly circling in the middle of the lake. Failing to rectify the situation, Glen jumped off the dizzying ride and swam to shore. 'The boat kept going around in circles until the tank was empty,' he recalls with a laugh. 'It did that for more than half an hour.' Today Glen resides in Denare Beach, in the same (though modernized and expanded) cabin his family built as a vacation home back in 1937. Tall and fit with a white goatee, he lives near one of his childhood friends from The Point, Babe McCullum _ but more on her Friday.
