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.
When Rita Beauchamp was born in 1933, her family hoped and expected that she would enjoy a long life. As for the town she called home, well, that was another matter. Back then, the year Flin Flon was incorporated, folks gave the ramshackle mining town five more years _ 10 tops. Not only has Flin Flon survived the ensuing 80 years, it has done so with Rita along for the ride. She was born to Oswald and Leonida Beauchamp, who had come to Flin Flon from Quebec via Pine Falls four years earlier. The Beauchamps brought with them seven children and the memory of an eighth who had passed on. Another son, Paul, was born in Flin Flon, as was the 10th and final child, Rita. Though Rita is today the last of her siblings still with us, the Beauchamp name remains common in Flin Flon. With so many of them in those early days, how could it not? Oswald, like many early men of Flin Flon, worked for Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting. The Beauchamps made their home not far from the company, over on Hapnot Street. Rita still remembers going to the simply-titled Main School, known as 'the little blue school,' for grades 3 and 4. She used to cut through the Legion property to get to class. She remembers stopping at Milt's Sweet Shop, the famed teenage hangout of the era, for a treat, and watching Saturday afternoon matinees at the Northland and Rex theatres. Then there were those delicious family suppers at the Golden Gate restaurant on Sundays, and dances at the Lobstick Club. There were other forms of entertainment, too. 'The trains coming and going were a big deal in those days,' Rita recalls. 'I remember a circus coming to town and watching as the animals were unloaded off the train.' But Rita's formative years were not limited to Flin Flon. In 1947-48, she attended a private Catholic school in Wauchope, Saskatchewan. The following two years, she attended another Catholic school in Forget, Saskatchewan. When she returned to Flin Flon in 1950, she worked at Burkett's Drug Store and, later, the HBMS cafeteria. She was eager to see more of the country, so as a young woman in 1951 she joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a supply clerk. After training, she was stationed in St. John, Quebec. Then came a fateful transfer to Clinton, Ontario. It was there that she met a handsome young Air Force man named Bob Fortier, who was also a supply clerk. Head over heels The two fell head over heels, and not long after Rita left the Air Force in the summer of 1953, the couple married. With Bob still in the Air Force, the Fortiers made their home in Clinton but soon got a taste of the frequent suitcase-unpacking that is the hallmark of military families. They moved west, then west, then west again, to Winnipeg, Edmonton and finally Vancouver Island. After his time was up at that last posting in 1973, Bob too retired. The following year, 1974, the couple relocated to Flin Flon to start a new life. Bob found work at the HBMS warehouse; Rita at the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission. Rita has lost Bob, who passed away in 2011, but still very much enjoys her large family of four children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Retired for 21 years now, Rita has found that the secret to enjoying one's golden years is to fill the day with meaningful activity. She volunteers with the Catholic Women's League (and has for the past 55 years), attends St. Ann's Roman Catholic Parish, bakes cookies at the Personal Care Home and calls bingo at the Northern Lights Manor. 'You gotta keep on going,' says Rita. 'You can't sit around doing nothing.' _ With files from Gail Baker's book Looking Back: Memories on the Rocks
