What a year it’s been! We are in our sixth year since the R.M.’s took over the ownership of Creighton Lodge and 2015 was the year that saw the most changes. It started off warmer than the typical Saskatchewan January.
It was quiet around the building after the hustle and bustle of the 2014 Christmas season, but our ever faithful Freddie and the Freebies, Happy Wanderers, Church of Christ singers and Bob Olson and family began the year of entertainment. Long-time resident and friend, Mary Grube moved to Mainprize Manor and we welcomed Otillia Gervais and Lucille Bonokoski into the Lodge.
February showed us its real winter colours with very frigid temperatures. We stayed nice and warm inside most of the month with our regular entertainers and special guests Ross LeBlanc and Susan Shepherd. We had a special afternoon with the Grade 4 class of Pleasantdale School on Valentine’s Day. We said good-bye to Joyce Schoff as she moved on to Mainprize Manor.
March found us busy selling tickets for our fundraiser for the new lounge. We were also baking up a storm getting ready for our Easter Bake sale. We had our regular entertainers, plus Mel Herman and Doreen Anderson entertained one Sunday. We did our regular exercises with Audrey Dupuis, Sharon Dayman and Irene Tarnes. Monica MacKenzie was away for a while. Crafter’s Corner and our cocktail hour were well attended.
April was busy with the winding up of our ticket sales for our fundraiser draw on May 2. Our bake sale was a huge success with the residents raising $1,967 which will help pay for their monthly KFC dinners. We were very saddened by the death of our resident and gardener, Jeanne Wanner. She left us with many plants and a wealth of knowledge and we are so grateful for that. We welcomed Ruth Gibson and Jan Leonard to the Lodge family.
May 2 was our draw for our fundraiser at a wonderful dinner at the Taylorton Room. Our winners were Shane Davenport ($5,000), Justin Marcotte ($3,500) and Brian Morressey ($1,500). The fundraiser was a huge success for the Lodge.
We also continued with some activities run by our loyal volunteers. Joan Wock calls Bingo every Wednesday and her daughter, Christina, brings her St. John’s Ambulance trained dogs over to the lodge to do dog therapy with our residents. We had special guest, Lori Fornwald, entertain us this month. She was a real treat.
June brought us lots of entertainment with our regular folks, Freddie, Happy Wanderers, Bob Olson and the Church of Christ singers and also Lois Sutcliffe on piano, the ECS choir, the Red Hat Singers and some of Megan Miller’s vocal students. We sure love it when there’s lots of music happening around here. Our birthday party and KFC volunteers were here as usual to help us with those activities. We don’t know what we would do without Doreen Dirks, Margaret Mack, Marge Heidinger, Jean Delorme and Doreen Hagen. The United Way Day of Caring was a blast with lots of help from the Enbridge crew. We needed to move plants and make pots and also create new flower beds due to the lounge expansion happening soon. Many thanks to all those volunteers.
In June the new sewer line was laid and July brought in the heavy machinery to start construction of our new lounge. What a buzz as we all watched in anticipation of what they were going to do next. We were so excited that we had finally raised enough money to do this long-awaited project. The community has been such a supporter of the Lodge, and we are so thankful for that. We’ve been seeing a lot of family members throughout the building, visiting with mom’s, dad’s, grandparents and so on. We love it when we get to meet the extended Creighton Lodge family.
August was another dusty month around here. We were covered with dust caused by the expansion but we were OK with it as it meant one thing. We’re getting closer to the end. We had a special concert by pianist Audrey Andrist, violinist James Stern and their son Kenneth who played some jazz for us on his electric guitar. We are fortunate that they come to the lodge when they are in Estevan visiting their family.
Our spiritual needs are met every Sunday by one of the churches of the Estevan Ministerial Association and we are forever grateful for this. We also enjoyed mass and regular communion, also supplied monthly by a few local churches.
Long-time resident, Hector Boulet moved to ERNH this month and new resident, Joe Gervais, moved in.
September was the month for the Creighton Lodge Songbirds to take the show on the road and that’s exactly what they did. We took the Smile Van to the Nursing Home and put on a vocal concert for them and also treated them to some hand bell music. We then joined them for coffee and goodies and a great visit. We had a great clothing sale at the lodge, put on by Lynne’s clothing line. It’s a real highlight for us when we can all go shopping together. Another road trip to the Orpheum Theatre to see the show Las Vegas was fun for all who attended.
Another long-time resident, Lenora Wanner, moved on to get nursing care. In her suite now resides Art and Angeline Friesen. We also said good bye to Gwen Walton who moved over to ERNH and we welcomed Magdelena Boire to the Creighton Lodge family.
October was a very dusty month to say the least. Our entertainers still came, our exercise ladies still came and life carried on as usual in a gyproc dust fog. Even the trick or treaters found their way to the Halloween candy at the front desk through all the mess. But, we were almost there. We actually hoped we’d be using the new lounge for Christmas.
November was the ultimate. The tarp came down to reveal a lovely huge lounge, painted, with a lovely stone wall. We just needed to add some furniture and it will be everything we hoped it would be. We were able to add a lovely Yamaha Clavinova electric piano, an electric fireplace, some décor items and we anxiously awaited some of our furniture. The ultimate treat this month was our Christmas tree donated to us by Chamney Crushing from the Festival of Trees.
December was full of excitement as we had our first Christmas party in our new lounge. We had 160 people for supper which was catered by A Little Taste of Heaven. Residents were able to invite friends and family, we had volunteers and staff also in attendance, and what a great evening. We said goodbye to Julia Farkas as she moved to Hillview Manor. We’ll sure miss her kindness and humour.
That pretty well sums up another fantastic year at Creighton Lodge. Our hearts go out to our many volunteers, our faithful staff, our management team and trust committee and the community of Estevan and area for their huge support of the Lodge and its activities. Happy New Year!
