Rest, Resilience, and a New Television on Chicken Point

This is a bench that quietly sits about halfway up Station Hill. I know why the bench is sitting there, and I remember a time when it did not exist. The bench is a symbol of rest and resilience.

Imba, my grandma, has lived on Station Hill her entire life. Her parents came from Iceland and eventually settled at the top of Station Hill. Tragedy struck when my grandma was only five and she lost her mother, leaving her father to raise a house full of children. Years later, Imba found herself living with her own challenging situation. The cards of life had dealt her a tough hand. She was a single mother raising six children without child support. Life was not easy for her as she tried to make ends meet, but everyone did the best they could. Imba started out working as a housekeeper at St. Joseph's Hospital. When the hospital closed, she was able to take a day shift in the Laundromat at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital. She worked here until she retired. To this day, she has never owned a car. She rode the bus to work, accepted rides from many, and walked as often as she could. As she grew older, the walks up Station Hill became more difficult. What was once a hill seemed more like a mountain to her aging body, and yet, she still chose to walk.

It has been many years now since request was made to the former Town of Keewatin, to place a bench at the halfway point. Now, at 94, she is fortunate to be in her home, but her days of hill climbing have passed.

Yesterday, as I was asking her to recall her experiences, a story about their first television surfaced."We were the last people on Chicken Point to get a television," she began. Chicken Point is an old label which refers the area on the other side of Station Hill. Imba noticed that as televisions were entering the houses of everyone in the neighbourhood, her own children were never home. She knew she did not have the means to purchase her own television, and she was frustrated with always having to track down the children. One day, she became fed up. She went to the store and asked the manager if he would trust her to make payments on a television set. She couldn't recall who this person was, but indicated it was a Hardware Store. The manager was so kind and even walked with her to the bank to set everything up. Apparently, the loan was co-signed by the banker himself, Pete Sherritt. The television was delivered and set up, and soon the house was full again.