Neepawa of yesteryear: Weekly serials at the Roxy Theatre

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Published on Wednesday, October 14, 2015

File photo. The Roxy Theatre in Neepawa.

Rick Sparling

The Neepawa Press

Last week’s column covered the east side of Mountain Avenue from the salt plant past Hamilton to Ferris Jewellery, plus I covered the loop around Davidson Street which took in Alguires, the milk plant, the arena and came back west up to Rutledge’s. 

This next column about the Neepawa businesses will include Hamilton Street and some of the businesses out of the downtown area. 

Beginning with the McLeod store, which was already covered in last week’s column and headed east was Pedlar’s bowling alley. We had earlier covered the billiard parlour on the west side of McLeods. There was a business called Yellowhead Agencies and then Sears was there for some time and Mabel Thomson worked in the motor vehicle branch just before the court house.Upstairs in the court house was the location of the Neepawa Police Department. The Chief was Jeff Pasquill. He and Elsie had three daughters, Jackie, Barbara and Valerie. Constables Nick Wasyluk, John Ireland, Don Parker and Bert Murray made up the rest of the force over the years. Part timers were Gordon Hall and Jim Kilgard. Downstairs were Mrs. Dorothy Montgomery, Margaret Mann ,George Bates and Pat Fearns. Pat is Ed’s sister and daughter of Jim and Florence Fearns. 

 Smith and Anderson’s Electric (167) was beside the court house owned by Harry Smith and Fred Anderson. Jim “Spawny” Clark worked in the shop and if you ever wondered how “Spawny” came about for his nick-name….Jim worked as a fire fighter part-time and ‘spawny’ was short for spontaneous combustion!  Phil Crabbe gave Spawny that nickname. Then came Atkins Garage. (95) George Atkins was the proprietor and a couple of his employees were Cecil Bolton and Linda Callahan. Mel Holod and Lloyd Atkins also worked there. Mike Pasosky sold cars there after selling his Studebaker dealership in the mid 60’s. 

The last building on this side of the street was The Harrison house. Vera Cochrane, a long time Neepawa teacher lived in this house with her brother, Bill. She lived there for several years while teaching and spent her retirement there until her death in the late 50’s. The Foleys, Merle, Dick and Dennis lived upstairs in the Harrison house for a time.

Kitty corner from the Harrison house we came to the Land Title’s office. Mr. Shearer was the manager and his employees were Mr. Harvey, Jack Curtis, Harold (Nero) Thomson, Mel Docking, Jack Veale, Stu Lindsay, Len Seaborn, Florence Burns, Maureen Pittman, Eleanor Nicholson, Jim Holmes and Mary Gibson/Sparling. There was an apartment block just prior to the bus depot and in that block was a  lean-to where a taxi stand run by Mr. McDermot. 

The King Edward Hotel was next run by George and Lew Vivian. Scotty Mann, Margaret’s father, ran the restaurant there. Ron McKelvey took over the restaurant after Scotty left.

 The Roxy Theatre was next, owned by Leon Asper and subsequently sold to a Winnipeg Company and managed by Mr. Winters and later was run by John Kostenchuk. John and Tessie had five children; Mae, Elaine, Victor, Harvey and Cathy. The ushers were the Montgomery sisters, Gail and Maureen, Mae Kostenchuk,Myrna Hawkins and Miriam Schulman. The projectionist was Bert Hewitt and Mr. Dempsey later on. 

The Roxy had weekly serial shows and each patron was given a ‘punch card’ and when the card was fully punched it could be entered for prize draws. Margo Hunt was the lucky winner of a brand new bike on one of the draws. Cheryl Thurston also worked at the Roxy Theatre. She was an usher and on Wednesday evenings called bingo, which John Kostenchuk tired of. Mrs. Pasosky was the ticket taker/seller. (Eleanor, Al & Patsy’s mom) and when Evelyn quit then Maxine Harrisko took over. Donna Ward also worked at the Roxy. Lots of work for all for about $14 per week. Elsie Poole ran her restaurant next door to George Howden’s Law Office. There were four Howden boys…Jim, George, Ricky and Dennis.