Right in the centre - 55 years in the making

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Published on Thursday, October 10, 2024

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

Fifty-five years ago on Oct. 11, it was a Saturday and it was a bit cool and blustery. It can easily be said that it was the most important day in my life. Christine and I got married that day in the Virden Presbyterian church. Our wedding reception was at the former Scarth School which, by 1969, had been converted into a community centre.

It was a memorable day that included family, good food, some nice fiddle music played by Alex Milne. It also included a very weak speech by me, a disappointment to my wife.

Christine’s parents were Henry and Jean Lobel and her family still lives at Scarth and are very active members in the Virden area.

We were university students and it’s amazing that we were able to somehow afford to get married, rent a one bedroom apartment in the Fort Rouge area of Winnipeg. Our wedding took place on Thanksgiving weekend. What better weekend to get married. Our honeymoon was a night in a little roadside motel and a Sunday drive in the valley north of Virden. I believe we explored an old stone church and enjoyed what was left of the fall colours. By Tuesday morning, we were back at class at U of M. 

The next year was a whirlwind. By our first anniversary, I had graduated with an Ag degree, Christine with a Teaching Certificate and a one year of Arts. I had served a term on the U of M Senate, finished off working with the Manitoban, the U of M newspaper and moved to Carberry to work for Carnation Foods (now McCains). I  worked a term position at Brandon University with the BUNTEP program, moved back to Winnipeg to work on a tomato greenhouse research project. Oh yes,  and had our first son Michael. By January 1971, we had moved to Neepawa and now 50 plus years later we are pretty much rooted in the western Manitoba scene.

Now we have two sons, a daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, two grandsons-in-law and four great grand sons to fill out the family package to date. We have farmed, run an auction business, operated a newspaper for 35 years and now are responsible for three community papers and a local TV station. Just on a trivial note, I can say I have been in publishing for 58 years as my first one was in 1966. We have had financial challenges, political wins and losses and numerous health challenges. The most recent and serious one has been Christine’s battle with cancer and chemotherapy. She is recovering; it’s a slow and arduous process, but she is doing much better.

Through all this, and I won’t speak for Christine, but I think she agrees, we have been blessed. I summarize our life with words of a hymn. 

“To God be the glory, great things he has done!

So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,

who yielded his life an atonement for sin,

and opened the life-gate that all may go in.”

I have made lots of mistakes, said some things I shouldn’t have said but I stand by all that is above in this column. We have been blessed, and assailed with some troubles but nothing earth shaking.

We are blessed by God and with family. Blessed by this part of Manitoba and by all the communities we live and work in. Blessed by many great people we currently live beside and were blessed by those who have passed away.

Today we hear a lot of “F” words but I have four of them– Faith, Family, Friends and Finances. Just be sure to keep them in that order.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.