Monthly Archives: March 2014

Obituary

obitHolswick,-Marianne

Holswick
Marianne Holswick, née Trickett, was born on March 29, 1924 in McLean, Saskatchewan to Herbert and Louisa Trickett. Herbert and Louisa came to Canada from England on the land scheme in 1921. Louisa had been a teacher in the UK and engendered a love of learning and academic discipline in her children, all three of whom also became teachers. Marianne grew up in the Depression years with her older brother Douglas and her younger sister Gywneth on the family farm, where she learned life-long habits of thrift and perseverance and making do. It was a hard life on the farm, but Marianne had many memories of good times and of family loyalty. She went to a country school with her siblings and took her Grade 11 by correspondence. She attended Scott Collegiate in Regina for Grade 12 and then got her teaching certificate from the Teachers’ College. Her first teaching position was in a rural school near Indian Head, where she taught grades one to ten. She taught for a few years, but felt a need for a change and became a telephone operator. She then completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Saskatchewan and worked in the Regina Public Library. Marianne met John Holswick and married him in 1953. Johnnie had come to Canada initially in 1929 from the west coast of Norway, but after the Wall Street crash, there was no money to send him home. He fought with the Norwegian Air Force in WWII but then returned to Canada. After they were married, Johnnie and Marianne moved to Flin Flon, where Johnnie operated a garage. Their two children Judith and Ivar were born there. Because of her mother’s ill-health, Marianne and Johnnie moved back to Saskatchewan in 1961, when Johnnie took over a business in Davidson. In 1962 Marianne returned to teaching in the Davidson High School and taught there for 29 years. She began with English in grades 9 to 11, but soon became senior English teacher. She taught many generations of Davidsonians and was a beloved and popular teacher. Many testimonials throughout her teaching career provide evidence of the respect and affection with which she was regarded by her students. She was tough, but fair and was always prepared to give her students the benefit of the doubt. She was involved in Drama, Oratory, and Yearbook activities, as well as running the library. Outside of school, Marianne was involved in the many activities of her children, as well as being an active member of the Library Board, the Arts Council and the Women’s Institute of the Anglican Church. She enjoyed gardening, sewing, knitting, crocheting and reading in her spare time. She also loved to travel. In 1962, the four Holswicks made a trip to Norway to meet the members of Johnnie’s large family. It was a trip never to be forgotten. Summer holidays after that were always spent camping, in northern Saskatchewan, in Alberta and BC and the western States. In later years there were trips to the Far East, Cuba, Hawaii, Venezuela, England, Scotland, Germany, Norway as well as many places in North America. After her grandson Johannes was born in 1988, she spent every Christmas in Germany. When she retired from formal teaching in 1991, she continued to teach and supervise English courses for Carlton Community College. She was still teaching English as a second language at the age of 85. Her love of knowledge never deserted her and after she retired she took a course in accountancy for small businesses, just because she was interested. In later years she crocheted literally dozens of afghans, most of which she donated to charitable causes. She was very involved with the catering operation Women’s Institute of the Anglican Church – the “A-Team”. She found particular joy in her grandson Johannes, even more so after he came to live with her to do his Grade 12 in Canada. She was always very involved in the lives of her niece Margaret Gould (Mick) and nephew Keith Bligh (Carol) and their children and grandchildren. Aunty Marianne will be missed very much.

She will be remembered as a loving and supportive wife, mother, aunt and grandmother and as a committed and dedicated teacher and member of the community. Her contributions will be greatly missed.

Marianne was predeceased by her parents Herbert and Louisa Trickett, her brother Douglas in the last days of WWII, and her husband John in 1981, parents-in-law Ragnhild and Martinus, brothers-in-law Ragnvald, Ivar and Harald, and sister-in-law Clara. She is survived by her daughter Judith Lindenbaum (Ian Livermore), son Ivar Holswick, grandson Johannes Lindenbaum, sister Gwyneth Bligh (Warren Wilson), niece Margaret Gould (Mick), nephew Keith Bligh (Carol) and many great and great-great nieces and nephews, both in Canada and Norway.

Funeral services were held on Friday, March 14 at 2:00 p.m. in the Davidson United Church. Arrangements were in the hands of Hanson’s Funeral Home (306) 567-2020.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Regency Manor, Central Butte or the Davidson Health Foundation, Davidson.

Davidson, featured

Family monitors crisis in Ukraine

Since public protests against political corruption in Kiev’s Independence Square turned deadly, Tetiana Lytvynenko has spent much of her time engrossed in the unfolding events in Ukraine.
The Davidson wife and mother monitors Ukrainian news websites and uses social media to communicate with friends and family back home in Ukraine.
The uncertainty in Ukraine, particularly since last weekend when Russian troops began occupying the Crimean peninsula, has caused the Lytvynenkos to cancel a planned trip to Ukraine. They had hoped to fly home in April to visit family.
“I found a good deal on tickets the day before they (Ukrainian police) started shooting in Kiev,” Tetiana said. “After it settled in Kiev, our relatives said it seems to be OK”.
Then Russian troops entered Crimea.
Tetiana said her family advised her to put the trip on hold.
“Since the end of February and the beginning of March, when the Russian parliament gave (Russian President Vladimir) Putin permission to send troops to Ukraine, people are holding their breath and hoping there will be no war,” she said.
Nick and Tetiana Lytvynenko have lived in Davidson for over five years. Nick, an autobody technician, came to Canada to work at Legend’s Autobody and Tetiana followed soon after.
They have made the most of the opportunities in Canada. They own a home where they are raising their two Canadian-born children: Nina, who is almost three, and nine-month-old Ivan.
Although Saskatchewan is now home, the crisis in their homeland has Tetiana worried about her homeland.
She’s been closely following the news and speaks daily, via Skype, to her parents who live about a three-hour’s drive north of Kiev. She’s upset by what she sees.
“Sometimes Nina says, ‘Mom, don’t cry.’ I don’t cry all the time, but to see people gunned down in the square…to see people who have to die for our president to resign…”
Since November 2013, pro-European Union Ukrainians have gathered in Kiev’s Independence Square to protest political corruption and then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian measures. It is estimated that more than 100 Ukrainian people were killed during the deadly days of the protest from Feb. 19 -20 and thousands were wounded. Some of the injured have since died in hospital of gunshot wounds.
“It was horrible to imagine that the president would give such an order to the snipers to start shooting your own people,” Tetiana said. “I never thought it would happen that (their) own government would use violence against people.”
Yanukovych disappeared and then turned up in Russia. Shortly after, Russian troops began occupying Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Now Tetiana and the rest of the world are wondering if this means war.
Tetiana puts the blame on Putin, not Russians.
To read more please see the March 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Hanley fire department focusses on prevention

Instead of just fighting fires, Hanley’s volunteer fire department is focussing its efforts on preventing them.
The Town of Hanley recently received a $2,410 (US) fire prevention grant from FM Global, a large commercial property insurance company.
The fire department will use the money to develop pre-fire planning to efficiently collect and track data related local to buildings. This will help firefighters to respond to emergencies and it will assist in their training.
Specifically, the funds will be used for courses to train members to do fire inspections, says Hanley’s administrator Darice Carlson. The funds will also be used to buy a laptop computer and special software that will help firefighters preplan their fire response.
“At FM Global, we strongly believe the majority of property damage is preventable, not inevitable,” says Michael Spaziani, manager of the fire prevention grant program. “Far too often, inadequate budgets prevent those organizations working to prevent fire from being as proactive as they would like to be. With additional financial support, grant recipients are actively helping to improve property risk in the communities they serve.”
The fire prevention grants are awarded quarterly to fire departments and municipal and community organizations worldwide that best demonstrate a need for funding and where the money can have a demonstrable impact on preventing fire or mitigating the damage it can quickly cause.

Davidson

A moving gift

A wealth of needy Costa Rican and South American people have a new lease on life thanks to the recent kindness of a few charity organizations and the actions of two local humanitarians.

Davidson’s Larry and Judi Packet travelled to San José, Costa Rica, last month to distribute over 30 free new wheelchairs to handicapped people with the help of the Knights of Columbus, the Canadian Wheelchair Foundation and the Active 20-30 International Club. The Packets, along with a group of fellow philanthropists, gave out the wheelchairs to needy people both at their homes in San José and also at the city’s Children’s Hospital.

Larry Packet, a territory district deputy with the Knights of Columbus, said their organization collaborated with the Wheelchair Foundation to purchase the wheelchairs. He said they then partnered with the 20-30 Club chapter in San José, who assessed who needed and should get a wheelchair, to distribute the medical equipment.

“The experience with the Wheelchair Foundation was at first quite overwhelming,” said Packet, noting they actually had around 130 wheelchairs to distribute in Costa Rica, but an union dispute at a Costa Rican shipyard detained 100 of the chairs from being given out during their trip. “We went to some better neighbourhoods to deliver wheelchairs and we also went to some very poor neighbourhoods to deliver wheelchairs. We take a lot of stuff for granted here when you see how other people live. Their houses are…marginalized. They are very poor people and just giving them a wheelchair seems to be a simple gesture, but you can just tell it brought a lot of longevity to their life.”

Some examples Packet said he heard about the difference the chairs would make to people’s lives includes one young boy who needed a wheelchair to be able to attend school and now could do so and another young woman who can now attend and excel at a business college without the burden of worrying about the troubles of her old wheelchair.

“The people at the hospital came from miles and miles,” he said. “One lady drove five-and-a-half hours from Panama to come and get a wheelchair for her son, so it covered a big area. The ones in the container I haven’t heard yet what happened, but the 20-30 Club is going to look after distributing them…I would imagine that the 20-30 Club in Costa Rica has delivered them by now.”

To read more please see the March 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Sports

Kodiaks win 2014 Sun West district championship

The Kenaston Kodiaks junior boys basketball team are the 2014 Sun West district champions after putting together two convincing wins over the Davidson Raiders and Biggar Blazers at districts last Wednesday at Davidson School.

The Kodiaks held off a determined Blazers team in the fourth quarter to come out with a 51-42 win in the gold medal game to take home the championship. The Blazers trailed 49-22 heading into the final 10 minutes, but controlled the game in the fourth.

“It was a really close game,” said Kodiaks coach John Jamieson. “We had a really short bench and Biggar had (20) points in the fourth quarter. They played four quarters hard and tired us down. It was an impressive game for them.”

The Kodiaks championship win followed a close 65-54 victory over the Raiders that saw Davidson also stage a fourth quarter comeback only to fall a few points short. The Raiders put up 19 points in the last six minutes of the fourth quarter to give Kenaston a scare.

“That was our toughest match-up,” said Kodiaks co-coach Dan Marsh about the Raiders game. “It was a grudge match because they beat us in the sectional final, so our boys wanted a little bit of redemption. It came right down to the wire. They pressured us like we knew they would and we came out on top in the end.”

Davidson would finish in third place at districts beating the Kindersley Kobras 55-43 in the consolation match. The score doesn’t do the Kobras justice as the game was back and fourth throughout the first three quarters with the score tied at 20-20 at the half and Davidson only up by six entering the final frame.

Raiders coach Blair Frederickson said the main priority for him was getting all his kids onto the court in their last game of the season and he is “happy” that is what happened no matter the final score. He said some players on his team are more advanced in basketball and some are beginners, so having a game where everyone gets an opportunity to play is the best situation.

“From a coach’s or a teacher’s perspective that is great because it gives the kids something positive at the end of the season, so I can get these kids to come back out next year and keep building the program,” said Frederickson, noting in their first game against Kenaston he shortened the bench to try and get the win. “Having that second game was a great opportunity for me to get some of my younger kids and some of my kids who haven’t played that much basketball on the floor and (gain) some game experience.”

To read more please see the March 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson

Imperial School students follow the white rabbit

Students at Imperial School are following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole this week.

The complete student body from grades one to 12 is immersing themselves in a Missoula Theatre Company musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland”. The kids are going to be studying under the direction of two trained actors/directors with the Montana-based touring company this week culminating in a dessert theatre performance of the musical at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. this Saturday at the Imperial Community Hall.

Carol Baade, a drama teacher at Imperial School, said this is the first time in the 17 years she has been involved with the annual school musical that they have brought in a touring company to help students put on the show. She said it should be a “great experience” for the students, as they’ll be able to find out everything that goes into putting on a professional production.

“It’s a really neat opportunity for the students because these are all professionals and they come and do workshops during the classes for the students and help put on the show and also involve the younger students,” said Baade, noting past musicals usually involved only the high school students. “We’ve had very successful dessert theatres in the past…but we thought we’d try something different to give our students a new opportunity.”

Ethan Park and Shelby Mariah Art, the two members of the Missoula Children’s Theatre Company that are spending the week in Imperial to help the students put on “Alice in Wonderland”, begin the production by holding auditions for the musical today at the Imperial Community Centre. The 50 to 60 students picked begin rehearsals later this evening and continue to practise for four-and-a-half hours each day before the performance on Saturday.

The students that are not cast in a role would be involved as assistants to the directors or help with stage crew work, lighting, sound or preparation and serving “Queen of Hearts Cherry Tarts” desserts. The Imperial School senior band is also performing at the show and Jeanne Knoblauch has been retained to accompany the musical on piano.

To read more please see the March 10 print edition of The Davidson Leader.