Nickel Belt News Volume Volume 58 59 Number • Issue 3911
Friday, March 16, Friday, September 27,2018 2019
Thompson, Manitoba Thompson, Manitoba
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Lutheran-United Church celebrates 60 years in Thompson Book a way to preserve and pass on memories of growing up in Churchill
BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
Thompson’s LutheranUnited Church celebrated 60 years as a religious institution Sept. 21-22 with a pancake breakfast and a special sermon by Rev. Leslie-Elizabeth King, who was minister of St. John’s United Church from 1995 until 2014, shortly after it merged with the Advent Lutheran Church to become a combined congregation in 2013. That partnership had its roots 10 years ago, when the St. John’s United Church celebrated half-acentury in Thompson. Doreen Lindquist, one of the kitchen crew flipping pancakes Sept. 21, has been a member of the United Church since she came to Thompson in 1962. “My husband and I were amongst the first four people to be baptized and accepted in the new church building,” Lindquist recalls. “That was quite the experience because everything was quite unfinished – cement floors.” Lindquist’s daughter Gaylene Weselowski, another anniversary pancake maker, is also a longtime member of the congregation. “I’ve been here since the beginning too,” she said. “I just was too little to count too many stories other than we had to sit quietly.” Leona Mayer came to Thompson when St. John’s
United Church was 10 years old. “Every Sunday morning the church was packed and Sunday school had to be held earlier because there wasn’t room,” she says. “I was the superintendent of Sunday school for a short time and there were 152 kids registered for Sunday school,” says Weselowski. King, who moved away from Thompson in 2017, said coming back was like coming home. “Leona and I drove up from Winnipeg Thursday and as we got closer I could feel emotion building but that’s all settled,” King said. “Everything is just normal again. I went for a walk and I saw people who aren’t part of the church but they’re out there and they remembered me. I remembered them. I remembered some names. It just fees really good. It feels normal, feels like home.” She said one thing might be different than her past sermons though. “The sermon isn’t quite three pages long,” she said Sept. 21. “We’ll see if it stays short.” Lindquist says the joining of the Lutheran and United churches has turned out well. The Lutheran-United Church and the Anglican Church also take turns hosting each other’s congregation for a month in a summer exchange program,
Nickel Belt News photos courtesy of Heather Todd Lutheran-United Church congregants pose Sept. 22 after the church’s 60th anniversary worship services. which is kind of the way things used to be. “Our first church here, we had Anglicans, we had Lutherans, everybody that was Protestants came to one church and I think that’s the way it should be now,” Lindquist says. “We don’t have a minister as such so the lay people have been doing the worship services here.”
“People take turns,” said Mayer. King says the United Church has persevered even when some of its own members didn’t have faith that it could. “When I came in 1995 people were saying we only have enough money to keep going for three years. That was in 1995. They were wrong. There’s some people
who always see the changes and always say, ‘It’s over.’ It’s not over. It’s not over. It’ll be different. It’s never going to be the 1950s again.” Thanks to the church’s anniversary, more than the 55 people who attended the Sept. 21 pancake breakfast got fed. “There’s lots left over and it’ll be going to the home-
Addictions Foundation of Manitoba northern director Gisele deMeulles has written a book about her experiences growing up, mostly in Churchill. BY IAN GRAHAM
to write things that you have to figure out. It’s pretty clear Though she’s now written when I get through.” a book about her experienDeMeulles said she wrote ces growing up in Churchill, her book, titled Whispers in Addictions Foundation of the Wind: Stories from the Manitoba northern director North - Life in Churchill for Gisele deMeulles said writ- a couple of reasons. ing wasn’t something she “I just sort of thought, always thought she would you know what, this hisdo. tory, this stuff that’s in my “In my youth I never head, it’s going to be gone felt good at writing,” she if I don’t write it down,” she said. “But when I moved said. “My kids are not goto Thompson to get into ing to get it if I don’t do it the school of social work, and it’s something I’ve alat that point I had to write ways wanted my mom to for university and realized, do. My mom’s an elder and ‘Holy, I’m not bad at this, she’s an artist, she’s got so right?’ I certainly developed many wonderful stories bea lot of skill in university cause she always tells her and came out of there with stories at Parks Canada in a very strong skill in my Churchill and I’ve always writingSt. and confiUnited dence Church in hounded just Former John’s minister her, Rev. ‘Please, Leslie-Elizamy writing. write very puttoitdeliver on tape, I will write it beth King cameI back to Thompson a sermon during clear and that’s it. It’s there. for you because your story the Lutheran-United Church’s 60th anniversary celebrations Some people say it’s kind of is going to be lost,’ and she’s Sept. blunt 22. or direct. I don’t tend never done it and I thought, EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
less shelter,” said Mayer. “Every time we have an event, it’s almost to the point now when we have a pancake supper we plan for extras and it goes to the homeless shelter. Anything extra that we have for a meal goes there.” “We’re a registered kitchen so we can supply food to other places,” said Weselowski.
Nickel Belt News photo by Ian Graham
For all the harsh weather ‘Oh, I’m just as bad, right?’ was not a very safe thing swallow when people say I have all these stories and to do but I jumped at it. I that Churchill residents and the dangers of polar I need to capture them for thought that was exciting should just find somewhere bears, deMeulles said if it my grandchildren really until the plane landed and easier to live. had been viable she would because they will be lost if they started throwing the “To say, ‘Those people have moved back to Churchfuel off and I realized, ‘Holy choose to live there. They ill in a heartbeat. I don’t.” She also has a reputation cats, I was probably sitting should just leave,’ is quite “I miss the shoreline, I as a storyteller herself. on a bomb.’” simplistic. It’s quite disre- miss the rock, I miss the “I had such a varied hisAnother thing that spectful. If we were in the polar bears even though tory and I would tell people spurred her on was the same boat in another area they’re very dangerous and stories and they would go, hard times facing Churchill I think we would scream I really miss the Hudson ‘That’s not true, is it?’ I’d go, since the Hudson Bay Rail- about that so why don’t they Bay,” she says. “When I go ‘Yeah it’s true.’ They’d go, way suspended operations have the option to do that? back home, standing on the ‘You didn’t do all that, did north of Gillam last spring. I think right now they’re Hudson Bay looking out on you? You’ve got to be really “It used to be a really feeling like they’re pawns the bay, it just gives you an old.’ I was like, ‘No, actually thriving large community in a political game and that’s incredible sense. You feel so I did all that before I was and it’s just dwindled down really sad for them because I small and you feel great.” 27,’ and they went ‘What?’” to such a small population think the people of ChurchNow that she’s got Looking back, some of now,” deMeulles says. ill really want to thrive. one book under her belt, those experiences are things Though she’s not there They’ve built their worlds deMeulles says she may try she might not do again. any longer, her parents and there. How would we feel to produce another. “I did some pretty bizarre her sister and other family if someone came to you and “I have another book in stuff like fuel hauls into the members still are. said, ‘I’m sorry, you have to me,” she says. “It’s a darker high Arctic at -35,” said “My cousin owns the leave your home community story, more about persondeMeulles. “It didn’t dawn hardware store there,” she and we’re going to displace al growth and struggles. on me until after. That was a says. you somewhere else and all Maybe in the next five years The cooks who flipped pancakesBecause for the Lutheran-United Church’s 60th anniversary pancake breakfast Sept. 21. very dangerous thing to do. of that, your loved ones and your it’s something I’ll focus on Being on a plane full of fuel deMeulles finds it hard to history is gone?’” doing.”