Rolena and Jim Krawec behind the counter at the post office and general store they've owned for nearly 60 years. (Submitted/Laurie Parbst)

By Alison Sandstrom

Community Builders

Post office owners stamp last package after 57 years

Nov 23, 2019 | 12:00 PM

It’s the end of an era in the tiny village of Weirdale, 55 km north-east of Prince Albert.

After 57 years running the local post office and general store, Rolena and Jim Krawec are retiring.

When Rolena took over the job of village postmaster from her father nearly six decades ago, Weirdale was a buzzing farming hub.

“A guy would come in and drop off the grocery list that his wife made up,” she explains.

“Then he would take his horse and wagon and go down to the grain elevator.”

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While he was in town he might also stop at “the 10-cent store,” a beer parlour named for the price of a pint at the time.

Rolena laughs as she recalls how people predicted a recession or a war when the price of a pound of coffee rose to 84 cents in the mid 1960s.

Back then, she says, nothing in the store cost more than $1 per pound, and the post office regularly received shipments of live bees or baby chicks.

“So you’d get in somebody’s bees in a handmade carrier with a wooden frame and screen all the way around,” she explains, her tone matter of fact. “People wanted honey.”

Jim and Rolena didn’t realize the mailbox on the outside of their post office was special until their grandson saw a identical one in the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa. The mailbox dates from when Rolena’s father owned the building in the 1940s. (Submitted/Laurie Parbst)

Big changes came to Weirdale towards the end of the 1960s. Businesses closed as roads improved allowing people to travel to Prince Albert for shopping. Mechanization meant farms got bigger, and as they grew, the population decreased.

Jim and Rolena’s store evolved too. They phased out selling groceries and Jim began repairing televisions and other electronics.

In the early 1980s he and Rolena’s brother built a UHF satellite station that broadcast eight channels to Weirdale residents. Rolena says it was one of the first of its kind in Canada.

For a period of time before provincial regulations changed, they also operated a liquor store.

With Jim and Rolena both in their 80s now, the village has stepped up to ensure they’re taking care of them, taking out their garbage and shovelling their driveway.

“Maybe we were interested in community and making it work and what not, but now the circle’s gone right around – the community’s looking after us,” Rolena says.

Last week, health problems forced Jim to give up the postmaster job he took over from his wife in 2001.

“They’ve seen his health failing so it’s not like it’s a shock,” Rolena says.

“But I don’t think anyone thought of him quitting because he’s just been there the whole time.”

Even with them both officially retired, they’re not going far. Jim and Rolena will continue to live in their apartment at the back of the store.

–

Editor’s note: Though Jim and Rolena are retiring, the Weirdale post office will remain open. Canada Post is currently in the process of hiring a new postmaster.

alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom