It is with great sadness that we must say goodbye to Edna, who was a wonderful Wife, Mother, Granny, Nana, Sister, Aunt, and Friend.  Edna passed away peacefully on March 24, 2023.

Mom worked many jobs starting out as a dishwasher at the Wings Café, and moving up to waitress where Dad caught her eye and stole her heart.  Eventually, she became a cleaner with PA Janitorial.  She worked in the evenings cleaning office buildings, going from one building to the next every night.  She worked very hard, and her rough hands were a testament to how hard she worked.  We remember her rough knuckles scraping our feet and legs when she put our socks on us as we got ready for school, that hurt!

She loved going to country dances where she and her friends danced the night away. Edna and Bill welcomed nine children into their lives.  It was a full house but that didn’t stop her from welcoming others in need to our home.  Our house was small and modest but filled with many beds as mom opened our home and her heart to children who needed a safe and loving environment any time it was needed, she also welcomed family friends with health issues to our home for which she cared for.

Mom and Dad loved to play poker, it was a regular occurrence to have the poker gang gather on a weekend and play well into the next day.  You could tell that everyone around the table loved to gamble by the way they used to curse at one another and then the next minute all roared into a laugh. Mom joined a sewing group in Nordale where she learned to make clothes.  She was very good at it; however, she would get one pattern and adjust the size to fit so this meant that we were often dressed in the same outfits, just different sizes.  There again you could tell that the sewing group (which was made up of some of the same poker group) loved to sew by the way they cursed and then roar into a full-out laugh.  After learning to sew the same group of ladies formed a ceramics class, where absolutely everyone in Nordale had the same mushroom canister sets on their counters, just different variations of colors.  As you guessed, there was probably a lot of cursing and laughing happening there as well.  The close-knit community of Nordale is where we have called home for most of our lives, and where everyone is our Aunty and Uncle.  Every household treated all kids the same, whether we were there at mealtime or if any kid needed discipline.

When dad passed away in 1989 Mom moved to various senior apartments and finally ended up at the Elks Senior place where she had a cozy townhome and her own yard.  She loved having a small vegetable garden and growing lots of flowers.  She would sit in her backyard having tea admiring her flowers and watching the birds feed on her feeders and frolic in the bird baths she left out.  Even after all nine of her kids were on their own and had families, she would still make bread like she was feeding us all.  Her batch of bread would make 8 loaves of bread and a couple of Bannocks.  She would just have to tell one of us that she made bread today and in no time, all of us would be stopping by her place to get a loaf if we were lucky to get there before it was all gone.  Her bread was the best we have ever had, it was so crusty and tasty that just talking about it makes our mouth water.

Her love of gambling did not end as she got older, she loved the casino.  We often joked that it was her fountain of youth.  We would pull up to the door to let her out before finding a parking spot and she would look back at us with a big grin and say, “I don’t have to wait for you do I?”  If she wasn’t at the casino, she loved to play poker online, Granny Hammy was her online name.  She was ruthless in poker tournaments, other players would type comments like “Granny Hammy shouldn’t you be knitting instead of playing poker” and that just made her even more ruthless, it’s a good thing that she didn’t know how to type back LOL.   When she was about 83 years old, she asked how to get Facebook on her computer, as she heard her grandkids talking about it.  So, we got her an iPad and set up an account for her.  We set her up to be friends with her kids and grandkids that had an account, she loved seeing what was happening in everyone’s lives.  As she became more familiar with Facebook, she was getting friend requests from people all over, and from people she hasn’t had contact with for many years.  Every night before bed, she would scroll through Facebook to see what everyone was doing, and she made sure she made a comment on every posting.  She had about 200 friends when she said “I can’t accept any more friend requests.” We asked why, and she said, “Do you know how hard it is to figure out something to say for every post?”.  We told her that you do not have to comment on every post, and she said, “well, what’s the point of posting something if no one is going to comment on it?” So, if you happened to be one of the lucky Facebook friends of hers, please know that every comment she made on your post, she was truly thinking about you as she wrote the comment.

Mom will be greatly missed by her children Jim (Sharon), Linda (Dale), Jerry (Donna), Randy (Belinda), Gail, Irvin (Toni), Arlene (Joe), Jody, & Joyce; her 21 grandchildren; her 29 great-grandchildren and one more on the way; her sister-in-law Albertine, as well as numerous nieces & nephews and all her Facebook friends.

Edna was predeceased by the love of her life Bill; her mom Charlotte; her dad Ed; her siblings Wilfred (Bernice), Alfred, Buddy, Douglas (Lucy), Jack, Gladys (Hugh), Eda (Chet), Tommy (Lily, Fern); her son-in-law Frank; her grandson Sean; and her great-granddaughter McKenzie.

Edna’s Funeral Service will be held on Thursday, March 30^th, 2023, at 11 AM at MacKenzie Funeral Chapel located at 130 9^th Street East, in Prince Albert, SK. Condolences can be sent to the family on our website at www.mackenziechapel.ca.  Arrangements in care of MacKenzie Chapel & Crematorium.  Brian & Bev Stobbs, Mark Gyoerick – Mel Curle. 306.763.8488.

• Date : 2023-03-24
• Location : Prince Albert, SK