Twenty-four photo albums destined for the trash inspired a group of residents to preserve the memories of the Red Deer Nursing Home.
Vera Mottus and Janet Coatham were shocked to learn at the facility’s 40th anniversary tea in 2004 that the pictures faced an untimely fate due to lack of space.
The now retired registered nurses quickly decided to rescue the images of familiar and unfamiliar faces from the place they collectively worked at from 1964 to 2006.
That was the first of many steps in their nearly six-year journey to publish the book Memories of the Red Deer Nursing Home, which celebrates the 46-year history of the centre through photographs and anecdotes.
“Down the road, hopefully somebody can look at this and when they read it they can kind of get a feeling of what kind of place it was like,” Mottus said while flipping through the 194 pages. “And hopefully they’ll see that it was a good place to be, it was a good place to work.”
The ladies admitted they greatly underestimated how long it would take them to produce the spiral bound book. The greatest struggles, they said, came from trying to identify individuals, locating families to get permission to use the photos and learning all about computer technology.
But they put together team of about 30 individuals to embark on the project Mottus said was a “labour of love” that took a great deal of “detective work.”
Reviewing the finished product around Coatham’s dinner table Friday afternoon, however, the ladies agreed the effort was well worth it.
“It was a good place to work,” Coatham said of her 27-year career at the nursing home.
“You had a resident there for a relatively long time and got to know them and their relatives. And if we were lucky, we had a chance to talk to them about what they’ve done during their lives.
“They were pioneers, most of them, or they were people from concentration camps or refugees.”
“They had their own unique stories to tell,” Mottus added.
The book includes chapters that explore various themes such as history, activities, significant events and awards, clubs and community groups, volunteers, birthdays, anniversaries and much more.
“Red Deer Nursing Home holds many memories for staff, families and residents and we are encouraged that former staff have taken it upon themselves to go above and beyond to preserve those memories dating back to the mid-1960’s,” Kerry Bales, vice president of community and rural health central zone of Alberta Health Services, said in a statement.
This package of stories and photographs is now even more valuable as the Red Deer Nursing Home and Valley Park Manor are slated to close once Michener Hill Village opens.
Residents will be moved to the new long-term care facility that is expected to open in September.
A total of 200 copies of Memories of the Red Deer Nursing Home have been printed. Coatham explained that the Town of Sylvan Lake, the Red Deer Public Library and the Red Deer and District Archives will all receive one copy of the book while the Parkland Regional Library will get two. The original photo albums will also be given to the archives.
A majority of the books have already been pre-purchased but the remaining 44 copies will be sold for $35 each at the Red Deer Nursing Home on May 15 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
ptrotter@www.reddeeradvocate.com