JuLY 31, 2013 Volume 9 • Number 31 50¢ Newsstand Price
INSIDe
LET US WASH YOUR CAR
north shore
while you have lunch at Reubin’s Diner
New Eco Depot – page 2
ROBO
also
CARWASH & Convenience Store
A cigarlover’s haven – page 5
Imperial Oil
228 Tranquille Rd | 250.376.1710
your neighbourhood. your newspaper.
North Shore heritage has a new home The North Shore Business Improvement Association (NSBIA) is capturing the local history from the perspective of the families who have lived here for generations and invites the public to come view a visual narrative of the community’s past in their new Heritage Room. “I remember seeing a picture of my grandfather on the farm he grew up on. His father - my great-grandfather started farming here in the 1920s,” shares Steven Puhallo, executive director of the NSBIA. “He was a Serb who fell in love with a Croatian and had to leave. They settled on the North Shore, in the area behind what is now the Brock Shopping Centre, like so many other immigrants.” Reflecting on his own heritage, Steven began wondering how many more families had their
Tracy Sjodin, left and her childhood friend Rose Blades stand in the new NSBIA Heritage Room holding photographs of themselves as young girls. The two women have been instrumental in collecting the images and old maps on display in the room.
own similar stories to share and began putting the word out that they were collecting them. “Two incredible women came forward to help,” says Steven. Rose Blades and Tracy Sjoding, friends since childhood, were in fact already busy collect-
Ernie’s friends moved away from the neighbourhood…
ing photographs from the area when they saw somewhere that Steven was also looking for them. The two women have lived in the area their whole lives and as eyewitnesses of its evolving history they had decided to collect the past for their own children. “Our kids always used
to say ‘tell us about the olden days’,” shares Tracy, who remembers her father moving her family in a horse and wagon from where they lived on Sandhill (now Crestline Street) to the new three-room shack he built for them on Schreiner Street where
immigrants were settling from all over Europe at the time. Her parents came from Yugoslavia, but Tracy recalls her neighbours being from Germany, Romania and Russia, among others. “It was really hard times for our parents with the language barrier and starting out in a new place. So many different cultures were living together. Rose phoned me one day and said we should start putting something together about Brock, or our kids will never know our history.” So the project they began together turned in to something for the whole community. With the help of the NSBIA, the ladies started taking the pictures they found and having them blown up and framed to share with anyone who wants to see them. – continued on page 2
At Chartwell, they’re just down the hall.
CHARTWELL KAMLOOPS retirement residence
Ernie is part of an active
250-376-5363 • chartwell.com
community again. Like to have your friends down the hall? We can help.
628 Tranquille Rd. Kamloops