Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/303828
(cafe and owners) joanne blain s u m m e r 2 0 1 4 | w e s t w o r l d 17 Roger explains that Paul, born in 1919, was actually the youngest. He died of tubercu- losis in 1930, when my dad was 13. And that's not the only surprise. My grandparents had another son who died as an infant. So there were seven boys in the family, not five. Those are only two of the bombshells I would unearth during my first visit to south- eastern Saskatchewan, where my father was born and raised. It's too bad I waited until after he died to make the trip, because we'd defi- nitely have something to talk about now. I had been hearing about Forget and the neighbouring town of Stoughton, about 60 kilometres east of Weyburn, since I was a child in St. Catharines, Ontario. But if I thought I'd recognize this part of Saskatchewan from my dad's stories, I was kidding myself. His recollec- tions, mostly about trudging across snow-cov- ered fields to get to school every day, were long on reminding us how easy our childhoods were compared to his – and short on personal and historical details. But then my father wouldn't recognize the place where he grew up if he could see it today. e fields of wheat stretching endlessly across the flat prairie landscape of his childhood are now dotted with thousands of oil wells silently pumping up and down to the rhythm of the province's new economic prosperity. The town of Stoughton, always the big brother to tiny Forget, now boasts two brand- new hotels alongside the highway, built to house oil-industry workers. And Forget itself has been revitalized by an even more unex- pected element: music. In 1999, Don and Shannon Shakotko were living in Maryfield, Sask., where Don was working as school principal, when they saw a stor y in their local newspaper about the former rectory in Forget and decided it was worth the 130-km drive to see it. When they discovered that the almost 100-year-old rectory was for sale, they decided it was the perfect place to realize their long-standing dream of establishing an art house that would bring together three things they were passionate about – faith, leadership and music. It needed extensive renovations, but soon after they moved in, they started holding concerts on the main floor. "e paint was still drying on the stage when we had our first per- formance," Shannon recalls. Word-of-mouth drew musicians and music lovers to the venue, and it soon became clear they needed more space. at problem was solved in 2007 when the town's community hall came up for sale. ey transformed it into the Happy Nun Café, where they now hold weekend folk and blues concerts and serve dinner between September and early July. In the process, the Shakotkos have all but single-handedly doubled the population of tiny Forget, named after Amédée Forget, Sas- katchewan's first lieutenant-governor. Only about 20 people lived there when they moved in. Today the town boasts about 40 residents, most of them friends or relatives of Shannon Keeping it in the family on a southeast Saskatchewan sojourn BY JOANNE BLAIN (from top) The Happy Nun Café holds weekend concerts; Don and Shannon Shakotko on the Inn of the Seven Sisters porch; the town of Forget as it once looked, in an undated photo from the Stoughton and District Museum. p16-21_Getaways.indd 17 14-04-11 3:12 PM