Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/303828
joanne blain s u m m e r 2 0 1 4 | w e s t w o r l d 21 Roger also points out the slough where my grandmother, formerly a maid for a wealthy family in Paris, once washed laundry and left it to dry on the rocks. In her first winter in Saskatchewan, she clearly had no idea what to expect. She came out to retrieve the clean clothes one morning to find them frozen stiff. No wonder she looked exhausted in that photo. From the farm, we make the short trek to Forget's tidy cemetery, where we find the graves of my grandfather Emile, who died at the beginning of the Depression in 1929, and my grandmother Marie, who died in 1958. Most of my uncles are there too, including the previously unknown Paul, but we search in vain for a marker for the child who died in infancy. Nor does the museum or the local church have a record of his birth or death. It's as if he has been erased from history. A few other family secrets emerge over the course of my Saskatchewan visit. My grandfa- ther was apparently a bit too fond of alcohol and died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix at the age of 54. I learn that one uncle, institutionalized for most of his life for what I thought was a severe intellectual dis- ability, was in fact schizophrenic. And in a trunk my father left behind after the war, there's a stack of very personal letters from a woman who is not my mother. I check the dates and I'm relieved to see they predate my parents' marriage in 1951. On the night before I leave, I get together for dinner with three of my cousins, their spouses and my 93-year-old aunt Gertie, wife of my late Uncle Roger, at the Good Fortune restaurant in Stoughton, which serves sur- prisingly good Chinese food for a small-town dining spot. Over wonton soup and ginger beef, it's hard not to contemplate my own good for- tune. I don't have to wash my clothes in a slough and I almost certainly won't die from appendicitis. But I grew up a long way from my uncles, aunts and cousins, none of whom I know well and some of whom I've never met. I'm thrilled to see that Forget has a new lease on life, but it's getting to know more about my family – including the uncles I didn't know I had – that I'll remember most from my pilgrimage to Saskatchewan. stoughtonsk.ca, happynuncafe.ca W For more on the Happy Nun Café and Good Fortune Restaurant, see "Rural Restaurant Revival" in the fall 2013 issue of Westworld Saskatchewan. digital.canadawide.com/i/162438/13 The Stoughton and District Museum houses historical artifacts and photographs from southeastern Saskatchewan. p16-21_Getaways.indd 21 14-04-11 3:13 PM