Showing 36 results

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Beedle, John

  • 2004.03
  • Person
  • 30 Apr. 1926 - 23 Oct. 2019

John Beedle was born John Bedell in Westlock, AB to Herbert and Nellie Bedell on April 30, 1926. He was the second oldest of 6 children. He grew up working on the family homestead in Jarvie, AB. Beedle would later legally change his last name to better reflect his family’s roots. Beedle took an interest in nature as early as age 5, which would shape the rest of his life.

Beedle left home at 14 and worked various jobs before settling in St. Albert in 1962. In the late 1940s Beedle started his working career at a greenhouse in Kelowna, B.C. In the early 1950s he moved to Edmonton where he found employment at Calenso's Greenhouses and 2 years later worked at the city of St. Albert and bought a house on a small acreage on Grandin Road where he resided and cared for his mother for many years.

Beedle worked with the City of St. Albert's Parks department for 29 years (1962 to 1991). Beedle moved through the ranks with the City of St. Albert as Parks Foreman, Parks Supervisor and in 1968 he was promoted to the position of Director of Parks and Recreation. In 1972 he became Parks Planner until his retirement in 1991. It was largely under his guidance, passion and vision that the city of St. Albert has developed its beautiful boulevards, parks, tree canopies and green spaces.

In 1989, both Beedle and former St. Albert Mayor Richard Plain came up with the idea of creating a volunteer run botanical park with a major rose garden as its centrepiece. Beedle spent countless volunteer hours helping to bring the St. Albert Botanic Gardens to fruition and the better part of the next 25 years creating the major gardens located throughout the present day botanical park. In honour of Beedle, St. Albert Botanic Park houses the John Beedle Volunteer Centre. Also, Beedle was a part of the original group that helped establish the St. Albert Garden Club in 1982 and spent many hours serving as a director with the Friends of the Devonian Botanic Garden society.

Beedle was also a member of the Edmonton Light Opera Society. He was an active participant in 26 productions over a 13 year period. In his younger days he sang in church choirs as a second tenor both as soloist and a member of the choir.

John Beedle passed away at the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert, Alberta on October 23, 2019 at the age of 93.

Goed, Mabel

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 30 Jan 1928 - 27 Feb 2016

Mabel Goed (nee Saffin) was born on Jan 30, 1928 to parents Mark Saffin and Albertine L'Hirondelle in Morinville, Alberta. She attended Tellier School and graduated high school from Notre Dame Convent and she attended McTavish Business College. Mabel Saffin married John Goed on May 26, 1955.

Fyfe, Myrna

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 1941 -

Myrna Catherine Fyfe was born Aug. 20, 1941. She was the first female municipal councillor and provincial MLA for St. Albert. She served as a member of the St. Albert municipal council from 1973-1977 and for two terms as a Member of Legislative Assembly for the St. Albert Constituency from 1979-1986. Fyfe also served as President of the University Hospital Foundation for 22 year.

Plain, Margaret

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 30 Jun. 1941 - 30 Sept. 2021

Margaret Plain played a very significant role in the community of St. Albert where she lived since 1972. Plain helped found St. Albert Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF). She also served on the boards of various agencies and organizations including the St. Albert Historical Society, the Museum and Heritage Sites Board, Sturgeon General Hospital Board, and Capital Health Authority Health Board. Plain was also involved in the organization of many community events such as Celebrate 125, Homecoming 88, 1994 Alberta Winter Games, and Rendezvous 2011. She served on St. Albert City Council for 5 terms: 1986-1989 with Mayor Richard Fowler, 1989-1992 with Mayor Anita Ratchinsky, 1992-1995 with Mayor Anita Ratchinsky, 1995-1998 with Mayor Anita Ratchinsky, and 1998-2001 with Mayor Paul Chalifoux. In 2010, Plain was named St. Albert Volunteer Citizen of the Decade. Margaret Plain was married to Richard Plain.

Macpherson, Elizabeth

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 4 Oct 1937 - 2001

Elizabeth Macpherson was born on October 4, 1937 in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents Reginald and Leah (Lonia) Menzer fled Hungary when Elizabeth was a child. Her family settled in the Westmount neighborhood in Montréal. Elizabeth had a degree in biology from McGill University. She married Andrew Macpherson and together they conducted Arctic field studies. The couple later moved to Ottawa where Elizabeth worked at the National Museum of Natural Sciences. She published The Marine Molluscs of Arctic Canada in 1971. In 1970 the family moved to Edmonton where she worked for the Provincial Museum of Alberta and in 1988 she became the assistant curator of the Musée Héritage Museum. While at the Musée Héritage Museum, she created a database on Métis genealogy as well as published The Sun Traveller, a history of the Callihoo family. She retired in 1998 and published Murder of a Horse Thief, a fictitious book about a murder mystery in St. Albert, posthumously in 2001. Elizabeth Macpherson died in 2001 of leukemia.

Woodward, Florence Mae

  • Person
  • 3 Aug 1927 -

Florence Mae Woodward (nee Miller) was born in Winterburn on August 3, 1927 to Henry Charles Miller and Maria Amanda Gagne. She married Cecil Archibald Woodward at St. Stephen's College Chapel, University of Alberta, in 1953. She had three children: Lynne Jane Woodward (b. 5 Apr 1954), Katherine Anne Woodward (b. 21 Nov 1955), and William Arlie Woodward (b. 31 Oct 1957).

Ratchinsky, Anita

  • MHM
  • Person
  • fl. 1986-1998

Anita Ratchinsky was the chairwoman of the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce in 1985 and 1986. In 1986, Ratchinsky ran for city council and was elected as alderman. She then ran as mayor and was elected for three consecutive terms from 1989-1998. Ratchinsky was St. Albert's first full-time mayor and first female mayor.

Bracko, Len

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 2 Dec 1943 - 19 Aug 2017

Leonard (Len) Bracko was born in 1943 in St. Albert, Alberta. He graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Education and a graduate diploma in Education administration. Bracko began teaching junior and senior high in St. Albert Catholic school in 1979. In 1989, Bracko ran for MLA in the provincial election with the Alberta Liberal party. However, he came in second to Progressive Conservative Richard (Dick) Fowler, former mayor of St. Albert. Later in that same year, Bracko ran for St. Albert City Council and was elected as alderman. He served as alderman from 1989-1992 before running again and winning a seat as MLA in the 1993 provincial election. Bracko served as MLA with the Liberal official opposition caucus from 1993-1997, when he lost his seat to Mary O’Neill. He returned to teaching and retired in 1997. After his retirement, Bracko ran for and was elected again to the City Council of St. Albert, and he served as alderman from 2001-2013, having been reelected three times (2004, 2007, and 2010). Bracko and his wife Barb were active with Habitat for Humanity and international development. Bracko passed away on 19 Aug 2017.

Chevigny, Octave

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 4 May 1938 - 24 Mar. 2014

The Chevigny family is one of the pioneer families of St. Albert. Octave Chevigny was born 4 May 1938 to Octave Chevigny Sr. and Dellamen Plamondon. He married Claire Plamondon.

Octave Chevigny Sr. married Julie Froment and had Prosper, Godfrey, Doree, Marie-Ange, and Cheri Chevigny. After Julie Froment's death, Octave Chevigny Sr. married Dellamen Plamondon, the widow of his brother Albert Chevigny, and had two sons Octave and George Chevigny.

Lefebvre, Rolland

  • MHM
  • Person
  • 1920 - 1982

Rolland Firmin Lefebvre was born in Morinville, Alberta in 1920. The family moved to Edmonton when Rolland was still young. He continued his education there and apprenticed as a printer with the French weekly newspaper “La Survivance,” funded by the Oblate Order and founded by the ACFA (Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta). The paper kept the dispersed rual communities informed of the events, local and national, affecting the lives of Franco-Albertans.

Rolland left La Survivance in 1935, during the depression, then worked as an orderly with the Grey Nuns at the Edmonton General Hospital from 1935 to 1941. In 1941 he began his study as a watchmaker and jeweller after accepting an apprenticeship with Alexander Ewen, a watchmaker from Scotland. Ewen’s business was located on 108th St and Jasper Ave. In 1941 Lefebvre married Florence Pitre and purchased an acreage on the south side of Edmonton.

In 1946, Lefebvre received his certificate from the Canadian Jeweller's Association and the Jeweller's Institute. He branched out on his own in Edmonton in 1954 when he rented an office in the Cambell Furniture building on 101A St and a few years later he moved next to the Pet Shop. The store offered watch and jewellery repair, repairs to clocks, shavers and lighters and also sold gift wares, jewellery, watches, trophies, etc.

In 1961, Lefebvre received an invitation from Mr. Maurice Tougas to join his Grandin Park Shopping Centre in St. Albert. Lefebvre moved into his new store in 1962. He ran the business successfully until 1971 when he had to sell the business and semi retire due to ill health. Mr. and Mrs. Adam Hauptman named the store Sweetheart Jewellers and opened soon thereafter and he remained as the watchmaker there for several years. Rolland Lefebvre died in 1982.

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