Half a century ago, there were seniors – naturally – but there was no seniors’ club.
In 1969, the population of St. Albert – still a town at the time – was slightly more than 10,000 with only 370 seniors, or 3.7 per cent, though a senior in those days was generally considered to be someone 65 and older. A group of residents had decided to start meeting regularly as a club but the only place they had was down the stairs to the basement of the St. Albert Community Hall.
At some point, those people (some of whom included members of the St. Albert Women's Institute and the Lady Lions Club) decided a club needed a clubhouse. They started working to establish a place they could call their own.
Active volunteer Lily Szuba took the charge, according to the privately researched history book called The St. Albert 50+ Club: Six and Forty Years of History (1969 to 2015) that was meticulously researched and written by Yvonne Bull. Szuba wrote a letter to the Women’s Institute to ask for their help in getting them on the ground floor.
“For the past year we have been gathering in the basement of the hall because it is closer to the kitchen facilities and it is much warmer than upstairs. The problem here is the members who are arthritic and get about with the aid of canes, while some with a heart condition fear the climbing of the stairs,” she wrote.
“The ravages of time have taken away many of our able members. Others have taken up residence in the Youville Nursing Home, but want to keep in touch with their club ... With the rapid growth of our town, there are also many Seniors arriving. It is the duty of all groups and clubs to reach out and welcome them to a centre which we could be proud of and where they could in such a centre find companionship with their own contemporaries.”
Duly moved by the passionate plea, the Women’s Institute applied for a $20,000 grant that was being offered in conjunction with the centennial of the RCMP in 1973.
Ground was eventually broken and the building was constructed ... partly.
“We moved – actually, it was a teen centre – from one side of the river to the other and then added on to it,” explained Nora Rouault, one of the earliest members who was on the construction team at the time. She still holds an active membership.
“It got started because the seniors really didn't have a place. They were in the basement of the old community hall. That's why we decided to try and make them a place of their own.”
The grand opening of the St. Albert Senior Citizens’ Club was in mid-January 1975. The seniors could then enjoy that place that was indeed their own in name and in spirit.
Over the years it has changed substantially, from its original woodshack incarnation to a more austere community institution look, to its now modern, open and cultured facility that opened three years ago. Its name has changed over the years, too, going through various similar names like the St. Albert Senior Citizens’ Club, the Senior Citizens’ Recreation Centre, and the St. Albert 50+ Club. When it moved into its new building, it moved into its new name, too: the St. Albert Seniors Association.
This city now has a population of 66,000-plus and the St. Albert Seniors Association accepts members aged 50 and over, which is approximately 39.4 per cent of that figure, or 26,000 people. Over this last half-century, all seniors have been welcome to stop by for an ever-increasing array of programs and services running the gamut from recreational to artistic to educational and way more. Visit www.stalbertseniors.ca and check them all out. Scratch that. You should stop by their home at 7 Taché St. and see for yourself. All your friends are there already.
What’s history is prelude for more great stories
Bull has only been a member for the last 12 years, and she really only joined up to get in on some table games.
“I wanted to play some cards because I had extra time and I wanted to play whist. That was it. Then when I got over there, they only had one table for whist. I was odd man out so then I saw the painting class. I wanted to learn to paint and I got started there,” she explained.
That was back in the “old building,” she calls it, where they would get groups together to paint the walls to spruce the place up.
Upon seeing one of her famous photo albums from a trip she took, one of the club’s previous directors, knowing what a good worker she was, asked her to see if she could whip up some kind of history album of the club, too.
“She cornered me and she said, ‘I'd like you to do a history of the club, which was good because that information would have been lost forever. It really filled in my time. I really enjoyed it. It took about two and a half years,” she said, not batting an eyelash. “I did a lot of research at the library going through old Gazettes.”
Anyone who wants a comprehensive recap of the club's history should pick up the coffee table copy there and sit with a cup of coffee and flip through its pages. You’ll quickly get up to speed about how important the centre is to the community and be immersed on how events like the astonishing roof collapse of February 1999 prepared them all for the year-long ‘Great Rebuild’ of 2015, which saw everything and everyone move to other locations. You’ll read about the power of the Groovy Gang, the importance of the Meals on Wheels program, and the high expectations and big dreams that the club still has. It’s now 50 years old, true, but it’s not that old and still has oodles of verve.
To celebrate the occasion of its golden anniversary, the club is hosting a Golden Age of Hollywood-themed dinner and dance on Wednesday, Aug. 28. That will just be the first of many celebrations throughout the next year.
Read the Saturday, Aug. 17 edition of the Gazette for the second part of this feature series on the St. Albert Seniors Association, focusing on what the club offers and what the future holds for it.
