Trudy Bews, a long-time board member at Eatonia Oasis Living, pours a glass of punch for resident Emma Whitmarsh during an open house on Oct. 27 at the care home. The organization also held a 20th anniversary celebration on Oct. 26 at the Eatonia Community Hall.

Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads

Eatonia Oasis Living is 20 years old and the organization, along with its staff and residents, have celebrated two decades of operation for the care home.

The care home and its people held a celebration over two days last weekend. The organization held a celebration on Oct. 26 at the Eatonia Community Hall and an open house event at the facility on Oct. 27 to recognize the important milestone.

More than 100 people attended the 20th anniversary celebration at the hall. The event included a short program, and an evening of live music by Eatonia-based performers Mitch Larock & The 4:54 Band. Residents also celebrated the occasion at the open house with several family members, friends and other visitors.

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A slide show presentation was shown at the hall and at the open house. The presentation included photos, and information on past staff members, board members and residents including a list of all past residents. The home currently has 17 residents and room for seven more.

Trudy Bews, one of the organization’s 13 current board members, addressed the crowd at the hall. She said the home has employed more than 100 people over its 20 years and four of them are still on the payroll today.

She noted that the board knows the home has the most caring and reliable staff possible because they often hear about it from the residents and their families. She commended the home’s two administrators, Cora Knuttila and Krista Stevens, for their efforts.

Bews took the time to thank all of the people who have supported the organization with memorial donations throughout the years. She also thanked municipalities from the area for all of their financial contributions. She said $1.3 million from municipalities has allowed the home to stay open.

At the open house, Bews was busy helping residents and showing people around the facility. She said the organization paid $1 for the building back in 1997, and the home opened with 12 residents on Feb. 1, 1998.

She noted that the 12 residents were already living at the facility. The building used to be the community’s health centre, and Bews said the organization spent a lot of money to make the necessary changes and renovations to transform the health centre into a care home.

Bews said the organization has an ongoing partnership with the Saskatchewan Health Authority. Physicians from Leader see people at the facility and the health authority uses the space for various lab purposes such as drawing blood from patients, so the home is crucial for the whole community, she explained.

Margaret McConnell and Delois Olson are two of the home’s five residents who attended the celebration at the hall, and they shared their thoughts about the event and their home at the open house on Saturday. Both of the residents say they had a good time at the hall.

McConnell, who turns 101 years old in November, has been at Eatonia Oasis Living for about six years, and the resident said she has really enjoyed her time at the care home. She noted that she likes the cleanliness of the facility.

She said the residents are friendly and it is another aspect of the home she enjoys. McConnell, a former resident of Dodsland, joked that she is done celebrating birthdays because she has done a lot of celebrating in her life, but the staff threw a birthday party for her last year and it was fun.

“I had my 100th birthday (here),” she said, recognizing that the staff went all out for her big day in 2017 and the celebration ended up resembling a family reunion because several of her relatives were in attendance. “They had a big party.”

Olson, who is originally from Lewiston, Idaho, said she came to Canada where she lived in various places including the Moose Jaw area, but she ended up in the Eatonia area because her husband accepted a job on a nearby farm. She said the staff pays close attention to residents.

She noted that she has lived at the home for about a year, and it has been a “pretty good” time for her. When asked how well the residents get along, she joked that it has not come to “blows” between the residents. Olson, who turned 101 years old in July, said she enjoys the games and activities provided at the care home.

“We play cards and we play bingo, and they do some baking,” she said, adding that the food served at the home is always well prepared by the kitchen staff and a person does well there because “there’s something (to do) every day.”

Dennis Hyland, a former reeve of the Rural Municipality of Chesterfield who once served as chairperson on the home’s board, was visiting his mother at the open house. He said the staff members do a great job and he is glad to have his mother living in their care.

He noted that the community could not afford to keep the building open in 1998 as a doctor’s office alone, so the work by the facility’s founding members helped to keep it running. The facility helps to keep up the property values in town, and it means more to the community than people might realize.

“This is a needed facility,” he said, adding that the care home is important because it is a home to the residents, an employer in the community and a facility to serve the community. “It’s very important to me.”

Knuttila, the administrator, said she believes it was a great celebration for the organization and residents. She added that the open house was nice for residents who could not attend the event at the hall, and “I was just happy that everybody had a good time.”

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