Frances Olson

You have likely never heard of Frances Olson, but she has had a tremendous impact on your life! Frances, now eighty-two years old, was born and raised in Regina. She grew up on Osler Street. As a young girl, she would often stand in front of a mansion-like dwelling on College Avenue and dream about what it would be like to be rich enough to own a home like that. In 1965, her husband, Ralph, lost his job at SGI in Regina. In those days, women did not work and Frances was terrified that they would lose everything. One thing Frances knew was that she loved selling things and working with people. She had worked as a teen-ager at the Regina Army-Navy store and loved the work she did. She decided she would go into realty. So, at the age of 37, she began to hunt for a job as a realtor. However, no one would hire her – because she was a woman. Women did not sell realty. Rather than let that defeat her, she began her own company: Frances Olson Realty. Remember that house on College Avenue? It became the headquarters for her new company. She became a successful realtor and woman began to contact her to ask her how to break into real estate. What could Frances do? She hired those women. Frances Olson Realty became an all female real estate organization. Frances mentored the women who worked for her, sharing her work ethics, her fashion sense and her knowledge of customer relations. She was a role model for women in the sixties who were just beginning to demand the same opportunities for themselves as their husbands had. Whether we know her story or not, Frances opened the door for woman to demand better and to lead fulfilling lives. Never forgetting the women who came before us and blazed a trail for us . . . it’s a good thing!

Gail Bowen

She is a world famous mystery writer whose book series has been made into TV movies. She has just published the twelfth novel in her series and she is working on her thirteenth. Surely, she must live in a huge American city or perhaps London, England? No – she is our very own Gail Bowen and she lives in Regina! Her books are set in Saskatchewan, her heroine, Joanne Kilbourn lives in Regina, and Kilbourn’s daughter lives in Saskatoon. Bowen has her heroine travel the province. In her last book, The Brutal Heart, Prince Albert played a part in the story. Pine Grove Correction Centre (the woman’s jail) is in The Brutal Heart and staff invited Bowen to give a reading to the inmates there. Bowen was very happy to do so and shared her book this morning. She was well received by the woman who is incarcerated at the Correctional Centre, who took part in a lively question-and-answer in which they questioned Bowen about her book and about publishing in general. Last night, Bowen held a reading at the local library. Gail Bowen is a popular author who takes ordinary prairie living and turns it into a murder mystery. She, nor her heroine, ever forget where they are from and are always proud of their prairie roots. Amazing authors who live just around the corner . . . it’s a good thing!

Loblaws

I love shopping at large grocery stores. The reason I do is because I can get everything I want at one place and then go on with my day doing fun stuff (grocery shopping is not something I consider to be “fun stuff”). One of the bigger stores in our city is Super Store, which is owned by Loblaws. I found out something very interesting about the founders of Loblaws. When Theodore Loblaw and Milton Cork opened their tiny Toronto grocery store in 1919, they introduced a new concept in grocery retailing. They combined self-serve and cash-and-carry shopping contrary to conventional food stores of the time where customers waited for a clerk to give them items from behind a counter. Loblaw and Cork were laughed at by other business people and were told that there new concept would not work. They believed it would work and – as they say – the rest is history. Within ten years the small-time store had over seventy locations across Canada and U.S. Today, it is Canada’s largest food distributor and has over 1000 stores from coast to coast. It employs 138,000 employees. No matter where you shop now, customers help themselves, bring the items to a counter, pay for them and carry them out. Who knew this method was started by two small business men in Toronto? I wonder what Loblaw and Cork would think if they could see what their company has evolved into? It is a great Canadian company that has remained true to its roots for almost one hundred years. Shopping at the most convenient store and finding out it has a great Canadian story behind it . . . it’s a good thing!

Old Friends and New

This week-end I had the pleasure of spending time with some wonderful friends. I was in Regina and stayed at the home of a very good friend who used to live in my city. I really miss Rose-Anne and it was so nice to spend time with her again. I also got to visit with another good friend, AM, who happens to be her daughter. AM now has two beautiful children. AM’s daughter, “Missy” turned four this week-end so we attended her birthday party. Almost since the day she was born, Missy has made it her mission to ignore me. As a baby, I was never able to get a smile out of her. When she got a little older, if I talked to her she would just look the other way. I don’t know what I ever did to her, but she enjoyed pretending I did not exist. That did not change this week-end – at first! As soon as I walked into the house and said hello to her, she turned away. She looked so cute with her cute little sparkly glasses and big eyes. She has a mind of her own and I assumed that I would be spending the evening being ignored by her. Suddenly, after about an hour she decided that maybe I wasn’t so bad after all! She made eye-contact and talked to me. Then she even sat on my lap and brought me a book to read to her. (Although her Mom took the book away from us and began to read it herself because it was a book which listed quotes from Mila and, apparently, I wasn’t using the correct emphasis on the words). By the end of the day, after exactly four years to the day, I had made a new little friend. Spending time with friends – old and new . . . . it’s a good thing!

A City of Compassion

The people in the city I live in never fail to amaze me with their passion and generosity. This week is a good example of how engaged our citizens are in working together to improve the lives of our neighbors. Monday was the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. The day began with a well-attended pancake breakfast hosted by the Multi-Cultural Council. Later in the day, a dinner was held at SIAST. People of all cultures and races attended the dinner. A program followed which showcased the traditions of the different cultures in our city. Many people attended both events in a show of support and fellowship. Today there is a radio-thon happening in support of Children’s Haven. Kids’ Haven is a unique program which can be accessed by parents or social workers in times of emergency or special need. Kids’ Haven is a home especially built to accommodate children who need a safe place to stay on a short-term basis. Children in crisis are welcomed into the home by compassionate people who bring a little joy into a stressful time. The radio-thon is held each year as a way to raise money to keep Children’s Haven in operation. Each year, it raises thousands of dollars through the generosity of the people in this city. Every week there is another event which shows the spirit and generosity of the people here. That’s what makes it such a great place to live. Living in a city you love with people who care . . .it’s a good thing!

Josephine Cochran: Hero to Women and Inventor of The Dishwasher

Last night as I was loading the dishwasher, I wondered to myself who had come up with the inspirational idea of using a machine to wash dishes. Well, I should not have been surprised to discover it was a woman! Actually, a man named Joel Houghton patented a wooden machine in 1850. His invention had a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on dishes but didn’t do a very good job at cleaning them. In 1896 Josephine Cochran of Ohio, apparently proclaimed in disgust “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself”. Ms. Cochran’s motivation was not her dislike of doing dishes by hand. In fact, she never washed her own dishes in spite of the fact that she held many fancy dinner parties. She was very wealthy and had servants to take care of things like dish washing. Her motivation was that she wanted a dish washer which could wash dishes faster and cleaner without chipping them. She developed her invention and presented it at the 1893 World Fair in Chicago. She had thought that women everywhere would immediately fall in love with it, but only hotels and large restaurants bought her mechanical hand-operated machine. The dishwasher would not become a household item until the 1950’s – long after Josephine had died. She never enjoyed the true success of her invention, but her company lives on today. KitchenAid now sells all kinds of appliances and has come a long way from its humble beginnings as Josephine Cochran’s hand-turned dishwasher. Appreciating having a dishwasher – especially one does not have to turned by hand . . . . it’s a good thing!

Nuts For Your Blood Pressure

Are you worried about something? Pop a few walnuts! Really! A new study from Penn State University shows that the nuts can lower your blood pressure and help you fight stress. The researchers found that including walnuts and walnut oil in the diet of their participants lowered their resting blood pressure and their blood pressure responses to stress. It’s amazing that adding walnuts to your diet could do this. Incidentally, are you curious how they tested blood pressure responses? The team did it in two ways. First they gave each participant a topic to write a three-minute speech on. They were given only two minutes to write the speech and then their presentation was video-taped! Stressful indeed! The second test was to submerge one foot in ice-cold water! Through-out these tests, blood pressure readings were taken. The results showed that the blood pressure was significantly reduced when the participants were including walnuts and walnut oil in their diet for a six week period. Maybe it sounds “nutty”, but apparently it works! Eating walnuts to reduce blood pressure . . . it’s a good thing!