Curtis Eklund

Curtis EKLUND Curtis Eugene Eklund of Thomson Lake Regional Park passed away peacefully on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, with family by his side after a courageous battle with cancer. He is predeceased by his father Jennings Eilert Eklund, his mother Edna Josephine nee Nelson Eklund, a brother Orville Jennings Eklund, and son-in-law Barry Bushell. He is survived by his beloved wife Rosella nee Reid Eklund, two daughters, Jamie Reid Bushell, sons Robin and Benjamin, Jacki Reid (Gilles Michaud), son Zachary White and daughter Kristen (Rick) McCurdy and their children Riley, Jordan, Brody and Tyson. Curtis was born in the McCord district in a sod house with his grandmother as midwife on November 24th 1928. His parents moved to a farm south east of McCord in 1928 and started farming at the start of the great depression and lived through ten dry years. It was a tough time for his parents although they never went hungry. Curtis saw lots of dust storms. He saw times at school when it got so dark he could not read his books, a scary deal for a young boy. As time went on he helped with the cattle learning to milk cows at the age of seven, he milked two cows along with his brother, and dad or mother milked the other two, the boys separated the milk and fed the calves before they went to school. He completed grade eight and took two years of correspondence to complete his grade ten, he was big enough to go to work so his schooling ended there. At age 17 he was off to the bush camps spending two winters in Ontario and British Columbia returning home summers to help maintain the family farm. He started running the farm with the help of his brother Orville as his dad aged and he became a rancher and farmer. He did carpentry work in the local area becoming a journeyman carpenter and built houses in the winter time. He did renovations during the summer months when he had spare time away from the cattle. In 1971 a group of cattlemen from the local area decided to import Piedmontese cattle from Italy and he worked with the Pied cattle for eighteen years showing cattle at Agribition in Regina, Edmonton, Denver, San Antonio and Houston. He retired at sixty five and developed a mobile home site at Thomson Lake Regional Park. He and Rosella made many trips to Texas for three winter months. He served on Municipal counsel for nine years and served on the McCord Co-op board for many years. He loved sports and was invited to join the Glentworth Legion as an honorary member to help coach junior baseball ending up coaching for nineteen years. He played baseball for McCord and when baseball faded out, took up soft ball with a team from the Varsity school district, he had some great times. He started curling and ended up being president of the Glentworth curling club for nineteen years. He took up golf and played in the Legion Provincials golf tournament thirteen times winning the trophy four times in his age group and met a lot of people during that time. Living at Thomson Lake Regional Park enabled him to play golf most every day. He developed a golf program teaching eight to twelve year old kids golf during swimming lessons, thus creating many good golfers. Other lifetime interests include photography, trapping and hunting, fishing year round, camping, trail riding and everything the world wide web had to offer. He moved the house off the farm in 2000 and developed the lot, had a big garden every year and gave away vegetables to many friends in the park and at the seniors lodge in Lafleche. The best years of my life were when I met and married my beloved wife Rosella in 1988. I became a husband, father and grandfather on the same day. We had the grandchildren with us during swimming lessons and on many other occasions, It was a great life. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at the Lafleche United Church at 2 p.m. with Reverend Linda Tomlinson officiating. Donations in Curtis' memory may be made to the Canadian Cancer Society or St. Joseph Hospital Foundation/Palliative Care Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan.