The resident spotlight appears in the monthly RiverBend newsletter. With permission from the resident, we republish it on our website and social media.
Nora in 1976
Nora was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and was the youngest of a family of ten. When she was just two years old her father passed away, which left her mother to care for all the children. Years later, her mother remarried and made the decision to move her family to a new City. They moved to Port Arthur, Ontario and lived there from the time Nora was nine to fifteen years old before moving the family back to Winnipeg. Once back in Winnipeg Nora started to rebuild her life in the familiar town she once knew.
One evening she and a group of girlfriends went to the Arthur Murray Dance Studio as there was a free promotion for dance lessons and little did she know that these free dance lessons would change her life. She fell in love with the handsome dance instructor and shorty after married him. By the time Nora was eighteen her and her husband made a trip to Prince George to visit her new Father-In-Law, which prompted her first move as an adult from Winnipeg to Prince George. After a few years Nora and her husband made another move to the town of Hazelton where after a short while they started to manage the Inlander Hotel.
Nora managed the dining room, as she loved to cook, and her husband was the bar manager. With the experience they got from managing the hotel, they were soon offered a job at the New Hazelton Hotel and a few years after managing the New Hazelton Hotel and starting a family, they were asked to come and manage the South Hazelton Hotel. Nora and her husband had three daughters, and two boys together which is what prompted them to moved back to Prince George. Their family stayed at Cluculz Lake and managed the Lakeside Villa. Nora and her husband bounced between a few more jobs while in Prince George, but one thing you were sure to find Nora doing was cooking for large groups of people.
A few years later, Nora unfortunately lost her husband to illness and became the backbone for her family. She was working at camp cooking at the time and was able to provide for and give her children the life they deserved. Nora met her second husband at the camp she worked at and they built a new life together at Bear Lake. When the new ambulance building was built in Bear Lake Nora was asked to man the station so it could stay open. Nora gladly agreed which prompted the next new chapter in her life as a paramedic. Nora started to train as a paramedic when she was fifty years old and blew her classmates away with how persistent she was to be the best Paramedic she could be. Every morning at 5 a.m. Nora would get up and study for the day. She not only had to train her mind but her body as well.
She lifted weights up and down stairs daily to be able to pass her physical test, and even though some people doubted she could do it, she proved them wrong. One of Nora’s accomplishments that she is most proud of is becoming a paramedic, which she did for 12 years before retiring.
If you get the chance to stop and say hello to Nora, you will find out much more than what is in this story. Her life has been filled with many adventures and she has a story for every twist and turn her life has taken. Nora is one of our Residents who continues to inspire those around her daily and if your not sure who she is just take a look outside and you can usually find her walking her dog Jack and one of his friends around the building day or night, rain or shine.