|
Before Chad Dockter married the love of his life, he needed her help putting up a tent.
Chad, who was 56 when he died on March 11, met his future wife Christine in 1991.
Chad lived in Mandan, North Dakota, and for years went with a group of buddies to the WE Fest Country Music Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minn. In 1991, they had borrowed a tent but could not figure out how to erect it.
That’s when, as his obituary recounts it, “the Canadian girl camping next to them came in, took charge, and whipped it up for them in a flash.”
Ten years after that first meeting, the two were married.
As a nod to the international nature of their union, the couple married at the International Peace Garden, with Chad, his family and friends standing on the U.S. side, and Christine’s relatives and friends north of the border.
Chad was born in North Dakota and spent his early years on the family farm near Streeter before later moving to Bismarck.
Notwithstanding that struggle with the borrowed tent, he grew up camping and fishing along the Missouri River and having fun times with cousins and the boys next door.
Chad moved to Mandan at 22, earned his Class 1 licence and began hauling cattle and freight. He also bought his first horse, Scamper, and spent hours riding nearby hills and trails.
After they married, Chad and Christine moved into their first home together in Oakbank, Man., where they lived for 17 years. When he retired in 2018, the couple moved to an hobby ranch they called Double C Ranch in Cooks Creek.
The couple returned to North Dakota often to visit family and friends, and bought 40 acres southeast of Bismarck, where they planted 500 trees.
Chad worked hard on his ranch and finished his final project there last summer. His family says he was looking forward to travelling, doing ranch chores, riding horses and bikes, and “just hanging out with the love of my life.”
The cross-border thread of his life will continue in its commemoration, with one service planned in Oakbank and another a week later in Bismarck. Memorial donations are being directed to either the American or Canadian branches of The Nature Conservancy.
In addition to Christine, Chad is survived by his parents, a brother, his mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, a brother-in-law, and several nieces and nephews.
Advertisement
Read more about Chad.
How They Lived
While living in Alberta, Barb Pink worked with an architectural firm creating one of the province’s landmarks.
Barb, who was 72 when she died on March 8, worked on the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre in southwest Alberta.
Later, in Winnipeg, she worked at Monsanto and James Richardson and Sons. While at the latter, Barb would go to the top floors of the Richardson building and take what her family describes as amazing sunrise and sunset photos.
Read more about Barb.
Steve “Vita Steve” Derewianchuk was a pillar in his community and in southern Manitoba.
Steve, who died on March 18 at 90 years of age, is still the only NDP MLA elected in the Emerson riding; that was back in 1973.
He also served as councillor and then reeve in Stuartburn and volunteered on boards for the local credit union, hospital and school, and fundraised for the construction of the Vita Arena.
Steve was also a great baseball player, playing for several teams in the Seniors Slo-Pitch league and representing Manitoba at a tournament in Kansas City in 1995. For his accomplishments he was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007, then inducted again the following year as a member of the Vita Cubs from 1955 to 1960.
Read more about Steve.
Lena (Fung Ha) Yee was born in China, but she lived most of her life in Winnipeg.
Lena, who was 96 when she died on March 8, worked at her dad’s store in China until she got married. The couple had two children when her husband immigrated to Winnipeg in 1955. She joined him in four years later.
In Winnipeg, Lena worked as a seamstress at a clothing factory and later in a relative’s grocery store. She had learned how to make tofu before coming to Canada and used that skill to make fresh tofu and grow bean sprouts for the store.
The couple opened Yee’s Grocery in Chinatown in 1979, and Lena worked there until the early 1990s. Later she helped two of her children at their 4 Seasons Chinese Food restaurant. She worked there into her 80s and created one of the restaurant’s signature dishes: “Mama Yee’s Chicken.”
Read more about Lena.
Ralph Cantafio was a tailor — and the father of modern soccer in Canada.
Ralph, who died on March 9 at 97 years of age, came to Winnipeg decades ago wanting to build up the sport here.
He founded the Winnipeg Fury, which won the Canadian Soccer League Championship in 1992, and was a leader of the Manitoba and Canadian Soccer Associations.
Ralph was inducted into both the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame, as well as having the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex named in his honour.
Away from the soccer pitch, he owned Ralph’s Custom Tailors on Corydon Avenue.
Read more about Ralph.
Judith Johnson certainly had a varied career.
Judith, who was 84 when she died on Jan. 13, worked at a salesperson at the Bay, as a flight attendant, and as a lab tech in hospitals in Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver and Bethesda, Maryland.
That’s not all: she edited poetry at Herizons magazine and founded Leatherleaf Books.
On the side while working — and more so after she retired — Judith was also an artist, selling paintings and illustrating children’s stories.
Read more about Judith.
Until next time, I hope you continue to write your own life’s story.
|
