A dreamer, baker and community builder

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This article was published 26/05/2018 (2932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If they ever build a statue in front of the Pilot Mound Millennium Recreational Complex, it might be of Eileen Collins holding a pan of fresh biscuits.

Collins and other area women took an array of biscuits, muffins and cookies twice daily, usually fresh from the oven, to feed volunteers during the construction of the rec complex.

That lasted 10 years. The complex, valued at more than $10 million, is famous for being built almost entirely by local volunteers.

“She wanted to be involved in any way she could. She didn’t have construction skills, but she knew she could feed them,” said her daughter, Lisa Collins, who now lives in B.C.

 

Eileen Charlotte Collins, of Pilot Mound, passed away on March 27, a month shy of her 95th birthday.

It wasn’t so much that she was a master baker, but that Collins would do anything to help. In 2006, she was awarded the Order of Manitoba for her outstanding volunteer contributions to her community.

When visiting her in Pilot Mound a dozen years ago to report on the rec complex, it was clear the millennium project ran through her kitchen and not just her oven. She launched the project.

“She hosted a think-tank session around her kitchen table on what we were going to do for a millennium project, and she was involved with it pretty much every day after that,” recalled Gord Arbuckle, a former town mayor and volunteer on the rec complex. Construction on the rec complex started in 1999 and it opened in 2009.

Eileen was the driving force behind many projects in the Central Manitoba region.

“She didn’t just talk about things. She’d call a meeting,” said Arbuckle. “‘Hello, Gord?’” he mimicked, repeating a typical phone conversation. “‘It’s Eileen. I’ve been thinking,’ and that was the lead-up telling me she was calling a meeting. ‘It will be at my house at 7 and I hope you can join us.’”

She was also a school trustee for 17 years, including time as the chair. She started a non-profit development corporation through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to get some much-needed amenities built in Pilot Mound, population about 600, 170 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

She spearheaded construction of the two-storey Norquay Apartments, a seniors complex called Monterey Place, the life-lease Mound Estates, office building Fraser Place, and Prairie View Lodge personal care home. Eileen was basically a volunteer land developer. A street was named “Collins Way” in her honour.

Eileen was born and raised in Purves, a town southeast of Pilot Mound that no longer exists. Her mom and dad, Clifford and Helen Landerkin, operated the general store, implement dealership and grain elevator, and Eileen, the oldest of four girls, started helping her dad in her teens.

“She was very close to her dad,” said Lisa. “She was driving a vehicle before she was old enough to have a license and she was helping with the bookkeeping. She was kind of like the son he never had.”

She wanted to study medicine but it was the Dirty Thirties and her father asked her to hold off until they had more money. A daughter in medical school wasn’t commonplace back then and Eileen would tell her daughters she was born too early. She did manage to study for one year at United College in Winnipeg and taught for a year, then married Arnold Collins of Pilot Mound at age 19.

They ran the Collins Food Market and then added a general store called Arnel Store, the store name being a mash-up of their first names. Nearly four decades later, they switched to farming, and one of their eight children still operates the farm today. They were married almost 65 years until Arnold’s death in 2007.

The rec complex is one of the community’s proudest achievements.

The community decided around Eileen and Arnold’s kitchen table to bid on Manitoba Hydro’s rec complex in Sundance, the temporary town built for workers on the Limestone dam and generating station northeast of Gillam in northern Manitoba. The dam was completed and Hydro didn’t want the rec complex anymore. Pilot Mound bid low, $25,000, and won. By the time volunteers took it all down and hauled it to Pilot Mound, the scrap metal alone was worth $1 million, thanks to surging base metal prices that year.

Pilot Mound had built an arena from salvage material before and people thought it could do so again. After the Second World War, the community obtained contracts to tear down a couple of leftover air force hangars. The men tore down the hangars, brought back the material and built the town’s previous arena in 1949.

A half-century later, volunteers went north to dismantle the Manitoba Hydro complex and the Pilot Mound community, coordinated by Eileen, sent food up for the volunteers. The community spent about $3.5 million for concrete and other construction costs for the complex. 

“This community, without a hockey arena, just couldn’t exist,” said Arbuckle.

Eileen was also a member of the local chamber of commerce and kept up the work of the former Anti-Profanity League — you swore in front of her at your peril.

“She seldom spoke negatively about anything, she didn’t gossip and she never swore,” said Pat Sutherland, owner of the local Home Hardware store. “You kind of forgot how old she was when you were involved in something with her,” he added.

She was always the hockey mom and grandmom. Oldest son Rod played for the Brandon Wheat Kings, and granddaughter (Ron’s daughter) Delaney Collins played on Canada’s national women’s hockey team, winning world titles three times, and was named the Manitoba Female Athlete of the Year in 2007.

Family came first for Eileen. She had 35 great-grandchildren when she died with three more on the way. The importance of family is noted on her tombstone. Eileen and Arnold’s names and dates are inscribed, and below that, it says “parents of” and lists their eight children.

“She had surgery in January and my sister and I were there,” said Lisa. “(Eileen) said, ‘I’m not ready to go yet. I want to see my great grandkids grow.’”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca