BALJENNIE ‑‑ Happy New Year to all. Let's hope it will be a good year, just take care.
To celebrate the sixth anniversary of Battlefords West Place there was a social evening with a supper Dec. 15. It was well attended and enjoyed.
Sympathy goes out to Eileen (Bater) Snyder and Peters families on Eileen's passing on Christmas Day at the age of 74 at her home in North Battleford. Eileen was born and raised on a farm at Baljennie and attended school there and in North Battleford for high school. There she met and married Terry Snyder in 1966. They lived in various areas of Saskatchewan and Albert as Terry was a semi truck driver. Eileen had two brothers, Keith and Arthur Bater. Their parents Leonard and Gladys Bater later moved to North Battleford where Gladys was a nurse at the Notre Dame Hospital. They rented the farm of Philip and Lorna Bater for a few years.
Eileen's heart was in the farm life and Terry and Eileen and family moved back to the old family farm in Baljennie. They had a family of five children ‑‑ Sherry Lynne, Candice, Tyson, Tanya and Chad. Eileen worked for SaskTel for 27 years while at the farm.
Back in the 1950s she was a member of the Baljennie-Spinney Hill Baby Beef Club, later changed to 4-H. Once she was back at the farm, she and Terry established Baljennie Multiple 4-H Club. The first year they had at least 20 young people aged nine to 21 years join. Their main project was beef, but other projects were offered. She kept the club going for a few years, then Maralyn Wintersgill took it over. It was an active club.
In 1980, while the family was working in the fields, the house caught fire and raged through other parts of the yard taking the cow barn, corrals and a big hip roof barn. Some livestock were lost. They moved a trailer in while a new house, barn and corrals were built. More tragedy hit the family when Terry was accidentally killed in Sonningdale. The family carried on with the farm.
Then she met Glenn Peters at Assiniboia and they were married in 1989. They kept on with the farming until times got tough. Eileen and Glenn moved to Rainbow Lake, Alta. where he got a job on the oil rigs. Eileen held a job with social services on the local First Nations. Glenn passed away suddenly and was buried in Baljennie St. Bridgett's Cemetery. Eileen then moved back to North Battleford to be closer to her family. Some still live on the old Arthur Bater farm. She was cremated and will be laid to rest beside her husband Glenn and other Bater family in St. Brigette's.
Our recent cold spell brings back memories of attending school back when. No matter how cold or how deep the snow, we all went to school with teams of horses. The school would be cold, but once the old pot-bellied stove got going, it did warm up. Those were the days.
