Winnipeg – COVID in the House of Old

Winnipeg was our first big rollout on the 2023 CIHO Exhibit Tour and our bold idea for a Story Space. Project coordinator Celeste Billung-Meyer – the meticulous mastermind behind the Story Space – came along to Manitoba to put it all in motion. For the new-for-Winnipeg bilingual version of the exhibit, we were given one end of the spacious second floor of the city’s beautiful mid-70s downtown library. An adjacent meeting room with glassed-in windows seemed the perfect Story Space setting, but we did not get many visitors.

Throughout the planning process for Winnipeg, CIHO benefited from the support and expertise of the University of Manitoba’s Centre on Aging and Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture. Two local connections opened up the exciting possibility of taking the Story Space out into the community. First, an email came from the CEO of the Simkin Centre, a facility that started its institutional life in 1915 as the Winnipeg Old Folks Jewish Home. She had seen my interview on CTV Winnipeg. Could we bring the exhibit to them? No, not the whole exhibit, but we were delighted to bring Moon’s Chair and the Story Space for a couple of days, and I would give a talk. The invaluable stories that residents and staff from the Simkin community shared are profiled below and can be accessed in their entirety through the Archives portals at the bottom of the page.

Then the Franco-Manitoban eldercare agency Action Marguerite, with Catholic roots in the region dating back to 1844, came on board after reports in Liberté/Winnipeg Free Press and on ICI Manitoba. Fortuitously, Annick Boulet, their Spiritual Care Practitioner, had a media background that she put to good use. During the height of the pandemic, Boulet shared weekly audio insights into pandemic life in Action Marguerite care homes with CKXL-FM, Winnipeg’s Francophone community radio station. Find 27 of these remarkable recordings – and an extended 2024 interview with Boulet – through the Audio Archive portal at the bottom of this page.

The power of the press. The commitment of care providers.

Thank you/ Merci: Action Marguerite, Annick Boulet, Laurie Cerqueti, Chris Dooley, Patrick Milligan, Carolyn Minor, Michelle Porter, Jocelyn Thorpe, the library staff, the Simkin community, our Winnipeg volunteers and storytellers.

Below, we present a selection of art, audio, and written excerpts from our English Winnipeg Stories. Click the embedded links or scroll down to the bottom of the page to access the complete Winnipeg Story Archive. All English audios and non-accessible texts have been transcribed.