When the Leamington District Memorial Hospital (now Erie Shores HealthCare) opened its doors on April 4, 1950, a young 17-year-old Arnelda Bachmeier was part of that original staff.
She had recently moved here with her family from Estevan, Saskatchewan, and was hired as a nurse’s aide. Her job duties included helping with the patients and even feeding the babies in the maternity ward on the night shift.
During her five years at the hospital, Arnelda boarded with the nearby Donald and Margaret Ross family and remembers those days clearly, able to name off the kids without a second of hesitation.
“Donald, Susan and Judith,” she said. “I remember those kids well.”
She says that soon after starting at the hospital, she was laid off.
“In that first year, they realized that they had more staff than patients,” she said. “So they laid a bunch of us off. I was off for five-and-half months.”
She returned and worked another five years before moving to Windsor and taking a job at Met Hospital in 1955.
Then in 1962, it was time to raise a family of her own and she took about 20 years off before returning to work in the medical field at a Windsor long term care facility.
Now 92 years old, Arnelda (now Arnelda Evans) still lives at home in the same house she and her late husband Chris raised that family in. One of her sons lives with her.
She grew up in a family of 14 kids, with about 21 years separating the oldest from the youngest. Only seven of the 14 siblings remain.
Her time spent in Leamington is a treasured memory.
On Saturday, December 20, she and her daughter Brenda visited the Leamington Arts Centre to check out the hospital’s 75th anniversary exhibit there. She brought along a scrapbook and a list of all the people she recalled working with — from doctors to nurses to people in administration.
Arnelda was quick to point out her memories of some of the photos on the wall. In particular, she pointed to the opening night photo of the hospital sitting on a hill, all lit up in every window.
“I remember it looking just like that,” she said. “Only I was here during the day that day, so all those lights didn’t stand out as much.”
As Erie Shores HealthCare celebrates its 75 years serving Leamington and surrounding areas, sometimes it’s about those people who paved the way to ensure what we have today was achievable all those years ago.
Arnelda (Bachmeier) Evans was one of those people, and is likely one of the only day-one employees still with us today.
Arnelda Evans
SUN photo by Mark Ribble
