Blanche Wiese
BLANCHE WIESE (nee Simmons, Olson), 20 July 1924 - 13 Feb 2022
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our Mother, Grand- and Great-grandmother, Aunt, and Friend, Blanche. She was 97.
Like many grieving families, we were restricted or blocked from seeing, hugging & being with our loved one in the last two years of her life. Perhaps this is why the grief rolls in like distant thunder, with the storm hitting long after news of their passing. You wake up thinking, I gotta tell her this! I must get her a card! And then you realize there is no Blanche there anymore to share earthly stuff with. Now we share in thoughts and prayers.
Blanche was born to Acadia Valley, AB, area farmers Howard & Emma Simmons in Alsask, SK. Emma said a rabbit led the car on the way to the hospital, presaging Blanche’s outlook on life: Just get on with it!
She studied at the local one-room school, where farm kids walked many miles to attend no matter the weather, altho Pop Howard would fire up the horse & buggy to take them and any stragglers along the way if there was a blizzard. Snow day closures? Ha! She then attended Camrose Lutheran College, graduating with her teaching degree in 1943. Yes, Prairie farm girls did go to college in the 1940s! She then taught at a rural schoolhouse, where she also did all the chores and kept the fire going in winter months.
She married Alfred Olson after his service in the Royal Canadian Navy in WWII. They had three daughters. Sadly, the marriage ended in the late 1950s, but rather than wallow in self-pity, Blanche went to work (if there were tear-stained pillows, likely only God knew; she was a rock). She raised her girls in Edmonton, first by tending the till at a hardware store and then for 25 years at the Federal Government. Welfare and govt hand-outs were not in her vocabulary. Bag lunches and home-cooked meals were the norm, even in her later working years. Waste not, want not.
In the mid 1960s, Blanche bought a used bronze ‘57 Chevy, practising for her DL with daughter Lenny riding shotgun as the “driving instructor”. Ssh! Holidays were in the Rockies or Drumheller’s Hoodoos, where it always rained & camping gear got soaked. Everyone laughed and made do. She also moved the girls to the Yellow House, with a huge backyard for her garden and a crabapple tree.
Blanche married John “Bud” Wiese in 1968, and lived in Edmonton. They both retired in the late 1980s and moved to their new acreage home near Fort Assiniboine. BL loved her new garden space, but so did the deer. It was an annual battle. She loved fishing, riding her quad and walking to the Freeman River. She was a star rock skipper and a real rock hound: she could walk through a gravel pit and find a beautiful stone. When travelling the world on tours or in their beloved Triple E motorhome, she always came home with new additions to her rock collection.
Besides Legion volunteering, baking (grand-daughter Jess loved her monkey bread), knitting, word puzzles, and myriad other interests, Blanche always had a book on the go. She loved the Fort Assiniboine library and her book club friends.
Blanche and Bud moved to Barrhead in their later years and then to the Barrhead Continuing Care Centre, where she passed away peacefully.
Blanche leaves to mourn her daughters Joyce Lenore (Bob) Belanger and Mary Ruth Olson (Ray Skakum), grandchildren Jamie Belanger, Robyn Belanger, Jessica Scorey (Mark), and Yoshio Kimura, great grandson Kaz Rain Kimura, and son-in-law Lee Haslam. She also leaves behind step daughters Rosemarie (Bob, deceased) Gugat and Debbie (Jim) Reed and their families. Also left to mourn are her Simmons clan members, nephew Joel (Ida) Simmons, niece Sharon (Jim) Stolz, nephew Bruce Simmons, and their families in Southern Alberta.
Blanche was predeceased by her loving husband John “Bud” Wiese, beloved daughter Lorraine Alpha (Lee) Haslam (nee Olson), brother Harry Albrecht (Kelly) Simmons and sister Shirley Wilhelmina Simmons.
The family thanks Rick and Cheryl Wiese, the Ft Assiniboine librarians and Blanche’s book club friends, and the Barrhead Care Centre staff for their care and kindness in Blanche’s later years.
Funeral services at Topland Cemetery are to be determined. All are welcome to share their memories of Blanche at the website of Rose Garden Chapel, Barrhead.