Family and friends remember giving spirit of longtime volunteer, super seamstress, baker extraordinaire and sharp shooting bowler

By Steve Hubrecht
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Longtime valley resident Anna Engdahl passed away earlier this year, but reminders of her spirit of self-sacrifice and giving will remain in the Columbia Valley for a long time to come.  

Indeed the October scarecrow competition in Invermere gave Anna’s youngest daughter, Gloria MacLean, just such a reminder earlier this month. As Gloria drove through town, she spotted a scarecrow wearing a familiar piece of clothing: the white and red dress Anna had made for Gloria to wear as a junior attendant in her oldest sister Angie’s wedding back in 1974. The sisters had come upon the dress, tucked away, while going through their mother’s belongings, and had donated it to the Thrift Store. And thereafter, somebody had clearly purchased it at the Thrift store for use on the scarecrow. 

“It has made me realize that Mom is still around us, everywhere,” Gloria told the Pioneer. 

A scarecrow in Invermere this October wore a dress sewn by Anna Engdahl for her youngest daughter (Gloria MacLean) to wear to the wedding of her oldest daughter (Angie Smith) 47 years ago. Submitted photo

Anna was a wizard when it came to creating things from scratch: dresses and drapes, borscht and buns, you name it, she could whip it up. Call it natural talent or the inborn ability of someone who grew up in the Hungry Thirties, when making ends meet and then making them stretch a little further was just a fact of life. Wherever the quality came from, Anna had it in spades. 

Born outside the beautiful old city of Krakow, in Poland, in 1927, Anna moved to Saskatchewan with her parents and siblings when she was just one year old. In Saskatchewan, she met and married her husband, Harold. In 1956, the couple moved with their five kids to the Columbia Valley, where they welcomed three more kids. They lived initially in a 10 foot-by 20 foot (three metre-by-six metre) one-room house in Wilmer, then Invermere, then the K2 Ranch, and then finally in 1959, into their own four-room house in Windermere; the same house in which Anna would happily live for the next 60 years. 

As Gloria and Angie told the Pioneer, it was a full house — full of people, full of laughter, full of love. 

Anna Engdahl.             Submitted photo

“Of the eight kids, there were five girls, and we slept in two rooms. You were never alone in that small house, but it meant we all learned how to compromise and get along,” said Angie. “It taught us how to share. Initially, there was no indoor plumbing in the house, but when I was 16, we got a bathroom. And of course, somehow us five girls always ended up in the bathroom together at the same time. One at the mirror, one at the sink, one in the shower…It made us close, and even to this day, the five of us do a sisters get-away holiday once a year.” 

Their dad Harold had an iron will, but “with mom, you could get around her. She was just too nice,” recalled Gloria, laughing at the memory. 

Angie explained that Anna’s reputation in the valley as a master seamstress began when she made a wedding dress for a local family just six months after arriving in the valley. Word spread fast, and soon Anna was stitching wedding gowns, graduation dresses, pants, shirts, and more.  

“She was self taught, and she loved it. It literally took us days to clear out her sewing room after she passed,” said Angie. “Growing up, I had such a fabulous wardrobe, thanks to her.” 

“I remember the time when I was a kid, going to Windermere Elementary School, I outgrew my favourite dress that she had made me. I was just so sad, because I loved that dress so much,” added Gloria. 

That kind of resourcefulness of character saw Anna manage eight kids and 14 pregnancies with grace and happinesses. As if that wasn’t enough, she was always helping out neighbours and friends, and volunteering.  

Aside from her skills with needle and thread, Anna was famous in the valley for her prowess in the kitchen. In fact, she was making her own pickles, syrups, jams and jellies right up to summer 2020. On occasion, her Polish heritage was reflected in her cooking: excellent borscht, mouthwatering cabbage rolls, a special kind of Christmas bread, and, of course, her famous pirogies. 

“Those homemade pirogies were fantastic. If you knew she was making them, you’d skip lunch, just to make sure you had room for as many as possible. And there’d be Saskatoon berry perogies for dessert,” said Gloria, adding that Anna’s homemade sandwiches were so famous in the schoolyard that one of her brothers made a tidy profit by selling off his lunch. 

“Kids said they could smell her cinnamon buns as soon they got off the school bus in Windermere,” said Angie. “People used to stop by our house on days they knew she was making those cinnamon buns.”  

There were also dough gods, a culinary invention of Anna’s. Angie remembers them as similar to bannock is some ways: a little dough torn off the ends of what would become a loaf of bread, and put to the side. Then deep fried and rolled in sugar. The taste? Heavenly beyond description. 

The baking was impressive, but so too was how Anna fit it into her already busy-to-the-brim daily life. “She was always multitasking – even watching T.V., she was making cookies, leaping up during commercials to check the oven,” said Gloria. “Her hands were never still. There was always knitting or crocheting in them.” 

Not surprisingly, Anna became a sort of second mother to many Windermere kids. “A lot of people in the valley called her Grannie Annie. Some still do,” said Angie.

Anna loved the colour red, and loved a certain type of little red insect even more. “She just loved ladybugs, absolutely loved them. She would get excited just to see one. Maybe because they were delicate and beautiful, but resilient…just like her,” said Angie. “You look around her house, and it was ladybugs, ladybugs, ladybugs everywhere. Ladybug patterns on her dish towels. Ladybug jewellery of all kinds. So much that at her service, each of us daughters, all the granddaughters, daughter in laws, and even one of the great grandsons were wearing a piece of her ladybug jewellery.” 

Cleaning out Anna’s fridge, after their mom had passed, Gloria and Angie even found a piece of cake with ladybug icing design. It was leftover from Anna’s 90th birthday. Anna, unable to eat or throw out her piece, because of the ladybug on it, had stashed it in the fridge for four years. 

With her kids grown up, Anna kept herself as busy as ever, taking up bowling when she was 75 years old, and joining the local seniors’ league. She was a sharp shooter and, at age 90, managed to take home the ladies high single trophy. 

Anna never stopped volunteering. She joined the Windermere Community Association and Windermere Health Auxiliary 63 years ago, and stayed aboard as it morphed into the Invermere Health Care Auxiliary. One of the Auxiliary projects dear to Anna’s heart was the palliative care room at the Invermere hospital, which the Auxiliary helped make a reality 23 years ago. The room is attached to one of the regular hospital rooms in the urgent care wing. 

“It is set up for people, who are away from home, coming in with loved ones, so they don’t have to stay in a hotel or on a couch in the lobby,” Auxiliary member Bunny Turner told the Pioneer. “The room is ready with towels, soap, and those sorts of things. So many people who have used it have been so grateful to have that space, telling us they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to stay with their parents, grandparents or loved ones.” Bunny and her husband still go once a week to make sure the room is in tip-top shape, and until recently, Anna would often come with them.  

“Anna was a very dear friend of mine, almost like an aunt to me,” said Bunny, adding she and Anna volunteered together with the Auxiliary for more than 40 years. 

After Angie, Gloria and other family members had finished going through Anna’s house, when Anna passed, there were plenty of items leftover in need of a new home. The family decided to hold a one-day garage sale, and donated the proceeds – more than $700 — to the Auxiliary for the palliative care room. 

“We choose to do it, because we knew that’s what Mom would have wanted. Even when all she had was her last dime, she was giving,” said Angie. “So this donation, it was her last dime. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”