Dear Editor:

Just finished my weekly read of The Pioneer online and felt I should comment on two items:

The just-dissolved Windermere Health Care Auxiliary had a precursor in the village of Windermere, known simply as the Windermere Social Club. Its members included pioneer families like Chisholm, Kimpton, Tegart, Pitts, and (from the early 40s) my mother, Eleanor Stoddart. The Clubs members were primarily members of St. Peters Church, but performed many acts of community service, including aid to the small hospital at Taynton Bay, now the site of Pynelogs.

The play to be enacted at St. Peters on Sunday, August 21st will, Im sure, focus on the story of Celina Kimptons devotion to the church originally built at Donald and how it came to its present locale. For many descendents of the pioneers who helped raise the money to rebuild it on its present site and certainly, to the Kimpton family the word stolen is a misnomer, since the residents of Donald who relocated to Windermere truly felt the church (built with their funds and labour) truly belonged to them. Hopefully, the play (to be performed in the consecrated church) will tell the true tale.

Bernice (Stoddart) Hathaway

Parksville