Tag: Woolworths

52W Mark III – Week 49: Handed Down

The prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Handed Down”. At first, I thought this would be another week where I would struggle to think of something that would even remotely fit the topic. Thanks to my niece, inspiration struck. The other night I was planning what to wear to her university convocation ceremony, which included selecting a pair of cufflinks.

When I was little, cufflinks seemed to ubiquitous and commonplace. To me, it seemed that everyone wearing a suit had a pair of cufflinks for their dress shirts. My father always wore cufflinks in his early days with Woolworths, where he always wore a suit to work. I thought they were very cool. I also liked flipping the toggle around.

As time passed and fashions changed, my father wore cufflinks less and less often. Buttons on the cuffs became the norm. My dad rarely, if ever, wore cufflinks anymore. Then, in the mid-90s, my father had a career change, which did not require him to wear a suit for work anymore.

When I began wearing dress shirts on a regular basis, they all had buttons on the cuffs. However, at some point, my mother gave me a few pairs of my dad’s old cufflinks. I can’t remember why, or what the occasion might have been that I would have worn cufflinks.

Not too long afterward, my father gave me a pair of his old cufflinks that have become my favourite and most treasured. They’re clean, classic, and simple. There’s stamp on the post indicating that they’re 10 karat gold. They’re engraved with my father’s initials and, about five minutes ago, I discovered that “1975” is engraved underneath the face. That must have been the year he received them.

I can’t exactly recall how he came to possess them, although I knew he received them at work. Having discovered “1975” engraved on them, he must have received them to commemorate the opening of the new Woolworths in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. We had moved there the year before, when dad took over as general manager of the old store in the downtown core. The new store was far larger and was an anchor tenant of the new mall in which it was located.

Big news in a small town. I wonder if my father was wearing his fancy new cufflinks when the photo of him was taken.

Ever since I received these cufflinks, I have worn them to almost every major occasion at which I’ve had to wear a suit. I wore them at weddings and funerals. I wore them at my law school graduation and my call to the bar. And, of course, I wore them at my wedding.

This week I wore them when I attempted to attend my niece’s commencement ceremony, when she graduated with her Bachelor of Education degree. Unfortunately, I got no closer than 200 meters from the ceremony and was unable to attend. Long and boring story. At least I got to join the family celebration later that evening – sans cufflinks.

Wearing the cufflinks to the event I didn’t attend.

52W Mark III – Week 20: Taking Care of Business

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot. People often asked my if my dad was in the military. No, he was a Woolworths manager.

My father entered the Woolworth manager training program right out of high school. Back in the day, the program involved a lot of moving around. Later, promotions almost always meant a transfer. He was with the company for 28 years, leaving the company about six months after Wal-Mart bought it out in Canada. That’s a story for another time.

My sister and me at the Woolworths in Regina

My dad began his career with Woolworth’s in Lethbridge, Alberta as a management trainee. He once told me that his very first assignment on his first day was to unload a shipment of bras, and the female staff stood there giving him a hard time. Next, my dad trained in the Regina, Saskatchewan and Medicine Hat, Alberta stores, where he was an assistant manager.

Dad’s first store as manager was in Flin Flon, Manitoba. After Flin Flon, dad was transferred to Terrace, B.C., and shortly afterward to Duncan, B.C., where he opened a new store there as the Associate Manager.

Grand Opening of the Woolworths in Duncan. My dad is second from the right.

At one point, the Canadian head office in Toronto transferred dad to Kirkland Lake, Ontario. However, when the international head office learned about the transfer, they cancelled it. They thought it was too much to move a man with young kids halfway across Canada.

My dad (left) at the Canadian head office in Toronto.

Dad transferred to North Battleford in 1974 and was General Manager when Woolworths opened a large new store there as the anchor tenant of the Frontier Mall in 1975.

Big news in a small town.

Dad quit in the early 80s and went into business as a sales agent for a furniture company. The new career was not what dad anticipated, and he did not enjoy being separated from his family as the job entailed a great deal of travel. He returned to Woolworth’s a few months later. As he had been replaced at the North Battleford store, he was assigned to the Woolworths in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. He commuted from North Battleford to Swift Current, a distance of about 320 kilometres. Dad was there until he was transferred to Terrace, British Columbia six months later.

Four years later, the company transferred dad to William’s Lake, B.C. In 1989 Woolworth’s converted all of its larger Woolworth stores into Woolco stores, which included the Williams Lake location.

Until last Christmas, I had no idea my mom still had these.

In August 1991, dad was transferred to the Woolco in Chilliwack. In March 1994, Woolworth’s sold its Woolco stores to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart transferred Hans to Hinton, Alberta that same month. Dad left the company in August 1994. My parents and younger siblings then moved to Lethbridge, where we still had a fair amount of family. My dad briefly went into sales before he and my mother bought a small motel in southern Alberta. My dad has now been a motelier longer than he was a Woolworths manager. My youngest sibling and I have had much different fathers!

One of my brothers had this on his bedroom door for years.