A lifetime in Kindersley, most of it spent in the background

By Joan Janzen

Bob Wyman has spent his entire life in Kindersley and was happy to share his memories of growing up here and building a life in our community. His birth took place November 28, 1941, at the old Kindersley Hospital located on 1st Avenue East. His oldest sibling was his sister Donna, followed by Heather. “Then along came Bob,” he said. There was a lapse in years before his younger siblings were born in 1949, 1951 and 1956.

Bob Wyman has spent his entire life living and working in Kindersley. Now he enjoys working in his garden and spending time with family and friends. PHOTO BY JOAN JANZEN

After Bob and Mildred Wyman married, they had two pet monkeys that got their exercise climbing on the wash line. PHOTO COURTESY BOB WYMAN

“By the time the younger ones came along, my oldest sister was married,” he explained. “My younger brother passed away at the age of 13. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of five. It was especially hard on Mother.”

Young Bob began helping out at the family business, LF Wyman & Sons, when he was only six years old. “I was sweeping floors. Mother would send me down to the shop so I would quit fighting with my sisters, so I literally lived at the garage after school,” he explained.

Bob’s grandfather came to Kindersley in 1932 and bought the Massey dealership. Later on, Bob’s dad, Richard, joined the business.

Bob’s school years began in a two-room school on the corner of 1st Street and 5th Avenue, where the Elizabeth School playground is now situated. It was a country school that had been moved into town to help accommodate all the baby boomers born at the end of the Second World War.

“In the early 1950s it went from one room of Grade 1 students to four rooms of Grade 1 students,” Bob explained. “With this amount of children, they brought in two country schools. Then I was in Mackenzie School for one year until Elizabeth School was built in 1955.”

He returned to Mackenzie High School in Grade 7, and after graduating from Grade 12, Bob joined his dad at LF Wyman & Sons. “I was the gopher,” he said. “When someone went on holidays, I filled in as a mechanic, welder, parts person and helped farm four sections of land.”

He said he was self-taught in all those fields. “I am a guy who can do anything,” he added. The family enterprise manufactured double swather attachments and harrow drawbars in its machine shop and also served as a Massey-Harris and Chrysler dealership.

Although he was busy at work, Bob managed to carve out time to play the dating game, and that is when he met his future bride.

“A friend of mine knew Mildred, and I needed a date that night, so we got lined up. I was dating five girls at the time; I had one in Eston, Kerrobert, Laporte, Eatonia and Kindersley. I was running out of money trying to keep the gas tank full, so I had to narrow it down.”

Mildred was from Laporte, and they were married on June 29, 1963, at the preacher’s home with their parents in attendance. “I wasn’t into a big wedding, and she wasn’t either,” he said.

The young couple was living in an apartment when they purchased two pet monkeys at a pet store in Saskatoon. They would put the monkeys out on the clothesline to get some exercise or put them on a leash and let them run about in a treed area. Soon the couple started their family of three children, which now includes four grandchildren. His beloved wife, Mildred, passed away in 2018.

Throughout his life, Bob enjoyed golf and played with the Kindersley Klippers for one year. He enjoyed fishing, hunting, building model airplanes, and playing lots of cards before television came along. “To get TV from Saskatoon, a substation had to be built. A booster tower was put up at Stranraer to boost a signal to Kindersley,” he explained.

He also loves playing computer games and has four computers for gaming in his basement. Outside, he has a large garden and numerous fruit trees.

Although he never joined any particular service clubs, Bob was always willing to help out when needed.

“It was in the nature of our family to help others,” he said. They were the ones who were always helping out in the background, never asking for credit or recognition. “The credit is the good feeling we get for doing it.

“Lots of people want publicity, but it’s actually the people in the background who do the work. That’s what we were like. The whole family was like that: my grandfather, my parents and myself.”

Today Bob continues to help people and keeps busy working in his garden and looking after his house. “I’m still working on all the things that I broke in my lifetime, and I don’t think I’m going to get them all fixed,” he said.

And of course his family is willing to help him when needed. “I’m one of the lucky ones; our family is close,” he concluded.