BARRHEAD - In the movie Field of Dreams, Dr. Archibald Graham, played by Burt Lancaster, said “This is my most special place in all the world ... Once a place touches you like this, the wind never blows so cold again.”
It is a sentiment 92-year-old Hazel Melnyk (formerly Heijari) understands and feels for Barrhead, which is why for the last 70 years, she has eagerly awaited the copy of the Barrhead Leader to arrive on her doorstep.
Or now more accurately in the mailbox of her Dawson Creek, B.C. condo.
“Barrhead is a special place, no matter how long I have been gone, it will always be home to me,” she said, noting she still has several friends in the community who she keeps in contact with.
“And I try to keep track of what is going on in the community through the newspaper. By reading it every week, it makes me feel like I am still part of the community,” Hazel said.
Her history in the community starts in 1928 at Naples, a small community about 19 kilometres north of Barrhead, where she was born and raised.
“My father came to the area in 1926,” she said. “I went to school there, in Naples, for eight years before going to high school in Barrhead.”
Unfortunately, Hazel said the only thing left from the old Naples school is a sign, as the building has long since disappeared.
About two years after graduating from what was then called E.C. Stehlin School, Hazel met her husband, John, when she walked into his shop, Barrhead Machine & Welding, which he co-owned with Wilf Seal. She came to the shop to pick up parts for her father’s tractor.
The couple married in 1948 and had four children — Eileen, Marian, Bill and Faith — before moving to Dawson Creek 10 years later.
“It is a bit of a long story, but Wilf and my husband, through the shop, were doing a lot of business in Dawson Creek, so they decided to open a second shop,” she said.
After settling their family and establishing a shop called Northlands Machine, the Melynks learned about a homesteading opportunity, in nearby Bonanza, Alta., about 50 kilometres outside Dawson Creek.
“It was supposed to be a sideline for us, but we loved it,” Hazel said. “It was a grain farm and we had some cattle.
John was involved with Northlands Machine and eventually, they passed on the farm to their son Bill. When John passed away in 2009, Hazel moved into Dawson Creek.
Three years ago, Hazel returned to Barrhead to attend the funeral of long-time friend and business partner Wilf Seal.
“He was a wonderful man and a good friend, especially to John,” she said, adding that despite the sad occasion it was nice to return to Barrhead and see her friends.
And in many ways, that is what the Leader helps her do every Thursday when it arrives in the mail.
“I don’t have Internet or a computer, just a telephone, so the paper plays a big part in keeping up about what is going on in Barrhead,” she said.
“It really is a special place and I look forward to seeing what is going on in the place I consider home.”
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