Remembering our roots ~ Rene and Ona Trudel

By John Godsman Times Contributor

There is a village in northern France called Parfondeval, where the original Trudel family lived as far back as the 1600’s. The original building is still standing and being lived in by descendants of this family. In 1655, Jean Trudel with his wife Marguerite (nee Thomas) came to Quebec and became farmers and fishermen in this new land.
To this day, a plaque commemorates the location of the Trudel homestead near Montmorency Falls, just east of Quebec City on the St Lawrence River. Little is known of the family during the following years, until a Gerard Trudel arrived in Lancer, Sask. (N.W. of Swift Current) in 1926. Gerard met and married Rachel Bly, who was of Norwegian descent, in 1933 and they had four children. Rene, the second born, arrived on March 6, 1936 and lived and went to school in Lancer until Grade 12, when he enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan graduating with a B.E. Mechanical Engineering in 1958.
Of note – despite the fact that ‘Jean’ was the only brother who came to Canada in 1655, over 22,000 Trudels attended the family’s 300th Anniversary held in Quebec in 1955!
Ona (Leona) Zimmer’s family originates from Alsace Lorraine, in Northern Germany. Members of her family moved to North America in the 1800’s, and her grandfather Ben Zimmer moved to Landis, Sask. in 1905, where he became a farmer.
Ona attended a country school at Needwood, a one room school, where she took Grades 1 through 8, with many teachers, including her mother, then attended high school at convents in Leipzig and Rosetown.
Ona met Rene while they were both students at the University of Saskatchewan in 1955, and they were married on Oct. 25, 1958. They moved to Drayton Valley, Alta. as newlyweds, where Rene joined Mobil Oil. The Pembina Oil Field had been discovered five years earlier, and there was lots of drilling taking place. The town was very busy, and they remember one of the busiest spots was the Pub. Back in the 1960’s, women could only go into a certain section of the Pub, and only with an escort. Despite the gravel roads, and dust everywhere, the town continued to grow rapidly. Due to the lack of accommodation people were sleeping in ditches and culverts, but one September it rained for the whole month, and five more days into October! Rene and Ona lived in Drayton Valley for eight years until 1966, and their four children were born there. They now have two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. That year, they moved to Calgary where they found the building boom was just as intense. Rene remembers watching five or six cranes putting up high rises in the downtown core.
In 1980, they moved to Lloydminster, where the main street runs north/south and constitutes the Alberta/ Saskatchewan border. An often-quoted phrase was “that Main Street was part of the longest surveyed straight line, in all of North America!”
Education and hospital services were operated by the Saskatchewan Government, regardless of whether they were on the Alberta or Saskatchewan side of the border.
In 1990, they retired to Strathmore, to be close to their family who all live in Calgary. The population had just passed 4,000. From what is now known as ‘Strathaven,’ south to the TransCanada Hwy (where Walmart is now located) cows grazed on open fields! Other changes include all the businesses moving from downtown to strips along the highway, which has resulted in downtown Strathmore giving the feeling of being deserted! And, the population has grown to 14,000.
Community activities have included Ona being a member of the Catholic Women’s League, and coaching a girl’s softball team. She was instrumental in the building of St Anthony’s Seniors Residence in Lloydminster, which opened in 1982. Rene drove for the Strathmore Food Bank for 20 years.
“Alberta has been good to us.”
Please call John Godsman at 403-827-7791 with referrals for future Remembering Our Roots columns.