The Valley has once upon a time been home to many who have written and published books. Award-winning journalist, freelance writer and now author, Rosalie I. Tennison, has launched her memoir Naomi’s Houses. The story talks about Tennison’s experience growing up in the Valley, under less than ideal circumstances.
“It wasn’t until I moved to Winnipeg, about seven years ago, that this memoir popped into my head,” said Tennison. “I have a half finished novel that I’ve abandoned, because there is so much focus now on lived experience instead of the creativity of one’s imagination. I felt that readers wouldn’t appreciate it because it was not based on my lived experience.
“Even though I have written some short stories and never published them, I found myself reading a lot of memoirs and liked the genre. I had an idea for a memoir, but even then, it wasn’t this exact idea. Although this is my memoir and it is all about me, in the end, it really also is about my mother.
“I once recall hearing a writer being asked why they chose to write about a particular character and make them the focus of their book when there were three other strong characters to choose from,” said Tennison. “The author explained that sometimes when writing a book, a character can come out more than others and the book becomes focused on that character. This is what happened to me. I was writing my memoir, but it became a tribute to my mother. It’s not what I thought when I started out.”
Tennison added a personal touch to her memoir and included entries from her mother’s diaries that spanned over several years. It took her some time to finalize the creative process of incorporating her mother’s diary entries, but she felt it was an important part of the book.
“I used my mother’s diaries in the book to introduce the various chapters,” said Tennison. “Originally, I put Naomi’s Diary and then the date before each chapter. That was how I did the whole book. I had four drafts of the book before it went to a publisher. Then I hired an independent editor to help me with the structure and layout. I honestly can’t see it being any other way now.
“The publisher, Heritage House, had asked me for ideas of what I would like to see on the cover and I shared those with them. In the end, the cover was nothing like I imagined, but I quite like it. I had to trust the experts when it came to this.
“We are in a different world today,” said Tennison. “Back when I pitched a story, you had to sit down, type out a letter and mail it. Maybe two weeks later, you would receive a letter indicating whether or not they were interested in your story. Now there are all these tools such as the Internet, email and form letters. All publishers have to do is type in an address, and they don’t even do that anymore. It should be so much easier to politely reject people’s submissions, but it’s not. Instead, publishers take the stance that if a writer hasn’t heard from them in six months, they can assume they don’t want the book.
“I had to create a table with all the publishers that had the date I submitted, what their criteria were for submissions, and when they stated to respond. I would go back to check and once it got to six months, I would assume they didn’t want the book.
“Heritage House only accept submissions in January and the only reason I didn’t submit to them earlier was because I missed the deadline,” said Tennison. “Eventually, I did send them my memoir, and they came through for me.
“It took a year before they said they would publish it, so I think it wasn’t so much what I learned about myself, but instead this whole process confirmed who I am. I’m not a quitter, and I come from some pretty sturdy farming stock who plotted along and did what they could for survival. I had a mother who instilled that in me.”
Tennison’s story is one that reflects on what it is like to grow up in poverty and the struggles that come with it.
“My family’s experience growing up in the Valley was very difficult,” said Tennison. “We were very poor, but I had good parents. My maternal grandparents were heavily involved in the community. My maternal grandmother was a leader in the Women’s Institute and my maternal grandfather started the local branch of the Farmers’ Union. They were highly and well-respected people.
“My paternal grandparents didn’t stay in the Valley very long. They left and also left my father to stay in the Valley. From there, my parents met and married. They struggled with poverty and then my father died.
“We were plunged into deeper poverty,” said Tennison. “We had to leave the farm we lived on outside of Bowman and move to Swan River. We ended up in a rundown house in Swan River and our family continued to struggle. Due to our financial circumstances, a lot of the time we felt unwelcome and it was really hard growing up.
“My mother did the best she could given her circumstances. Her focus was to ensure that her children did not end up in a similar situation that she had. She pushed us to get educated and find good jobs, to get out of poverty. It certainly wasn’t a life that she had pictured for herself. The truth of the matter is, one never knows when their circumstances might change. Poverty doesn’t play favourites and it’s colourblind.
“We were a family experiencing poverty,” said Tennison. “We were invisible. We had a really tough time. Fortunately, there were some people in Bowsman who helped us out from time to time, and I’ve never forgotten that.
“I did a book signing in Calgary in the middle of April, and a woman I grew up with in Bowsman and our parents were family friends, had her daughter drive her from Carstairs, Alberta, to see me. I was shocked and burst into tears. This woman told me how she remembered our family and that when her family was getting ready to head into Swan River on Saturdays, her mother had them fill a cardboard box of produce from the garden to give to my family to survive.”
Looking back at Tennison’s story and life experience of growing up in poverty, she feels that although she has survived this chapter in her life, poverty still impacts many people today in ways that most people can’t imagine until they have gone through it.
“The book touches on how people think we’ve come a long way and things have changed since then, but in essence, they really haven’t in the last 50 years,” said Tennison. “There are still people living in poverty and struggling, but the difference is that there are more social safety nets now than there were back then.
“We didn’t have a lot of those tools growing up.”
Tennison has matured and lived other life experiences that have helped shape the person she has become, but writing this memoir also helped her to gain a better understanding of just how much her mother did for her family despite having the odds stacked against her.
“I think it’s not so much that I learned much about myself when writing this memoir as it was about how it reinforced who I am, because I’ve always struggled with imposter syndrome at times and a lot of self-doubt, but I had a mother who said I could do whatever I want,” said Tennison. “That has always been at the back of my mind. So, when the going gets tough in life, which it often does for all of us, I hear her voice and think to myself that I can do this.
“Writing a book has always been something I wanted to do. I didn’t have a type of book defined at that time, but it ended up being one that was a memoir and a tribute to my mother. That positive reinforcement of being able to do this floated through the book as I wrote it. It took five years from the time I started writing to almost the day when I was standing in front of a crowd at McNally Robinson launching the book.
“A lot of people would be deterred by that length of time, but I kept persevering through dealing with different editors and maintaining my voice,” said Tennison. Then going through the submission process can be very off-putting and demoralizing. I was just about done, and only had three Canadian potential publishers left who may be potential possibilities, and then Heritage House wanted to publish my memoir.”
Tennison will be in the Valley for the Swan River Museum’s Heritage Day in August to promote and sign her memoir and to take a photo with her father’s car that was donated to the museum. Naomi’s Houses is available to purchase online from McNally Robinson, Indigo Chapters and Amazon.

Many people have built successful and longstanding careers working for their local Co-op. Tony Blazenko has had an incredible career with the Swan Valley Consumers Co-op (SVCC), which started with him working for Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL). It was a career that he fell into by chance, but brought him back home to the Valley and in a career that he loves.
“I had aspirations to become a professional baseball player and was in Edmonton at the time,” said Blazenko. “I played fastball for the City of Edmonton and made the transition to Triple A baseball for a while, but the scouts never recruited me to Florida for tryouts for the pros.
“I saw an advertisement for a job with FCL and applied. The day I did the interview, I was offered the job. I had given notice and was packing up to leave. I decided to stop one last time at the local post office to cancel my post office box. I checked the mail one last time and there was a letter in there from FCL. I opened it up and it thanked me for applying for the job, however, I did not get it, and another candidate was hired. The letter stated it would keep my name on file for future employment opportunities.
“I kind of panicked because I had just quit my other job and packed up my apartment to leave for this new job,” said Blazenko. “I went to a phone booth and called the FCL office. I spoke to the person who hired me and asked if everything was ok and if my application was fine. They told me it was and they were expecting me on Monday morning for the job.
“I saved that letter from 1977 and still have it. I like to joke around that I have a letter that says I’m not really supposed to be working here.
“I went to FCL and started in October 1997. I was a farm boy in my early 20s, and worked dispatch for the Logistics Department,” said Blazenko. “I soon moved to Assistant Manager in Logistics for FCL. This launched my career there. I soon realized that the more work I did and accomplished, the more the regional manager delegated to me. I took on more and more duties, and ended up working in fuel and general merchandise as a result.”
During the course of Blazenko’s time at FCL, he gained experience in supply and demand, as well as cost-effective methods of shipping products to retail outlets.
“I set up retail stores with deliveries,” said Blazenko. “I communicated with general and department managers on coordinating shipping to the retail. More duties were assigned to me. At that time, there were three people in the industry: one with Imperial Oil, one with Shell and I for FCL. We did a liquid fuel exchange between refineries, not on dollars. We would send our lease operators to fill up at refineries and their operators would fill up at our refineries. The additives were added to the product at the refinery because each company had different specifications and the refineries knew everyone’s specs. Fuel is just fuel until you add the additives into it, then it makes it a certain brand of fuel, like Co-op’s.
“Then at the end of October at FCL year-end, we would try to zero our liquid exchange, so that we didn’t have to pay each other any money. It was an interesting job.
“I would start with hiring lease operators to service an area, like Swan River for groceries, lumber, fuel and then we started getting into general merchandise,” said Blazenko. “Hiring one was not enough, so I had to hire lease operators that would paint their truck and trailer with Co-op colours and haul our product to the specific retailers. I moved on to doing this more on a corporate level as opposed to an individual lease operator.
“FCL must have felt I was capable of doing things and let me go with it. I did very well there and spent nine years doing that.”
Blazenko wanted a change of scenery and to start working his way back home to the Valley. It was his move in Saskatchewan that led him to work with another staff member who would spend the majority of their career working for SVCC, like Tony has.
“I knew by working with FCL that I could transfer to any retail that I wanted,” said Blazenko. “My parents were still living in Swan River and as they got older, I wanted to be closer to them to help take care of them. I knew I wanted to get out of the city and work my way back into retail. I gave notification to FCL that I wanted to transition to retail. They tried to hang on to me at FCL and to stay at the head office.
“I wound up going into retail and moved to Pelly, Saskatchewan, as a branch manager. I wound up working there with Richard Stechyshyn, who was the food manager at that time. I stayed there for some years. Then one day I picked up the phone to the SVCC General Manager (at the time), Ron Nemetz, to see if I could get hired on there. My roots were here in the Swan Valley and I wanted to get on there to work, so I could help look after my parents as they got older.
“The general manager at the time said that I couldn’t have his job because he wasn’t going anywhere and that his department managers were long-standing and also weren’t going anywhere,” Blazenko. “He still agreed to hire me and was going to find a job for me.
“In 1991, I made the move to SVCC and kicked around between departments such as grocery, hardware, lumber and went wherever staff was needed. I floated around until SVCC purchased Johnston Ventures in 1997. That year, I came over to that department to transition it over.”
Blazenko helped transition an acquisition for the SVCC into a profitable and growing ag department. It led to the SVCC expanding into territory further north.
“The staff from Johnston Ventures stayed, and I was the only new staff member from the SVCC,” said Blazenko. “I was bound and determined to increase the sales by aligning the products with the customers’ demands. I created my own position.
“Once we had things going, we created a feed department at SVCC and I took on that. We expanded the sheds and put up racks for feed. We brought in all the animal health accessories to fill the sales floor. From there, we proceeded to get into farm equipment. In order for SVCC to make a go of it, and at the time, I didn’t have the staff to do that, I aligned with Gilbert Plains Co-op. Gilbert Plains Co-op and SVCC entered into a working relationship on providing bins and augers to our local producers.
“I thought it was just going to be a few sales here and there,” said Blazenko. “It turned out to be, at most, $4.5 million in sales for bins and augers. That was overwhelming for Gilbert Plains Co-op because all of a sudden, I was selling as much as they were. It was all based on demand. Whatever producers wanted, they would come and see me, and I would bring it in. From there, we established a feed, an equipment, an animal health and pet food sections, along with other ag-related features.
“I spent my next few years establishing this department, which was something that the members in the area needed and kept them shopping in the Valley.
“Because I was in feed sales, I started selling outside of my trading area,” said Blazenko. “I started selling feed up to The Pas. We would tour The Pas every month, and then people from The Pas started coming here too for their feed and pet food needs. Before I knew it, I was selling bins up there and other things. There was a need there that created an opportunity for the SVCC to establish a presence in The Pas. Now we have an ag department set up with employees there that service the area.”
Blazenko noted that a lot has changed since he first started with the SVCC in the ag department. Things have grown tremendously and so have the producers’ needs in the Valley.
“When I first came here, I was given the keys for Johnston Ventures and had to learn as I went,” said Blazenko. “I had to jump on the skid steer and load fertilizer out of the shed into a bucket for all the trucks coming to get it. I couldn’t drive that skid steer fast enough. Pretty soon, the trucks started getting bigger and bigger, and the lineup of trucks got longer.
“We went through times where we needed to make changes to the ag department to accommodate our service. Thanks to the SVCC Board of Directors and Management for seeing that we needed to enhance our service delivery by using a volumetric system, which we added.
“Over time, that wasn’t quick enough to meet the supply and demand needs, and resulted in the building of a new fertilizer shed,” Blazenko. “Now it’s someone operating it at an incredible speed, to load a semi in just seven minutes. That would have taken so many buckets if we had continued to do it the way it was done when I first started here.”
Blazenko feels there is a good career and future for people to work at their local Co-op. It not only provides lots of learning and training opportunities, but also a chance to be a part of building something great in the community.
“I think that there are young people who are in the retail Co-op market and I tell them that the opportunities provided while working at a Co-op will allow you to be who you want to be and go into whatever department you want to enter into, providing you do a good job,” said Blazenko. “I think that young people have a great opportunity in finding a career with federated co-ops and staying with the system.
“When working in retail, one has to work harder to be successful at it. You have to be willing to do what you are asking others to do that work there, to show by example. There are times when people can be extremely price-conscious, but I’ve always believed that money doesn’t replace good service. If you have really good service, why would someone go anywhere else just to save a few dollars and not receive good service?
“I learned a lot about this through my time working at FCL in the Logistics Department,” said Blazenko. “You have to use your knowledge and experience when bringing in the products. It also requires one to know what customers want and to bring it in ahead of the demand. You have to focus on a section and really dedicate the effort to that section. You can’t be all over the place and be everything.
“Customers recognize the efforts that are put in and that leads to whether or not they are lined up at the door to buy what you have to offer.
“We provide good customer service from excellent staff and that makes me proud to work here,” said Blazenko. “I look forward to one day retiring and knowing that there was an accomplishment that happened here and had provided a valuable service to the Valley.”

On May 3, 2025, Gord Zamzow (right) was inducted into the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame in the All Around Category at an Induction Banquet in Winnipeg... See more on B4/B5