A ceremony was held last Wednesday at Cottonwood Park to dedicate a plaque and bench to Elfreda and Harry Hesketh, who served as postmasters in Osoyoos from 1946 to 1971. Elfreda, known as Freda, is pictured at bottom left with her sister Lynn Parsons and niece Cheryl Mantei. A colour party from the Royal Canadian Legion also participated in recognition of the Heskeths’ active involvement in the Osoyoos branch. Elfreda was the first female member of the Legion. (Richard McGuire photo)
For a quarter of a century, Elfreda and Harry Hesketh were fixtures of Osoyoos as the local postmasters from 1946 to 1971.
Last week the couple was honoured when a bench and plaque were dedicated to them at Cottonwood Park.
Elfreda, known as Freda and now in her mid 90s, was able to be present. Harry died in 2005.
A colour party attended the dedication from Branch 173 of the Royal Canadian Legion in recognition of the couple’s long-time involvement with the Legion.
Freda was the branch’s first female member, after overcoming resistance from male World War I veterans. She went on to become branch president.
Family members from the Osoyoos area and from Saskatchewan, where the Heskeths came from, also attended the commemoration.
In addition to a ceremonial ribbon cutting, a wooden rural-style mailbox was set up next to the bench so that participants could leave messages for Freda.
Back at the Legion afterwards, friends, family members and former colleagues shared recollections of the couple.
The Heskeths came to Osoyoos shortly after World War II, in which both served.
Harry was in the Air Force, but was shot down over Germany and was held as a prisoner of war for many months.
Freda was an army ordnance inspector.
The couple had been married mere days before Harry left their hometown of Fillmore, Saskatchewan for the war.
Freda’s sister Lynn Parsons, who was 15 years younger, remembers that Harry used to tease her unmercifully. She also remembers hearing when Harry was taken prisoner of war, word of which spread quickly on the rural Saskatchewan telephone party line.
“I remember us all crying,” Parsons said. “That’s my first memory of him in the military.”
When the Heskeths came to Osoyoos in 1946, Freda’s parents also came and the family ran an orchard and farmed turkeys and cattle among other things, said Cheryl Mantei, the couple’s niece.
Mantei is the daughter of Freda’s younger sister, Lynn Parsons, who also attended and put the first letter in the mailbox.
“This year my mom is turning 80 on the 18th (of November) and we wanted to do something that was memorable for both of them,” said Mantei. “We wanted it to coincide with Remembrance Day given that Aunt Freda was the first female to join this Legion here in Osoyoos.”
Mantei, who lives in Saskatchewan, has visited the Hesketh family orchard many times over the years. That farm is still in the family, with Freda’s daughter Bonnie Dust and son-in-law Roman living there now.
“Uncle Harry was such a character and so much fun to be around,” Mantei recalls. “Freda was an interesting gal to learn about because of all she’s gone through in her career with the military particularly and her work with the Legion.”
As well as working as postmaster, Harry was also the first treasurer of the Osoyoos Credit Union, which until 1955 was run from a small room at the back of the post office.
Doris Walton worked with the Heskeths at the post office and she too was at the commemoration.
“We did everything,” she said. “We told Harry he could go home any time and we would handle it. He was a great boss and we had a lot of fun with him. We filled our boxes and we used to cancel stamps with a hammer. It was wonderful.”
Walton also grew up on a neighbouring farm and would get a ride to work every morning with Harry. The post office in those days was on Main Street where the Osoyoos Credit Union is now.
She said Harry was “a real community man” as well as being a character.
“He could be a little rooster,” she said. “He was always interested in everything. If somebody went down Main Street and did a Louey or a U-ey over the double line, he would run after them and correct them. He was a little soldier on Main Street. He stuck his nose into everything too.”
Ruth Schiller knew the Heskeths well and was also at the commemoration.
“Harry was a total individual,” Schiller recalls. “Harry was as crazy as they make them.”
He was a wonderful and generous neighbor, she added.
Harry would bristle when orders came down from the postal hierarchy. On days when the postal inspector came to Osoyoos, Harry would take the day off and vanish, Schiller remembers.
“We’d all be having a fit about how you can go against authority like that, but Harry did,” she said. “Harry got away with it because he was a returned soldier and prisoner of war, so he did all kinds of things his way.”
Schiller remembers Freda as being “the steady one” and adds that Freda loved working at the post office, a place she had also worked when she was young before the war.
Schiller added that the Heskeths had great kids.
In addition to Bonnie Dust, they had two sons, Gerald and Lawrence, who also live in the Osoyoos area.
Freda lives at Mariposa Gardens.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
A new plaque on a bench at Cottonwood Park commemorates Elfreda and Harry Hesketh, who were postmaster in Osoyoos from 1946 to 1971 and played an instrumental role in the community. (Richard McGuire photo)
At the dedication of a commemorative plaque to Elfreda and Harry Hesketh last Wednesday, a letterbox was set up so that participants could leave letters of thanks. This was a fitting tribute to the couple, who served as postmasters in Osoyoos from 1946 to 1971. Shown here, Lynn Parsons (left) speaks with her older sister Elfreda before placing a letter in the box. Harry died in 2005, but Elfreda, known as Freda, now in her 90s, still lives at Mariposa Gardens. (Richard McGuire photo)
