Since Chestermere was nothing more than a few cabins on our beautiful lake, Elaine Peake has called Chestermere home. Living in Calgary, her life in Chestermere began in the mid 1960’s when she and her late husband, John Peake, had a summer cabin here. As soon as it became permitted to live out here year round, Elaine and John made Chestermere their fulltime home.
I sat down with Elaine, we discussed the changes that she’s seen over the years in what is now known as Alberta’s newest city, what she feels about some recent events and also her love for Chestermere.
We began our conversation with something that up until recently, I had not realized we had in common – when the Chestermere Anchor first started, Elaine was the first reporter. Immediately feeling humbled, we discussed our writing styles, the things she wrote about and also found out that she has quite the love of writing. “I always liked to write. Although I never had an education in writing, but in Grade 5 I did win an award in school for something I’d written”.
Elaine explained that when her five children were grown and she had some free time, she began taking some courses at the University extension courses and some through the Provincial Government which she says gave her some great contacts and she began writing for a magazine called ‘Heritage’. “I freelanced and when we still lived in Calgary and had our cabin in Chestermere, I started to write funny columns about living at Chestermere. Which did get me in some trouble with the acreage or farm owners as they didn’t’ like the fact that I called it ‘Muddy Puddle’. But it was just supposed to be funny and talk about the crazy things that happen when you summer out here”, she explained with a mischievous smile on her face…another I learned that she and I have in common.
Elaine went on to write for both the Rocky View News and the Rocky View Times which increased when she permanently moved to Chestermere and began writing a column. She also has done writing for many Western Canada magazines on a variety of topics and interests. In 1977 and 1982 she also co-authored two books on the Calgary art scene which entailed her and her co-author walking through the streets of Calgary checking out the public art.
Elaine they reflected on her time writing with for the Anchor. “I did the odd interview –of course it was not nearly what it is today as we were just a little village. The thing was though is that I always covered council meetings from right off the bat. When we had nothing but an Atco trailer and there was only the Mayor, two councillors and a secretary. That was it. That was what ran the whole town. I covered those early meetings but that was before I wrote for the Anchor as it was for one of the Rocky View papers. Later on when Steve asked me, I said that I didn’t’ think I would cover council meetings again as I had done it for so many years”.
Elaine explained that it was her attendance of those early council meetings where she really got her education and interest in running for politics. “I was on council for two terms as a councillor and when the then Mayor retired, so I decided I would get really brave and go for Mayor”. Elaine ended up serving for ten years on council, with half of that being Chestermeres Mayor.
“My husband had been on council, he had been very active with the lake front owners – which is why the park is now named after him (referring to John Peake Park). Then he died very unexpectedly and a couple years later, because I’d been covering these council meetings and I was working on the history book, and some of the neighbours and my friends would say ‘you should be on council’. So I decided ok why not. I was only 56, too young to just give up and sit at home as it was hard to fit in now that I’d lost my husband, even though I have great friends who were still good to me, but it is different when all your friends are couples. I found that council was a wonderful way to keep busy and interested in what is happening”.
As mentioned, Elaine served for ten years and said that when she chose to step away she felt it was a good time. “I don’t think you should stay in there for too long. I saw the village through the process of becoming a town and that was quite a big thing for us. When he became a town we had to have more councillors and a separate Mayor’s election and I just thought that is was a good time to step away. I had a lot of satisfaction out of it and one of the biggest thrills for me was when we got city water. We finally had really good water and that was a real thrill and to think that I was Mayor when that happened. Very rewarding”. It was after her time in the world of politics when Elaine began writing for the Anchor where she worked into writing a column.
In discussing the things currently affecting our City, I asked Elaine, now a proud 91 years old, about what she thought of Chestermere becoming a city. “I didn’t think it would make much difference….and it hasn’t as far as I can see”. Elaine then directed me to one of her columns that she wrote back in 2008 when she wrote about the predicted development of Chestermere. In her column she stated the following ” ‘The future is not something we enter, but something we create’. That’s a direct quote from Mayor Matthews in the introduction to the Community Survey that we in Chestermere are being asked to complete. She couldn’t have said it better. Those eleven words capture the very essence of planning, whether it’s in our personal lives or, in this case, the life of our community”, wrote Elaine.
“One of the things that I’ve always said about Chestermere is that we all moved here because we liked what we saw. We moved out here when just the basics were here – the very basics and yet the idea of being on a lake and away from the hustle and bustle was very tempting. So that’s why we moved here. But even the people that move here next week will move here because they like what they see”, explained Elaine when I asked her about the growth and development in Chestermere.
So with many decades now calling Chestermere home and her six children, many grandchildren and seven great-grand children all close by, Elaine says that she vowed on the day her husband passed that she would stay right here in their home in Chestermere. She gave her gratitude to her children, friends and neighbours that help her with tasks around her home and yard that enable her to get to stay in the home she loves so much.
Our interview ended with a final question. I asked Elaine what her favourite thing is about Chestermere. “The most comforting thing to me is that I’m known so well around here. And every time I go to something, I see people I haven’t seen for years – and I must admit I’ve forgotten a lot of their names – but I always know who they are. But that is one of the really rewarding things is that almost at any public function or into a store that people remember me and we have nice conversations and it makes me feel good”.
I think we can all learn something from those that have called Chestermere home since the beginning. Those that have loved this community so much that they raised their children here, gave back and volunteered countless hours to make Chestermere the great community that then the rest of us moved to. To give us all the reason “I moved here because I liked what I saw”.
