I was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the eldest of three children. When I was two, we moved to Arvida, Quebec, where my sister was born. My dad was a hardware man all his life and his company transferred the family back to Strathroy, Ontario, where my brother was born. This was the town, near London, Ontario, where my parents had grown up and married.
Other than a year spent in St. Thomas, Ontario, with an aunt and uncle, the rest of my school years were spent in Strathroy. It was a great town in which to grow up. High school was a great experience with all the friends, sports, dances, games and band involvement one could wish for with a few studies on the side. There I met the boy I would marry but my goal always had been to be a nurse, so in 1947, off I went to Toronto to train at Toronto General Hospital.
After three years of fine training and lasting friendships, I returned to Strathroy to marry Bob Ostergard where our son, Bob, and two daughters, Jane and Marti, were born. Our children were the seventh generation in that town on both my mother’s and dad’s sides of the family. When we became engaged, Bob wondered if everyone in town was related to me!
In 1961, we were transferred to Cleveland due to his job with True Temper Corp. and we bought a home where the children finished growing up.
Due to a failing marriage, I went back to nursing after nine years of homemaking. My twenty five years at the hospital gave me an identity I had lost in my marriage. The last fourteen years before I retired from there were spent as head nurse on an orthopaedic unit. Finally, Bob and I were divorced in 1977 after the children were grown and gone. It was a tough time as my mother died of cancer three days after my divorce.
Two months later, I bought a dear little Cape Cod cottage in a Century Village and had a grand time fixing it up and decorating it to my liking. My children, with their families, were close by so it was a wonderful time with grandchildren, friends and family get-togethers. In 1986, nursing had become such a trying and disillusioning experience, I decided to take early retirement. Then the brilliant idea came to me to get into Real Estate so I went to school and got my licence.
After four years of this with some nursing home work, I decided to leave everything, rent my home furnished, and travel. I got in my car and took off with all my precious junk. For five years, I rented various places in locales near friends and relatives and it took me all over U.S.A. and parts of Canada. In reality, I was living out of my car, trying to decide where to settle down. My girls had settled near Houston, Texas, after marrying, and wanted me to live there, but the humidity, heat and bugs are things that I can live without!
I had come out to Canmore in 1990 to visit my oldest and dearest friend, Marilyn Howe. She and I had grown up around the corner from each other and had maintained our friendship for sixty years. I had fallen in love with Canmore on my two visits here. Marilyn and her husband, Derek, for five years, encouraged me to move here. Therefore, when my son and family moved to Big Fork, Montana, which is within driving distance of Canmore, I took the plunge and sold my house in Burton, Ohio. My furniture was stored in Montana the first six months I lived here so I rented a furnished place. Now I have my own condo and am very content in it. A lot of dear friends have helped me feel welcome and at home here. I have been tempted twice to try marriage again but the right man has not appeared. In the meantime, I enjoy family and friends and look at every day as a new page in my book.
Dorothy Ostergard
Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p. 214-216.
