As reported in The Leaf June 2020

By Mike Maunder

Wolseley Residents' Association turns 40

"Forty years ago, on June 5, 1980, The Wolseley Residents' Association (WRA) was born in a large public meeting at Westminster United Church. 

One of the key people organizing the meeting was Ruth Rannie (now Ruth Swan) but she credits a dozen others. She especially remembers Wendy McCracken (now Wendy Elliot). They brought together a core group of about a dozen people who, through posters and word-of-mouth (no email or Facebook in those days)attracted between 80-120 people to the inaugural meeting. 

"Many who attended were young parents starting families," remembers Bob Eastwood, then a young architect starting his own family in a house on Arlington at Wolseley. "It was such a strong neighbourhood in getting people engaged, there was a real energy."

The energy was because, in 1980, Wolseley was at the beginning of its renaissance- filling with young professionals who found the homes affordable - and they wanted to find their voices in the direction their neighbourhood would take. The neighbourhood was still rough.

When Ruth and her husband Bill a University of Winnipeg professor moved onto Craig Street in 1975, "we found nobody else from the University would live in this neighbourhood," remembers Ruth. "They looked down their noses at it. It was the same at Westminster Church; even if people had grown up here, their idea was to get out, that it was not a good neighbourhood, not safe."

Ruth met Wendy McCracken at Westminster Church. Wendy lived on Canora and remembered someone being murdered on her street. Both women knew of break-ins and fights. In a police memoir of the late 70's, police described a raid of a rooming house - "on Walnut Street or wherever the hell it was" - and picking up a suspect with a gun in each hand. (Not to decrease the drama, but the suspect was asleep.)

"The neighbourhood wasn't stable yet." recalled Ruth, "We were right on the tipping point, lots of young families like ours were moving in and renovating houses. There were many issues that could go many ways. The residents' group gave us some control over that."

Especially important was making the group non-partisan. Both Ruth and Wendy had experience as political organizers. "Wendy was from the NDP and I was from the Liberals, and if we could get together and work on issues, we'd be a lot stronger approaching government." 

They drew together a core group of residents (renters as well as homeowners) who were passionate about particular issues. Zoning was huge. The wartime housing shortage had resulted in many homes being converted to multi-family units or rooming houses. Some, especially those with absentee owners were "rabbit warrens", in the words of another residents. The multi-family zoning also led to many group home and halfway houses.

There were dozens of residents who wanted a voice on these and other issues:parking, high speed traffic cutting through the neighbourhood, the future of Laura Secord School and the Cornish Library, poor tree maintenance. A group of residents opposed a high-rise on Greenwood; another group opposed a high rise proposed for Raglan and Portage. All of them came to the meeting.

Looking back 40 years later Ruth recalls that there were far too many issues for the small executive that was elected to deal with. Ruth was elected as the Association's first Chairperson. The executive asked those people who were passionate about particular issues to form ad-hoc task groups, research their issue, and report back to the Association at its monthly meeting, where future action would be voted on.

One of the most passionate projects that brought the disparate groups together in their very first months was a project rehabilitating a piece of land at Lenore and Wolseley to become a neighbourhood park. It wasn't about meetings and paperwork - it was recruiting, working together, shovelling, landscaping, putting in play structures for kids. Levels of government co-operated; residents provided the bull work; a group of women carpenters put in the first bus shelter; Manitoba Housing demolished the apartment in the summer. Resident Gilles Huizinga and councillor  Frank Johnson stick-handled financing and approvals. The new park was well under way by October, just four months after the Association's first meeting , and was a point of neighbourhood pride tying people together. In a sense, that little park could be seen as the birthplace of the WRA - the first place where Wolseleyites rolled up their sleeves and joined together to stake claim to their neighbourhood.

The Lenore park was the first of many accomplishments for the Residents' Association. Another early victory was getting much of Wolseley rezoned to limit rooming houses and group homes. There have been periods of ebb and flow in its activities over the 40 years since then, but the Association is still going strong. 

Both Ruth and Wendy stepped down from active roles in the first couple of years - Wendy went on to become a driving force in the creation if the R.A. Steen Community Centre; Ruth to a key role in saving the Cornish Library from closing. But those are future stories for the Leaf's year long project, Woseleyites."