We travel to Yuma for the winter months the past few years. My love of statues extended to my parish there, when I couldn’t help but notice Jesus had two broken fingers and needed a fresh coat of paint from the Yuma sun. It was too heavy to move, so I worked on it outdoors where it was at.
This statue was in the Courtyard of Sylvan Lake Parish and the priest no longer lives there. He commutes from Rimbey so one of the parishioners wanted to have her refurbished so she would be in a prayer corner and be loved again. On the statue I could make out “Henri Saidu w… 1950” I believe it to be probably about that old. It had been weathered outside and badly needed the fresh coat of paint.
Morris and Theresa Sych asked me to repaint this Mary from Sophia Sych’s Flower Garden. It had been weathered outdoors for about 20 years. It was the heaviest statue I ever had to bring into my home and it took a moving trolly to wheel it in and two strong men to lift it. It was lovingly returned to the flower garden on a farm between Camrose and Wetaskawin.
Some statues I missed getting before pictures. This statue was chipped and just painted all white. I felt it needed to be brought back to a colorful Mary in their flower garden.
I had wonderful visits with Darlene Lasuita when I refurbished this statue. She told me her husband Edward had received this statue in 1969 from Pontmain school where he was a Principal for many years. He received it as a retirement gift and it was very precious to him. Darlene felt the statue was originally probably gotten by the school and hospital when the French Sisters first opened them in the early 1900’s.
Helen Foster’s statue
Owned by Tom and Mary Murphy. Tom’s mother originally had this statue and they felt it was 75-100 years old. The paint could just be chipped off with a finger tip when I received it to repaint it.
Viv Mandelin’s done in 2008
