Bridging the Social Distance

For this episode I interview Marilyn Yates, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen. Marilyn resides in “Emma’s neighbourhood” at Riverside Glen, which is the area of the building dedicated to Memory Care. I was really honoured to get to share the stories of a resident in this part of the building - consent, editing, and sharing are all things to be carefully held when navigating challenges wi...

For this episode I interview June Weiler, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen Retirement facility. June was born and raised in Guelph, which always gives me fun opportunity to talk about historic stores and buildings from days gone by. She shares of her career at Royal Knitting (where her mother and father both worked too) and her Saturdays as a child making the rounds of downtown Guelph....

For this episode I interview Femmy Vandervelde, a new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen. Femmy reflects on her childhood in Holland during the German occupation, her family’s move to Canada as a teenager, her education and career in nursing and how her life changed during the years, which included years on a farm, in the city, and eventually here in Guelph. Femmy shows off her knitting (I’...

For this episode I interview Carol Kerklaan, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . It wasn’t Carol’s idea to move into a care facility, but she’s accepting this new chapter with grace - she shares stories from growing up, working at GM where her grandfather was the president, meeting her husband (an Engineer) and his career designing many award-winning patents. Carol was quite the athlete,...

For this episode I interview Suzanne Ashton, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Suzanne is one of the younger residents I've met at Riverside Glen, having moved into the village to be safe and supported while navigating her health journey living with Myotonic Dystrophy, a form of Muscular Dystrophy. Suzanne has to move at a careful pace, picking and choosing her activities, but has jump...

For this episode I interview Bernadette McKay, a resident in Long-Term-Care at The Village of Riverside Glen . Bernadette shares the many places she's lived throughout southern Ontario, her history of her family in Slovenia and Austria, and her current days at Riverside Glen. She's a happy woman with endearingly specific memories, and definitely a sense of humour. It was a pleasure to meet her! Th...

For this episode I interview Adriaan Sizoo, director of Landscaping and Exterior Maintenance for Schlegel Villages . Adriaan has been helping design and implement and maintain the gardens and outdoor spaces at all of the 18 Schlegel Villages retirement and long-term care facilities for about seven years now, and we met up at The Village of Riverside Glen , where Adriaan took me on a tour through t...

For this episode I interview Jeanne (Jean) Newcombe, a new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen. Jean shares about her Dutch heritage, her recent move from Chatham, and tells us all about her children and grandchildren, which are a beloved part of her life. Thank you Jean for sharing today! This interview was originally recorded on July 3, 2025 This is a public episode. If you would like to d...

For this episode I’m joined by my son Otis, and we interview Marilyn Gifford, a new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Marilyn watches her neighbour garden outside her window, as she shares how she’s feeling at this stage of life and how she feels about Guelph continuing to grow, and about some of her days gone by. Marilyn wasn’t expecting this interview, so we appreciate her being up for...

For this episode I interview Charles "Chuck" Marino, a brand new resident at the Village of Riverside Glen. At 83, Chuck has a ton of incredibly detailed memories, and gives us a glimpse all the way back to his own grandfather's childhood in Italy. From stories of betrothed "white widows", to his father the military surgeon, through his own life working as a prof in Psychology and conflict resolut...

For this episode I interview George Vos, a recent new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . George kicks off our interview with an enthusiastic recounting of his recent adventure to a Toronto Maple Leafs game - a heck of a welcome into the Riverside Glen family! From there we jump back to the past, his working life, and his childhood in Holland during the German occupation during WWII and th...

For this episode I interview Judy Maddren - Judy is a University of Guelph and CFRU alumni who went on to work in professional radio with the CBC. In more recent years she’s run a project called “Soundportraits” where she records interviews to help people tell their life stories. The parallels between the type of work Judy and I have done made this a highly intriguing interview for me, and I’m ver...

For this interview I speak with Glenna Ratcliff, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Glenna speaks about her transition into her new home in a retirement facility. We talk about her childhood, her baby years in Cape Breton with a father gone to war, and the subsequent years of a strong and independent working mother. Glenna speaks fondly of her children, one of whom is a local artist, an...

For this episode I interview Vera Speers, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Vera loves her giant family, and expresses how happy she is that they are all leading fulfilling lives, but is honest about how much she misses them too. Our chat looks back at a childhood in Saskatchewan, a young adulthood raising four children, and a career working for Guelph Hydro. All throughout Vera stradd...

For this episode I chat with Shirley Petersen, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . We talk about different parts of her life, and her hobbies, her knitting and crocheting and her career as a teacher, her traveling for a Mission in Taiwan in retirement, and her childhood spent with her grandparents on Lake Erie. It was a lovely chat and I appreciate her sharing with me today! This intervi...

For this episode my guest is Egil Rasmussen, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen. Egil shares memories from his home country of Denmark, his childhood during the war, his year enlisted in the military, and his career as a brick layer in Denmark, then Canada, before moving onto other careers. We bond over our respective travels across Canada and shared love on the east coast in particular....

For this episode I interview Valeria Krotky, a new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Valeria is 94, and taught piano for over fifty of those years. She even teaches me a bit of piano during our interview! It is a true lifelong passion for her, and I had the pleasure of getting to hear her play, and record it, so you'll get to enjoy that on today's episode too. She shares about the piano...

For this episode I interview Jean Root, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Jean takes us on a journey through her life, her career in nursing, her life on her family's farm where she raised two children and her husband did body work on cars. She shares of her myriad of health issues, and her subsequent arrival to the Village of Riverside Glen where she trying to adjust to a new stage of...

For this episode I interview Jane Mulcahey, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . We talk about Jane’s career as a teacher, and how teaching held a place in her life beyond the years of it being a profession. She shares about her musical and artistic husband and children, and her own visual art, and singing (she is part of the Riverside Glen choir). We also navigate Jane’s memory, and the...

For this episode I interview Mike Berry, a resident in Long-Term Care at The Village of Riverside Glen , who shares about his career as a teacher of Geography and communications technology, his lifelong route to becoming a teacher, and how tech and it's role changed over time. He also shares in detail about his beloved hobby of coin collecting - I learned a lot, about something I knew almost nothi...

This hour is a special hour of content celebrating languages! Hosted (in English) and collected/edited by Jenny, close to 40 different people contributed over thirty languages to fill our airwaves in celebration of "International Mother Language Day" which is observed every year to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. We've included a list of languages featured, below - i...

For this episode I interview Kehinde and Fumi, and PJ and Coretta at The Village of Riverside Glen. Kehinde is a nurse, Fumi is a PSW/Med Cert, PJ is a Recreation Team member, and Coretta is a PSW. They share with me their respective journeys from their home countries of Nigeria and Kenya, acclimating to the dramatically different weather while settling in with their families, as well as navigatin...

For this episode my guest is Pat Woodford, a relatively new resident at The Village of Riverside Glen , who was given the best possible room the cater to her love of bird watching. Pat has had nearly a full life of bird watching , starting her passion when she met her future husband as a teenager. Pat fits so much life into today’s conversation - she shares an incredibly interesting snippet of his...

For this episode I’m joined by my son Otis, and our guest is Sharryn Smith, a resident at The Village of Riverside Glen . Sharryn is a visual artist, who works primarily in acrylic paint. After suffering a stroke, Sharryn lost the ability to use the right side of her body, as well as some of her memory, and her ability to speak, and had to transition to living in a retirement care facility. She sh...

For this episode I interview Aidan Purnell, a regular musical performer at The Village of Riverside Glen. On Jan 23rd I was at Riverside Glen, and my scheduled interview fell through. Aidan was performing for a huge crowd of residents, and I've come across Aidan a number of times on my visits to Riverside Glen. I stuck around to see if he'd be up for chatting with me, and the result was the fantas...