Dear Downhome:

After reading "Alberta Success Story" (Letters from Our Readers, August 2007), I was left with a tear in my eye. My longing for home was great, more than usual when I read your magazine that keeps me connected to home.

Like Jane Laite's son, I too moved to Alberta (in 1999) when the prospects at home were grim. I only find it such a shame that I had to leave the place I hold dear to my heart and move to get ahead and start making a decent living. In my memory I still hold dear the nights chatting with my friends, laughing, playing pool, walking the harbour front, walking around Bowring Park and catching a coffee at Timmy's on Topsail Road with the smell of Ches's as you walk by.

Now being on the mainland is not all that bad. Since moving to Alberta I've met a wonderful man, who I married and now have a family with. I was fortunate enough that when our daughter was born in March this year, she was delivered into the world by a resident doctor at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary who was from Labrador and my Maternity Ward nurse was from Stephenville. So really considering she was surrounded by more Newfies when she was born, think of her as my little "Newfie in a Calgary hat". (as attached)

Even though my husband is from Alberta, we have both said that it would be nice to raise our daughter in a place like Newfoundland where violence and crime is far less worse than Calgary. I keep praying for the day that he comes home to say "Pack your bags, we're going East".

Like all Newfoundlanders I dream that I can once again smell the fresh air of the island everyday, see the friendliness my fellow Newfoundlanders and once again call her home for good. Even through I'm miles away from her rocky shores, I refer to the island in the sea as home - always have and always will.

I only have one request that I hope (as many of us on the mainland hope) does not fall on deaf ears: To our Premier, Bring us Danny Boy.

Colleen Baron (nee Greeley)
Calgary, AB (dreaming of home in St. John's, Newfoundland)   Submitted By: Colleen Baron