Just a Gal from Glidden: Right on time again

By Kate Winquist

There are some things you don’t realize you’ve missed until they come back.

Last week, Bev Klaassen stopped into my office, and she was genuinely excited. Not mildly pleased. Not politely interested. Excited.

“The clock is working,” she said.

Klaassen has worked at the Kindersley Post Office for 24 years. She has seen a lot come and go. So when something catches her attention like that, you listen.

And just like that, something small felt big.

The clock on the Kindersley Post Office tower—one of those features you glance at without thinking—had quietly been brought back to life. For the first time in decades, it is keeping proper time again.

Kindersley Post Office March 25, 2026. Photo by Doug Elmhurst

No announcement. No ribbon cutting. No budget line.

Just one person who decided it mattered enough to fix it.

The individual, who wants to remain anonymous, researched the mechanism, sourced the parts, and did the work. No compensation. No recognition. Just a desire to see something in the community restored.

And now, it works.

Bev also told me about local photography enthusiast Doug Elmhurst, who was among the first to notice the clock was working again.

As it turns out, I had the same moment.

I was leaving the office to head to the bank when I saw Doug coming up the street. We caught each other’s eye and, almost in unison, said it:

“The clock is working again!”

That’s when I realized — it mattered more than I thought.

The Kindersley Post Office is more than just a place to pick up parcels. It is a municipal heritage building. It has presence. It has history. It stands for something.

In recent years, it has seen upgrades that respect that history. But this one is different — it came from the heart.

When Klaassen talked about it, you could hear the pride. Not just in the building, but in the fact that someone cared enough to step forward.

That’s what stuck with me, because it took me right back to being a young girl on the farm at Glidden.

Glidden Post Office 1953-1982. Photo from “As It Happened … History of the R.M. of Newcombe #260”

The post office is still there, running out of a local resident’s home. Carla Motz has been looking after it since 1982, and before her it was Adam and Bessie Hammel. Different people, same quiet commitment.

Our family box number was 177, S0L 1H0. You don’t forget details like that when you grow up in a small community.

I remember walking in — the familiarity, and the sense that this small place connected us to the wider world.

That’s what post offices do in towns like ours. They’re not just functional. They’re personal.

And so is this story, because this isn’t really about a clock.

It’s about someone looking at something that mattered — and deciding not to leave it broken.

Now, every time someone looks up at that tower in Kindersley, they’ll see more than the time.

They’ll see what happens when someone chooses to give back.

Quietly. Properly. And, fittingly enough…

Right on time.