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| Dr. Vanstone was Wawanesa’s first doctor and the Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company’s second manager. Born in Ontario in 1870, he moved with his family to Manitoba as a child. He went to medical school in Winnipeg and then moved to the Wawanesa area to practice medicine.
Doctor Vanstone was the archetypical prairie doctor. He would work long days and travel from house to house in order to see patients all over Wawanesa and area. Conditions were not always perfect when it came down to operations and treatments but such was the nature of medicine in small prairie towns at the turn of the century. |
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| Dr. Vanstone also established a pharmacy in Wawanesa that sold various products from medicines to record players. When the Wawanesa Mutual started up in 1896 Dr. Vanstone offered office space above his drugstore for the Mutual to rent. This was the beginning of Dr. Vanstone’s relationship with the Mutual. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Dr. Vanstone met his future wife Emily in 1896 while he was making a house call. They were married in 1901 when she turned 18.
After several years of serving as the area’s doctor, Dr. Vanstone moved with Emily to North Battleford to raise, breed, and show draft horses. This had been one of Dr. Vanstone’s dreams in life and he lived it until 1922 when the Mutual began to look for a new manager. |
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| Dr. Vanstone leapt at the opportunity to guide this burgeoning business to even greater success. Through the difficult times ahead in the 1920's and 1930's, Dr. Vanstone’s pragmatism and level headed judgement would allow the Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company to survive and grow while other insurance companies fell by the wayside.
Throughout their lives the Vanstones had ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood. On several occasions, the Vanstone family took in other children and raised them along with their own. Emily was a loving mother and was also very involved with the church while she was in Wawanesa. In the early 40’s the Vanstones retired from working life and throughout the next few years lived in various places in B.C. and Ontario. Dr. Vanstone died in Winnipeg in 1953. Emily died some years later in 1969. |
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