Like many stay-at-home moms, Rita Kuntz went back to work when her kids were grown. Working with Lakeland Library Region, she had a goal of devoting 15 years to her second career, and is now ready for the next phase of her life – retiring from her position as Battleford’s librarian.
“It’s just a new chapter in life,” explains the mother of four who plans to spend more time with her three grandchildren and her farming family.
Monday, she was the special guest at a retirement tea in her honour.
Looking back at the past 10 years of working at the Battleford Library, she says she’s enjoyed the people she’s met, the friendships she’s formed and working with the library’s board. The board members have always been friendly and easy to work with, she says, adding it’s also been a pleasure to work with the Town of Battleford.
“They’ve been so good to us,” she says.
Since 1981, the library has been housed in a more-than-100-year-old heritage building on the corner of 22nd Street across from the town’s historic post office. A highlight of the year 2012, when the former Merchant’s Bank of Canada celebrated its 100th birthday, says Rita, was when the Town presented the library with a vintage photo now on proud display across from the main library desk.
The Town has taken good care of the building, valuing its history while making it available to the public to enjoy, Rita says. It is easily accessible to anyone with mobility issues as well, she adds, pointing to the ramp opening directly onto the main floor.
With Rita’s retirement, former substitute librarian Barb Beloin will now be head librarian.
While the library is not a one-person operation, and there are several substitute librarians, it is normally staffed by one person at a time. When Rita had a heart attack last spring, the subtitute librarians rose to the occasion.
“I had very good subs that filled in and were able to take over while I was on sick time and leave of absence,” she says. “Then through the winter, I cut back on my hours and gave them more and they did excellent work, so I just thought, ‘Fifteen, that was my goal, and now I want to take life at a little slower pace.’”
Rita is originally from Medstead, where she graduated high school, and came to North Battleford to attend Reeves Business College. From there, she took a job at Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford in medical records.
When she met Larry and they decided to marry in 1973, it was time to move on to the new phase of life as part of the Kuntz farm family.
“That’s my background from the day I was born,” she laughs.
After a year of living in North Battleford, with Rita continuing to work and Larry commuting to the family farm, they decided to relocate.
“We bought a mobile home and moved out to the farm and we’ve been there ever since.”
They were about to start a family.
“In those years the wages weren’t like they are now, and it was always our plan that I would be at home with our children.”
Rita was a stay at home mom from 1974 to 2000, when her youngest, daughter Coralie, started Grade 12.
Stay at home mom, of course, is a misnomer. Kids can keep a mom busy.
“There was hockey, there was skating, there was ball, and I was the chauffeur.”
There was also 4-H, and Rita was involved both as a project leader and a group leader.
She was also involved in her children’s school lives.
“I volunteered from the early 1980s at St. Vital when my son first started school.”
That continued as all four of her children moved through St. Vital School, Battleford Junior High School, where she served as home and school president for both, and then North Battleford Comprehensive High School, where she got involved in the parent engagement group there as well.
At both St. Vital and BJHS, Rita volunteered in the school library. That was where help was needed.
“At that time they had teacher librarians,” she says. “The teacher could bring a class in to the librarian and would also be the person that read to them, did things with them, and you were the person that worked at the counter, checked out books, did shelving for them, helped prepare for projects, whatever needed doing.”
Her involvement in the schools meant meeting a variety of people and one woman who worked at the Saskatchewan Hospital library and knew Rita had once worked in medical records there saw her as a possible substitute for her while she served on jury duty.
Her friend said, “You are used to the library from the school so that wouldn’t be strange to you, but you also know what clientele there is because you’ve worked there.”
So she took it on. There was a part of the library that was used as a reference library for the medical staff, but Rita had only to take care of the side used by the staff and clients during library hours, which weren’t full time.
“My job was to do library work just like we do here [at the Battleford Library] for the staff and patients there.”
It’s smaller than the Battleford library, she says, but every library has a basic set of “blocks” of books that are in a library. There weren’t as many children’s books, of course, although there were some because there were clients who might be at that reading level.
When her friend moved into the therapies department of the hospital, leaving the library position open, the Lakeland Library region offered the job to Rita.
After about three years, Lakeland also invited her to become a substitute librarian at the Battleford Library. She would be able to work more hours as there were only so many available at SHNB.
Eventually, Battleford’s librarian moved to a position in Lakeland’s regional office, and Rita took over.
“I juggled the hours here and the hours there,” she says, allowing for the drive time between the two places. She’d been with the SHNB library for 12 years when she decided she would let that position go.
“I just felt, ,I’m going to take some of the stress off and just concentrate on the one,’” she says.
Rita says her favourite part of being librarian is the reward of helping people find something that they need or getting them assistance in their search.
What’s made a big change is how things are available now across the province, she says.
“There’s no end of what they could get.”
She adds, “You learn from them as well … It’s neat.”
Sometimes she would ask ‘What are you looking for?’ and they would end up teaching her something new, or introduce her to a new subject or author, just as she might do for them.
She particularly enjoys seeing the children using the library advance in their skills. The library has a story time program, she says, and it’s nice to see those kids coming back as they grow.
Librarians are in charge of programs like story hours for children as well as adults.
“Gardening to scrapbooking, to card making or whatever they were interested in,” says Rita. “If you thought you would have enough you could plan a program and offer it to them.”
As a librarian, you know what comes across the counter, what the people in the area are interested in, so you bring those materials in and offer programs they might like, she says
The library has also worked with the local schools to have authors visit there or to have school children come into the library to see an author or take part in projects.
“We did Culture Days at the end of September and had a lady from Edam, an artist, and we did origami fish from old library magazines.”
They had Grade 7 children in for the art and recycling project and they hung the fish in the window to make an aquarium display.
Sometimes there may be two or three events in a week, says Rita, but it doesn’t always work out like that.
They might bring a school class in, do a tour of the library and do a craft.
“Kids always enjoy that sort of thing,” she says.
She adds, however, they don’t see too many teenagers.
“They are scarce in the library,” she says. “You have either the avid reader or nobody.”
Of course, she notes, the teenagers of the community are mostly attending school in North Battleford.
“This library in our town, it’s right beside the post office so we get a lot of seniors because they go for their mail.”
She says, “That’s where this library has a difference. We have seniors and we have young families. Battleford is growing.”
Among the seniors they have regulars.
“Some of them you know they are going to be in on Monday, some of them know what day the block comes in, and what time their books will be ready.”
Rita is glad she has been able to use the skills she learned at business school, but she’s also experienced a vast change in technology used by librarians.
“I had an electric typewriter when I started,” she says.
When she started working at the Battleford Library, there were computers for the public to use but they had only been there a few years by that time.
“People come and use them for different things, resumés, research, quick emails, pictures, so you are always learning,” says Rita.
Nowadays, everything is computerized, and she enjoys watching library patrons learning how to use the new technology available.
“We had a young student who would come to the library regularly after school. He learned to put his own holds on – he’s an avid reader – then he taught his cousin how to put holds on. It was fun watching everybody learn.”
She says it’s been interesting seeing the changes, and there’s more coming.
“Technology is moving so fast it’s hard to keep up.”
Though she plans to retire, she’s not giving up on new technology. She plans to spend time on her own computer.
“Oh, yeah, it’s just part of life. My sons use it [on the farm] every day,” says Rita. “Well. I should say the cellphone, it has everything a computer has. You can read a book from it, a magazine from it.”
That shows how technology has changed things, she says.
“We don’t even have to have a large supply of magazines within the library because people can read it on their iPad or iPhones.”
But the new technology doesn’t change everything.
“Some things you have to keep in a library because there are some seniors who don’t want to change because it isn’t an easy switchover.”
There are also those who say, “I have an e-reader but I still like my book,” or “I still like to have my magazine when I have my morning coffee,” she says.
Rita has her own smart phone, but she hasn’t used it as much as she’d like. Upon retirement, that’s one thing she’d like to do. She’d also like to get an iPad.
On the farm, her sons Geoff, Brad and Trevor use computer technology extensively.
“Everything on the farm’s computerized, just about,” she says. “They’re watching their monitors.”
One of her sons has cattle as well and he enters information into his phone as he works with the livestock.
So, while she enjoys getting more involved in technology, she plans also to enjoy spending more time with her farming family, including being at the farm when her grandchildren are dropped off after school.
Their mom works full time, Rita explains, and to date there has always been one of the men around after school, but being there when the school bus arrives will fall more to her now.
Other things will keep her busy as well.
“I’m very involved with the CWL, on their executive for 11 years, and now I will have time maybe to take up my crocheting and sewing again.”
She would also like to find some volunteer work, “just to have connection with other people.”
She plans also to get involved in an exercise program for her own personal well-being. She would like to get involved in something at the CUplex, maybe at the field house or at the pool.
“I think we’re so lucky to have that,” says Rita.
What she won’t miss is the commute to work.
“I live out of town. The drive to work is 25 minutes.”
On a beautiful summer morning, it can be a lovely drive, but in the winter it can be extremely stressful.
Being on the farm is one of the reasons Rita decided not to continue on at the library as a substitute after retiring as the head librarian.
“They asked if wanted to be the sub and I considered that,” she says.
But given the distance from work, and the fact that if they needed a subtitute because of the weather, she wouldn’t be able to make it in either, not to mention that she wouldn’t be available during seeding or harvest, she decided, “I’m just going to take the family time.”
She adds, “As you get older you take some stress out of your life.”
Life on the farm won’t be all down time, however.
“I’ll be busy, but it’s not going to be rushing away to a job and coming home and saying, ‘I have this to get done or that didn’t get done.’”
And there are changes to be addressed.
“The boys are now transitioning getting involved in the farm,” says Rita. “We’re phasing out, they’re phasing in.”
But she and Larry are not planning to move just right yet.
“Some day it will be our sons’ and their families’ and we’ll be doing something different, but right now we are still in that transition period.”
