As everyone knows, creative people really are different! Eleven years ago, a group of creative people bought the abandoned scholasticate on Mission Lake in the lovely Qu'Appelle Valley as a retirement home, craving the independence and respect they had known as productive, working members of society. Throughout retirement, they've maintained creative energy, willpower, humour--”and even a measure of foolhardiness! But now, in their golden years, they are beginning to experience the problems of aging. Is it enough to put an end to their collective dream of self-determination? Not if Allie Dutton can help it!

Kay Parley is no stranger to the creative arts. Though she spent her working years as a secretary, psychiatric nurse and schoolteacher, she also made a serious study of art and always kept it as a hobby. Her claim to fame as a visual artist was when A.Y. Jackson of the Group of Seven purchased her painting of the Weyburn, Saskatchewan curling bonspiel for his private collection. But it was writing that suited her best and, like Allie, she began to publish in church and farm newspapers in 1951. Her community history They Cast A Long Shadow: the Story of Moffat, Saskatchewan is available online at www.ourroots.ca. In 2007, she published Lady with a Lantern, an inside look at the Saskatchewan Hospital in Weyburn at a time when it was named the North American mental hospital making the most progress. Kay currently writes a social commentary column for three Saskatchewan weekly newspapers and makes her home in Regina, SK.

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