Hometown Dreams: Alberta Hotel Cafe: Women Looking for a Friend

Oil on canvas

 An increasing level of interest in both personal and social memory has resulted in an investigation of the past history and memories of that part of Alberta within which I was raised.   If the railroad built a station in any small Alberta town, one would also find not far away, a hotel.   The Alberta Hotel, café and bar served my small Central Alberta community for nearly a century.  Friends would meet for coffee or a perogie dinner.  The bar was filled every night.  Itinerant workers rented hotel rooms by the week. The painting "Alberta Hotel Café: Woman Looking for a Friend" depicts the Café crowd on any given day.  The hotel was destroyed by fire not long ago.