Local and visiting Masons help to serve ice cream to people attending the 2018 Canada Day celebration at the Kindersley & District Plains Museum. Left to right, Don Krogstad from the Kindersley Masonic Lodge, Telford Ransome, a Mason from Hinton, Alta., Dennis Schoeler and Dan Gerle of the Kindersley Lodge.
Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
The Kindersley Masonic Lodge has more than 100 years of history and the local fraternal organization continues to stay active within the community.
There are several ways to support a community, and joining a service club or fraternal organization is one way to give back. Membership is down for most service clubs, so people could help by joining their local clubs or organizations if they have the time to spare.
Service clubs have done a lot for their communities and several smaller communities would not have different events or amenities without their clubs. Local clubs and organizations are being featured over a series of articles.
Don Krogstad, a past master and secretary of the Kindersley Lodge and past district deputy grand master, said the lodge is part of a district that includes lodges across the southwest part of Saskatchewan. He said the Kindersley Masonic Lodge was first established in 1911 and the lodge received its charter in 1912.
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A member of the Kindersley Masonic Lodge, brings out the haggis for the Robbie Burns Supper held by the local Masons in 2010.
He noted that the Masonic Lodge has various concordant bodies such as the Order of the Eastern Star and Shriners International. The Shriners help to run hospitals in North America and Masonic lodges are able to access services due to their affiliation with The Shriners.
All lodges in the province are part of the Grand Lodge of Saskatchewan. Krogstad, who has been a Mason since 1999, said the provincial grand lodge is an affiliate of the Grand Lodge of Canada, but the national body does not have much to do local lodges. The national lodge is a concordant body of the provincial lodges, but local lodges are most closely affiliated with the provincial bodies.
Masons are able to become Shriners if they complete certain steps of an initiation process. Within a lodge, members start out as Masons and they have an opportunity to move through the chairs of office to become Junior Warden, Senior Warden and Worshipful Master.
Krogstad said there are about 13 different officer positions for lodge members to get through. While he has not been a Mason as long as other people, he said he has been very active in his roles with the Kindersley Lodge.
“You don’t always have to go through all those chairs,” he said, recognizing that the Masons had to go through all the chairs at one time to become Worshipful Master and it would take about 12 years to get there. “Now it can be shorter. You can skip a chair or two as long as you can do the required things in each level.”
He said he looked at other groups such as the Elks Lodge and Kinsmen Club before he became a Mason, but the Masonic Lodge is a different type of organization. He noted that the Masons are not a service club. The Masons are a fraternal organization.
It was pointed out by Krogstad that the Masonic Lodge does not do the same types of things as a standard service organization, but the lodge still helps out at the community level. He said members of the club often support Shriners hospitals.
People who have special medical needs and require special care could be assisted through a Masonic Lodge. Krogstad said a local woman whose grandchild lives in another province came to the Masons to inquire about help because the grandchild needs special care and the family could not afford it. He said the local lodge put the family in touch with the Shriners in that area and “they took care of just about everything including sending the child and its mother to the United States to a special clinic.”
The needs of the child were assessed at the clinic. The child’s care program was improved and the clinic helped by providing special ramps for the family’s home. To become a Shriner, a person has to first be a Mason, Krogstad said.
He noted that several other lodges in the Kindersley area had amalgamated with the local lodge throughout the years. Lodges in Alsask, Eatonia, Eston, Kelfield, Kerrobert, Loverna and Plenty have all amalgamated with Kindersley.
The Kindersley Lodge has welcomed three new members in recent times. There is a process for initiation and he said the lodge is open to new members. Lodges are not religious, he said. Freemasonry helps people to learn and grow as individuals and it is a quiet way to give back.
“In our literature, we put out a thing that says we take good men and make them better,” Krogstad said, recognizing that it is a bit of a motto for the organization. “You can take just about anybody and make a good Mason.”
Krogstad said Freemasonry is not for everyone, but it is for some. The local lodge has 54 members with about 25 to 30 active members. The lodge is a partner in the Kindersley Community Service Group including the Elks Lodge, Rotary Club and the Kindersley Legion.
If people would like to become a Mason, they must first fill out an application and there are a couple of important questions to answer. If the answers are satisfactory, the person is provided with more information and given a tour of the Masonic Lodge. The lodge’s building is able to be rented out by groups.
The local lodge meets on the first Thursday of each month except in July and August. Krogstad said an application process helps to make sure people are “truly interested in what we’re doing.” Anyone is welcome to apply.
He noted that the lodge provides annual scholarships to graduating students in Kindersley, Marengo, Eston and Eatonia. The lodge also sends youth to summer camp, provides funds to the community’s mobility bus and serves ice cream on Canada Day.
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