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STELLA MARIE WALLBRIDGE
Stella Marie Flamand was born in 1932 in Winnipeg. Her family on both sides were from Woodridge, Manitoba where she grew up. Her family, like many, many families in the west in the mid-twentieth century, were Metis but this was never really discussed. Yet Stella’s third great-grandfather, Joseph Huppe, was employed by the Northwest Company at Souris, and in 1816 was a combatant defending the rights of the Metis Nation at the Battle of Seven Oaks, or as it is known in French and Michif, la Bataille de la Grenouilliere.
She was the first of thirteen children born to her mother Isabelle Emily Marguerite Badder and father Alexander Laurent Flamand. As a young girl she took on many responsibilities helping to raise her brothers and sisters.
Stella moved into Winnipeg at age 17 and started work in the kitchen at the Winnipeg General Hospital. Within a few months the flood of 1950 submerged Winnipeg. During the flood there was a dance at the Normandy Ball Room (on Sherbrook, between Portage and Notre Dame) where she met Ross Frank Wallbridge, a soldier based in Shilo, Manitoba who was in Winnipeg assisting with the flood. They married on September 5, 1950.
Throughout her life Stella liked to dance. The family recalls dances in the basement at 401 Stella in Winnipeg’s North End. (We sometimes wondered if the name of the street was a factor in our parents deciding to rent that particular house.) Having two or three groups of three dancers, with their arms over each others’ shoulders doing the schottische, the step-step-step-hop dance made for a pretty lively time. Stella and Ross were involved in square dancing for many years. And for a time Stella was into belly dancing.
Stella had five children, Connie (John Lachnit), Harold (Gayle Arnel), Janet, Garth (Pat Moore) and Susanne (later called Angela). There are many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ross was transferred a few times in his military career so Stella lived in Gagetown, New Brunswick, Valcartier, Quebec (where the French language she grew up speaking was of real value) and lastly in Winnipeg. While living in Quebec Stella was aghast when she saw the mafia proudly displaying their name on big office buildings! We discovered that “Syndicate”, as was shown on big signs on some buildings simply meant they were union owned buildings, not the syndicate from Sicily.
Stella was Hell on wheels. Once when she was driving on a super-highway in the USA, Ross, in the front passenger seat, awoke from a nap, and realized how fast she was driving, a little over a hundred miles an hour! He gently suggested she might want to slow down a bit. Another time while living in Quebec, with all of the family in a station wagon, and not a seat belt in sight, she lost control on a gravel road. Down a steep bank she went, in shock no doubt, through a barb wire fence, cranked the steering wheel, gas pedal still all the way down, around a telephone pole, back through the fence, up the steep bank and screeched to a stop on the gravel road. Ross took over. As we kids got older and got our own drivers’ licenses we most often drove her, not the other way around.
Ross predeceased Stella, passing in 2009. For the last few years of his life he lived in a care home in St. Vital and mom lived in an apartment in the same facility. Through many trials and tribulations their marriage survived and the family held a wonderful 50 wedding anniversary party for them in the year 2000.
The family wishes to express our deep appreciation to the nurses and staff at Actionmarguerite St. Vital over these last many years for the care they provided to Stella.
A memorial service will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday May 6, 2026, at St. Bernadette Parish, 820 Cottonwood Road.
As published in Winnipeg Free Press on May 02, 2026
