A lasting legacy remains on display through a colourful mural to honour the life of well-respected local man.
Twenty years ago, Ed Barnes died in a tragic accident that sent ripples of grief through the community. In his memory, a mural was painted in Stonewall on the north elevation of the building at 380 Main St., and it remains there to this day.
Ed and Barbara Barnes grew up in Ashern and married in 1967. Five years later, they moved to Stonewall when their son Sean was starting kindergarten and daughter Shannon was still in diapers. Ed travelled to Resolute Bay in the Northwest Territories, as well as Ottawa and Saskatoon, to train to be an air traffic controller before landing a position in Winnipeg and settling in Stonewall.
“My father was very involved in the community from minor hockey, curling, the Kinsmen Club and eventually serving on town council for eight years and was deputy mayor. He was instrumental in the creation of Quarry Park and the interpretive centre. This was something that he was very proud of,” Sean said.
“My father was an entrepreneur and started several small businesses including Frosty’s and the Village Bake Shop. He acquired the highways building, which eventually became Quarry Furnishings and now Talbots, where the mural was located decades ago — so long, in fact, that we had difficulty finding the records of the original purchase after my mother passed away in 2024.”
Over time, when Sean and Shannon moved out, Ed and Barbara moved from their home on 9th Avenue South, adjacent to 5th Avenue and Highway 67, to an acreage on Winfield Road as empty-nesters.
“My parents loved to travel and had an RV, and my father was an avid fisherman. He also dabbled in landscaping and land development to keep himself occupied,” Sean said.
“He retired as an air traffic controller and decided to learn how to drive a big rig truck so that he could travel and get paid for it in retirement. He built a pre-engineered storage building on his property to hold all of his toys and equipment.”
On April 25, 2005, Ed was supervising the construction of his storage building with trailer loads of gravel being delivered for the base. He was 58 years old at the time.
“While a trailer was lifting a load to dump, it was partially frozen and tipped over unbalanced, landing on top of him. He had just retired and it was a horrific time in our family history. He had so much more to live for and planned to do. His funeral had to be held in the old arena, and it really showed us how much dad meant to the community,” said Sean, who is now 59.
“A year or two after my father’s passing, my mother Barb decided to commission a mural on the side of the Quarry Furnishings building at 380 Main St. to celebrate the life of my late father and highlight some of the things that he loved. The artist is Jennifer Mosienko from Winnipeg and she did a great job.”
The artist sat down with Barbara to learn Ed’s story and worked with her to create a mural that depicted the things that were important to him — community, family and friendship.
“My dad absolutely loved Lake of the Woods. They had a houseboat on the lake that they shared with two other families in Stonewall. In the mural is a rear-facing Ed looking over the lake at his houseboat. He would get up early in the mornings and follow the totem lodge boats to their fishing spots and highlight them on a map to check out later. I have that map to this day,” he said.
“Quarry Park is prominently featured in the mural, along with Kinsmen Lake. The two kids playing in the sand are my children — Ed and Barb’s grandchildren — Mitchell and Kendall, who are adults now. The dogs in the picture were my late sister Shannon’s dogs, which my mother adored. The hospital was built while my dad was a councillor, and the curling club renovated. The other building is the pet shop building, which my parents owned for many years on Main Street.”
When the family sold the building at 380 Main St., Sean offered to maintain the mural at his own cost in the hopes that it would remain a part of the townscape.
“My parents loved Stonewall. They were very active socially in town, and I have so many memories of their friends coming by the house or all of us visiting others in town. I stay in touch with many of my parents’ friends to this day, which means a great deal to me. My dad was a friend to so many people in the community,” Sean said.
“He had a great sense of humour and a strong engagement to contribute to the success of his community. I am proud to be an Interlaker — and an Interlaker from Stonewall. And I get that from my parents. It’s part of what defines a person — our hometown and the people within it. My parents grew up in Ashern, moved to Stonewall in their early 20s and never left.”
