DAD KEPT HIS PROMISE TO HER

Not coached like me to sermonize

My father spoke the finest

Words, summoned from his life with her,

She lay unable now to answer, not needing to

He knew, and he intuited his time was short,

So aptly and prophetically he spoke his love,

His promise took our breaths away,

We, his loved ones in support

Now needing some assistance

As he kissed her still cold face and said,

"I'll see you soon sweetheart."

Six months passed and he content

With children and grandchildren

And he with life well lived and nothing more to keep him

Woke where his promise was fulfilled

And where his Maker's promise led.

© Ron Unruh, January 2019

Tina Martha Unruh died in November 2007 after 66 yrs of marriage to Edward Richard Unruh who slipped away on the 1st of May 2008.

THE UNRUH FAMILY REUNION 2017

Here is the Unruh Family Reunion crew on Monday August 14th near St. Catharines Ontario, together for the first time in very many years. This group blessed Christine and me with observance of our 50th Wedding Anniversary, and a prayer of thanks for our parents, their sons and daughters in laws and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A once in a lifetime event I think. So grateful for the hospitality shown to the eleven of us from B.C.

My parents’ gravestone tells us that they were sweethearts for 67 years. Importantly, the caption that my brother Murray and I agreed upon to summarize our family heritage is ‘A LEGACY OF FAITH - A FAMILY SERVING GOD’.

This gathering was special to us, an unrepeatable event. Many changes lie ahead during the next five years. I am glad for the legacy.

MY MOM’S BIRTHDAY JUNE 4

My mom, Tina Martha Doerksen, was born in rural Montana on June 4, 1919 at the end of WWI. She lived 88 years and passed away in November 2007. During her last five years dementia obscured her clarity and memory. As a boy, adolescent and young adult I appreciated my mother for all the customary reasons within happy families. My reasons for missing her today are explained by her history that I understood later in my life. An illness claimed her homesteading father's life when she was two years old and her sibling brother Peter was four. With her two children, her mother Marie emigrated to Saskatchewan and soon married Abram Willems who had been recently widowed and left with the care of his six children. It was a marriage of mutual convenience. Over time, this couple had five more children. Farming small acreage was a grim way to support a large family. My mom was able to go to school as far as grade 9 after which she had to find work, house keeping and childcare to farming families. She met and married Edward Richard Unruh, the youngest of four children. She was then 22 and he 26. I was her firstborn in 1942 and very soon as WWII involved Commonwealth countries, my Dad was enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. When the war ended, Mom and Dad made the decision to move to St. Catharines, Ontario where factory jobs were available and where many Mennonite friends and some family members already lived. Mom bore two more sons, Murray in 1947 and Neale in 1953. She lost twin girls years later when I was in my early teens. Dad's employment as an assembly line worker required my mother's supplementary labour at anything that paid. In the early years she was a housekeeper, and a seamstress. She made costumes each year for the St. Catharines Figure Skating Club. In time she became known for her cooking and from that developed a business, catering to small and large gatherings, serving coffee and baked goods daily at the Ontario Paper Mill Home Office, managing food services at Fair Havens Conference and Camp in summers. She assembled her recipes and published a cook book. She was always a woman of faith, and over time became respected and valued as a leader. She was humbled and amazed that she, with her grade 9 education was given responsibility to speak publicly and to lead a province wide women's organization for her church denomination. My mind still sees her distinctive handwriting with which she wrote her notes and letters and recipes. I would like to write this to her today, "Well done Mom. I love you."

EDWARD RICHARD UNRUH DIED MAY 1, 2008

May 1st is the anniversary of my Dad's death. I cannot own him by myself. We are three sons of Edward Richard Unruh. Our father passed away on May 1, 2008.

Murray, Neale and I will remember him with pleasure today. Such a good man, a gentle man he was. Faithful, constant, loving in a reserved manner appropriate to his generation I suppose. Through the years, even as he aged, he seemed enduring, unchanging, always there when I visited, or Neale visited or when Murray regularly took him for a coffee at Horton's. Murray and Diane know our lasting gratitude for their years of loving care. Even during the last years when Mom's dementia required her care in a nursing facility, Dad remained in his apartment, looking after most of his own needs. And then he was gone, quietly, peacefully.

Like millions of other men, Dad distinguished himself, as son, a husband, and a father. I would like you to know him. He was born the last of four children to Cornelius K. Unruh and his wife Katherine. His childhood home was the prairie town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan, where he acquired a grade eleven education. Then he began to work at numerous jobs. Edward, fell in love with Tina Martha (Doerksen) Willems, four years younger than himself. Willems was her step family surname. Doerksen was on her birth certificate from Montana where her birth father Isaac Doerksen died when she was two years of age. Their love took them happily through 66 years until Mom passed away. In his twenties he owned and operated a 'filling' station as it was called (gas station). Together, Mom And Dad set up a coffee shop on the main street. Then WWII happened and Dad enlisted in the Canadian Air Force, which was an exceptional act in a town of Mennonite pacifists. He was an airplane mechanic. When the war was over, they looked at the future for their family, measured employment options, and the many factory jobs in Ontario seemed attractive. Dad, Mom and me at age four, moved to St. Catharines. Dad worked for Thompson Products, Ontario Paper Mill and finally Anthes Imperial, where he remained for over forty years. Anthes built furnaces and dad worked in the heat of the foundry, in the cab of an aerial crane, and then for decades on the assembly line. He often came home exhausted. He would clean up and settle down with his newspaper, sometimes draped over his face as he napped on the sofa. His work ethic was a commendable model for his three boys. Well into our own manhood, one day we asked him why he stayed at such difficult work for so long. A six-word reply revealed the man. “I did it for my boys.”

He purchased a family home before he turned forty years of age. He took his family to a rented cottage for summer vacations. He took us for Sunday afternoon car rides. He sang with us. He yodeled. He was proud of us. He loved our Mother. When we married, his love for our brides gave them a strong sense of comfort in an extended family. He trusted in God, and he supported all three of us as we took on Christian service vocations.

Dad never took a leadership position at church. If he was asked to be on committees or boards he declined. He knew his strengths and limitations. He enjoyed serving but the service had to be in the areas of comfort and competence. Smart man. Private man. Honorable man.

In November 2007, our Mom passed away. The night before the memorial service as our family stood together at her coffin, Dad said, "Goodnight sweetheart, I'll see you soon." His loss was profound, we are sure of that. Yet Dad was stoic. Mom had been ill for several years and it was time for her to go. Perhaps a man knows when it is his time as well. One evening six months later, he enjoyed a dinner at Murray and Diane's home. Beth and Eric were there, as were their daughters Selah and Karis. After the meal Murray drove him home. Before bed, a nurse arrived to dispense medication but found Dad lying on the floor. With no evident bruises, it was supposed that he felt unwell and was heading for the couch, but lay down on the rug and died there.

A 2014 TRIBUTE TO MOM UNRUH for MOTHER'S DAY

on her wedding day, in pink

Mom was born Tina Martha Doerksen, the second of two children to Isaac and Marie Doerksen. Her brother Peter (Pete) was two years older. They were small children when 29-year-old Isaac died on their acreage in Montana, to which they had moved from Minnesota. For a reason unknown to descendants, Grandma Doerksen moved to Saskatchewan where she met and married Abram Willems, a recent widower with six children. My mom was now a stepchild to Mr. Willems. Marie bore five more children to Abram and her hands and her life was full of responsibility. The initial Willems six had loved their birth mom and it was difficult to acquire affection for this stand-in mom. At age 17 Pete, left the farm and travelled back to Minnesota and distant family. Losing him hurt mom deeply. This was post WW1 and Pre-WW2 Prairie life, lean, meager, subsistence living. Mom managed to stay in school until grade 9 when she had to go to work, gardening, housecleaning, anything for a tiny stipend. She was a baptized believer, a churchgoer, a choir member, a good lady, very attractive with long dark hair. There were early family incidents, secrets about which she never spoke.

Ed Unruh noticed her when she was 19 and she agreed to marry him when she was 22. He was 26, a very good man, but he also was not a Christian. In the Mennonite community of Hepburn Sk., that relationship was forbidden. She could not be married in the church, and she could not wear a white gown. Those were the graceless cultural rules. Had anyone asked Ed why he was not a child of faith, they would have learned that he didn’t understand mercy and forgiveness. His parents were god-fearing people, and he saw his mother go daily into the barn, bow on her knees in prayer, and he concluded that he did not qualify and could not live up to such devotion. He liked jazz and dance music and an occasional cigarette and a bottle of beer.

But Dad loved his country Canada, and when war broke out, he enlisted in the RCAF, another dissident act in a pacifist community. And Mom gave him up for those war years as she nursed me. I saw him occasionally. She and I travelled with him to Gananoque for one of his postings but then he was shipped to White Horse, Alaska and mom and I were back in Hepburn. In post war years, mom and dad ran their own coffee shop and gas station, made the decision to move to Ontario and dad began working in factories. Mom bore Murray, five years my junior and much later Neale, eleven years younger than I. During those early years, my mother contributed to the family income by sewing clothes for others, costumes for the Ice Skating company, some house cleaning for others, and cooking special meals when commissioned. She developed this into a remarkable home-based catering business and was in demand by wealthy families to serve up delicious custom ordered dinners for many people. Part of her Christian service was head chef at Fair Havens Conference Grounds for many summers. Eventually Mom landed a role with Ontario Paper Mill Head Office to prepare lunches and coffee break snacks. She assembled her recipes to produce a cookbook for which Neale and I provided graphics, and she printed 1000 copies, all of them gone quickly.

During her primary working years the 117 pound young women became a hefty 185 with arms like Hulk Hogan, and then in retirement and following a drastic emergency surgery, she became petite once again. For some early years she questioned herself because she had married a non-Christian, but Dad at age 37 put his trust in Christ. All three of her sons grew up to become involved in Christian work. Her supreme surprise and satisfaction came from recognition of her leadership skills by other women and their investment of confidence by electing her to President of a Christian women’s organization. For several years she wrote monthly articles and marvelled that a grade nine grad could have accomplished this.

She lived until November 2007 when she was 88 years of age, her last years being difficult until her mind could not recognize her predicament any longer. She is in paradise now, as surely as when Jesus spoke to a convicted felon impaled beside him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” If true for him, then certainly for her.

JUNE 4 IS MOM'S BIRTHDAY

On this fourth of June, I am on a return flight from Toronto to Vancouver having been away for five weeks. We have been in Wales and England honouring my wife Christine as she celebrates her seventy years.

As I fly I am remembering my mother Tina, for whom this day was a birthday. She lived to celebrate 88 of those birthdays and she has been away from her family since November 2007.

We miss her still yet time passes quickly enough that the blurring of memories occurs in spite of our desire to remember. It is photographic images that arouse the recall.

What an interesting woman Mom was. Born in Saskatchewan in a farming community, living in Waldheim and Hepburn, she had a grade nine education and she began to work hard at an early age. She was industrious from the start, knowing how to sew, how to bake and to cook. She did unskilled work, clerking and switchboard operator. She married Edward Richard Unruh, but soon their lives were interrupted by WWII and my father’s enlistment into the Royal Canadian Air Force. The post war years began with them teaming to start and to run a Coffee Shop in Hepburn. Soon however, Dad felt that opportunity for employment and a future existed in Ontario and the family, Dad, me, and a pregnant Mom moved to St. Catharines ON.

YES IT'S MAY 1 - FIVE YEARS AGO MY DAD DIED

The first of May is May Day.
May 1st is observed around the world in different countries and cultures by an assortment of customs.

I learned one of the most touching expressions when I visited France in 2009. Here it is. It was in France on May 1st, 1561, that French King Charles IX of France received a lily of the valley as a lucky charm. He decided to offer a lily of the valley each year to the ladies of his court.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it became customary on the 1st of May, to give a sprig of lily of the valley as a symbol of springtime. The French government permits individuals and workers' organizations to sell them free of taxation. It is also traditional for the lady receiving the spray of lily of valley to give a kiss in return. I was present on the occasion of this photo, and I saw them kiss that night.

In western countries May Day is synonymous with International Workers' Day, which celebrates the social and economic achievements of the labour movement. As a day of celebration the holiday has ancient origins, and it can relate to many customs that have survived into modern times. Many of these customs are due to May Day being a cross-quarter day, meaning that (in the Northern Hemisphere where it is almost exclusively celebrated) it falls approximately halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. See Wikipedia entry for May Day.

However, for me personally, May 1st is poignantly remembered as the anniversary of my father's death at the age of 93. This year 2013 it a fifth anniversary of what our family views as His home-going. Most importantly that sentiment bears upon his faith in God having prepared a home for him. Yet there is also the awareness that when he died, it was just six months after his sweetheart's passing. Tina Martha passed away in November and with his family standing with him he kissed her face as she lay in her casket and said, "Goodnight sweetheart, I'll see you soon." He lived six months, perhaps lonesome at times, and yet enjoying the life that he had. On the evening that he slipped away, he had supper with my brother and sister in law, Murray and Diane, and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Murray drove him home. There was evidence that he had washed a few dishes in his apartment. Toward bedtime, a staff person in the assisted living unit, came by with meds, and when he didn't answer the doorbell she unlocked the door and upon entering found that he was lying on the living room rug. He was gone. Without any bruising on his body, it was assumed that he had not fallen but feeling unwell and unable to make it to the couch, he lay down on the floor. And Edward Richard Unruh went home. I loved them both very much.