From the Prairies to Ontario

It was 1947.

The Second World War had concluded. My father was home from his service in the Canadian Air Force. Canada had the role of trainer of pilots and aircrew for the Allied war effort under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, an agreement signed in December 1939 by Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Dad was one of the aircraft maintenance personnel that prepared aircraft, so he was stationed in Ontario, Vancouver and Skagway, Alaska. He had never shipped overseas.

Following he war my father and mother worked in their home town of Hepburn Saskatchewan but opportunities to advance oneself were absent so they chose the great adventure of moving east, to the golden triangle, the Niagara Peninsula, and specifically St. Catharines, the Garden City. I was four years old.

My parents found a run down wooden shack on Geneva Street in which they could live as they looked for work and settled into this new life. My mom was pregnant. I remember this place being back from the busy road, and consisting of one room, with a curtain pulled over the section where mom’s and dad’s bed was. An out house serviced us. Sunlight shone between the wall boards so before winter, my parents moved into a home owned by my Uncle Ed Willems.

On September 7th 1947 my bother, oops Freudian slip, my brother Murray was born. He was a beautiful looking little guy. It was maddening. He got so much attention. As he grew he had the blond, curly hair and blue eyes. I recall the day of his birth because after sharing with me his good news of a second son, my father took me to Montebello Park and gave me a gift box in which I found a pair of roller skates, the kind that are fastened to shoes with a tightening key. They are also known as quad skates. He sat and watched me for a long time as I skated around the wooden pavilion. The gift was not only celebrative of Murray’s birth but in anticipation of my birthday the following week, September 13th when I turned five years of age.

Montebello Park is located on Ontario Street, in the heart of the downtown area. With an adjacent band shell that still hosts musical concerts today. Montebello Park remains a prominent memory from my childhood and young adult years. On Sunday night my parents would walk with us to sit on a blanket to hear a summer evening concert. Often Mom brought some snacks for us to munch on while we listened. It was in the rose garden of this park that Christine and I and our wedding party had our pictures taken when we began our life together as husband and wife on August 12, 1967.

Pictures
*Dad (Edward)and his first two sons, Ron and Murray
*1910 Montebello Park
*Quad Roller Skates
*Montebello Park Pavillion and Band Stand 2009
*Ron and Murray

Too hot to write

Sorry, the summer heat has fried my output for the past few days!

Yesterday, was the Hottest day ever recorded in Vancouver. It's been like that for days, and is expected to continue.

I'll get back at my memoirs when I cool off.

Ronnie's Baby Years

Number one son. Well, at least I was firstborn of the three sons born to Edward and Tina Unruh. Home was the town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan. My two siblings stole the show when they finally arrived. Pictures reflect that life was simple. The homes were wood frame on the open prairies and before required insulation standards. These photos are part of the inheritance that comes to the sons when the parents are gone after eight or more decades of life. Octogenarians and ninety year olds have seen so much change during their lives and I thought my folks handled all of it well. Dad was in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the first years of my infancy and childhood. World War II waged overseas. I got a lot of attention from mom and from the extended family since I was the only little squirt around at the time. As lean as the economy may have been I had a great looking pram, a wash tub and a tricycle but not much understanding about where I should ride this three-wheeled machine. Here I am in the thick stuff which I have found a good deal of the time in my adult years when I golf. I love seeing my dark haired young mom in these early pictures. My brothers didn’t know her this way because she was prematurely grey by age 30. Yes I know what some might say, that it was me who did that to her during my first five years. The photo with the little dog was taken in Mountain Lake Minnesota during a trip my mother took to see her brother Pete. Her visit was taken during one of my father’s deployments with the RCAF. I had great natural curls didn’t I? For as long as we can remember, mom kept our pressed curls, all three of us, in separate paper envelopes in her dresser drawer.

Ronnie and the Great Sturgeon

How could I know that eventually one day I would live in lower mainland of British Columbia close to the Fraser River where some of the largest Sturgeon fish in the world swim for centuries. Even recently one was caught by a family and brought to the shore for viewing before it was released to swim again. They are distinctive for their elongated bodies, lack of scales, and occasional great size: Sturgeons ranging from 7–12 feet (2-3½ m) in length are common, and some species grow up to 18 feet (5.5 m). Tim Swain caught and released an eleven foot four inch long sturgeon on August 2, 2006 in the waters of the Fraser. If you want an adventure like this, you can contact Cascade Fishing Adventures.

Sturgeon can be eaten. Not everyone wants to try however because most sturgeons are anadromous bottom-feeders. There is concern about the toxicity in the meat.

I don’t think that anyone knew or cared for that matter when I was a boy in Hepburn because people occasionally caught a sturgeon in the Saskatchewan River and it became a celebrated event because it could feed so many if it was a good size. Here I am standing with my Aunt Annie with a reasonably sized fish caught that day. You can see that it’s all I can do to hold my end of this mammoth.

The Milk Horse

Young people will not remember the delivery of milk to individual homes by a horse pulled wagon. I do. In fact I have another true story from my childhood that I converted to an illustrated yarn in my grandchildren’s story book.Here it is.

One day Ronnie's mother asks Ronnie to do her a favour. She needs some bread to make lunches.
Mommy gives Ronnie some money and she tells him to walk to the corner store where he can buy a loaf of bread.
Ronnie is a polite boy and inside the store he says to the storekeeper, "May I have a loaf of bread?"
The storekeeper brings him a loaf of white bread wrapped in plastic. Ronnie gives the man the money, and the man gives Ronnie some money back. Ronnie says, "Thank you," and then he puts the money in his pocket.
He slides the loaf from the counter and says, "Goodbye." He leaves the store and starts to go home.
On the way, he sees the milk wagon. The milkman is carrying milk bottles to some houses.
In front of the milk wagon is a milk horse. The milk horse pulls the milk wagon. While the milkman is gone, the milk horse stands still.
Ronnie looks at the horse. "Hi, horse," says Ronnie. "Are you hungry?" Ronnie thinks the horse looks hungry.
The only thing that Ronnie has to feed the horse is bread. Ronnie opens the loaf of bread and gives the horse a slice of bread. The horse likes it.
Ronnie gives the horse another piece, and another, and another.
Soon, there is only half a loaf of bread. The milkman comes back to the milk wagon. "Bye, bye horse," says Ronnie.
When Ronnie arrives at home, he gives his mother the loaf of bread. Where is the rest of the bread?" she asks. "Did you eat it?"
"Oh no!" Ronnie says. "I didn't eat it."
"Then who did eat it," asks mother.
"The milk horse ate it," says Ronnie.

You Will Be Bagiki

This is one of my childhood stories that I have written for children and illustrated in a small book that was a Christmas gift to my grandchildren. While it is a true story it has been embellished through the years. I recount it here as reliably as I can recall it.

When I was between three and four years of age, my parents, Ed and Tina owned a coffee shop in our home town of Hepburn, Saskatchewan. The year would have been 1945 or 46. The shop fronted on to the Main Street and it had a back door into a laneway. Behind the coffee shop was a well, probably unused and also uncovered. It would certainly hold interest to a boy like me.

As I was peering into the depth of this well a man in a pickup truck passed by in the lane and seeing me, out of concern said to me, “If you fall in that well, you will be bagiki.” Bagiki was a word with which I was unfamiliar and with both the rebuke and the mystery word I ran inside to tell my father what happened and to ask him what bagiki meant. He didn’t know but he assured me with a smile that it wouldn’t be good. My father never forgot that word and as he retold the story through the years, the word became synonymous in family parlance with anything that might be nasty or unpleasant in the extreme.

When I wrote the story, I wasn’t sure how one should spell the word, and when asking family members I received a variety of opinions. For many years I envisioned its spelling as I have recorded it here. BAGIKI. When we presented the gift book, Christine and I also gave each grandchild a T-shirt with the caption, “you will be bagiki.”

Bob Skates

Winter temperatures in Hepburn, Saskatchewan can be as low as -30 to -40°C and wind can make temperatures feel even colder. Skating and Hockey was popular during the days of my early childhood yet these were outdoor sports.

I remember my bobskates. Have you heard of these? If that name is not familiar to you, you will nonetheless have likely seen these convenient attachments that enable a child to learn how to skate on two blades rather than one. I may have been three years old when I pushed my shaky little body around the slippery surface of the outdoor rink close to Main Street and close to my Uncle Harry’s hardware store.

The name bobskate derived from the same word used for bob-sleigh and bobsled. A bob was one of the wooden runners on the sleigh or skate.

A Pink Wedding – My Mom and Dad

It was 1941. The war was on in Europe. Who knew what the future would bring. Mom was in love with Dad. He was the youngest son in a respected church going family. He played hockey and ball on local teams. He completed grade eleven before beginning work at various jobs in the community. Then he owned and operated a gas station, well the one and only gas station in Hepburn. His brother Harry owned the local hardware store. His father was the town Reeve. Dad, Edward by name and known as Eddie, was a debonair man, prematurely bald, with a manicured pencil mustache. He whistled everywhere he walked. Church was not on his priority list. For that reason, when Mom fell for him, the counsel she received was cautious.

Mom had worked ever since she was a teenager. Compelled to work for the sake of the family she had to end school after grade 9. She always regretted this and bore a sense of educational inferiority through her adult years. It was against the general will of the Christian community for her as a committed Christian to marry someone who had not yet settled eternal matters with God as far as anyone knew. Dad and Mom loved each other. He was 26 years of age and Mom was 22. So on June 12, 1941 Edward Unruh and Tina (Doerksen) Willems exchanged wedding vows. Mom couldn’t afford a traditional wedding dress, white and clearly sanctified. She wore pink and she wore a hat. They honeymooned in Saskatoon. They were very happy.

Ed and Tina wasted little time in beginning a family which began with me, firstborn, on Sunday, September 13, 1942. WWII was raging and Hepburn’s inhabitants were primarily Mennonite people with a pacifist position with regard to conflict. They would be exempt as conscientious objectors. Dad was not bound by such religious strictures. My father had already made up his mind that he was a Canadian and he bore responsibility for the nation into which he was born and into which his child was born. Against the predictable community behaviour he and a handful of young townsmen enlisted. Dad joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and Mom became a war bride who would spend much of the next years on her own. Dad was never shipped overseas. When he was sent to Gananoque, Ontario, Mom was able to accompany him. When he was sent to White Horse for an extended time, she felt his absence. They would remain in love and together for 66 years.

Photos:
• Mom in her wedding dress and hat June 12, 1941
• Mom and me in the Hepburn Central Office and residence where mom and dad operated the switchboard.

Grandpa Unruh – Cornelius K. Unruh

Only a few recollections of Grandpa remain to me from my early years, but I do recall as a four year old, riding along with Grandpa in the pickup truck to deliver a barrel of kerosene to a farm. I recall 73 year old Grandpa hoisting the barrel and placing it on the bed of the truck. We drove to the Saskatchewan River where Grandpa drove the truck aboard a ferry boat. Once on the other side Grandpa piloted the truck to the farm where Grandpa lifted the barrel and set it on the ground. On the way home, we stopped at a small store and Grandpa bought an ice cream cone for each of us. I remember his large hands with which he handed me my cone and with the other tussled my blond hair. I had no idea then about my Grandpa’s life.

My paternal grandpa’s name was Cornelius Kornelius Unruh. He was born on May 2, 1873 and he lived in Timirbilat (now Razdalnoye), Crimea. According to custom his middle name Kornelius, was the same as his father’s first name, whose entire handle incidentally was Kornelius Kornelius. Cornelius K. Unruh was one of three of the Unruh siblings to emigrate from Soviet controlled Crimea. When Stalinism became violent against Mennonites, the other four family members were almost certainly taken to Siberian labour camps.

In 1893 at age 20, Cornelius Unruh emigrated with his older sister Aganetha (Agnes) and her husband (Henry Kroeker) and lived in South Dakota for three years. There he met and married Katherine Loewen of the Jacob Loewen family and they lived in a log cabin with a dirt floor which was regularly swept and kept smooth. Their daughter Annie was born in Marion, South Dakota. They moved to Harney, North Dakota for seven years. C.K. Unruh as he was known or simply C.K., at the age of 30, purchased for the price of $10.00, a ¼ section of land northeast of Hepburn, Saskatchewan. His sister Annie and her husband homesteaded in Herbert, Saskatchewan. All three of his sons, Neale (Cornelius), Harry, and Edward were born on the Hepburn farm. Edward my father, was born when C.K. was forty-two and he was 69 years of age by the time I arrived.

CK was well known as a farmer, then a school board trustee, a Reeve, an active churchman, International Harvester agent, Hardware store owner, an auctioneer, a hail adjuster for the province of Saskatchewan and later a helper in Harry’s (his middle son) hardware store (delivering Kerosene among other things). He was on the original Mennonite Central Committee and on the committee that sponsored Russian Mennonites to emigrate to Canada. In 1927 the Unruhs moved into town and also took time to travel to South Dakota to visit Grandma’s sister Marie (nee Unruh) Kunkel as well as her brother Jacob in Kansas. Two of their children predeceased them, Harry age 40 in 1948 and Annie also in 1948 at the age of 49.

In August 1955 Grandpa and Grandma sold all of their belongings and moved into a single bedroom in my parents’ house in St. Catharines, Ontario. I was thirteen and I recall my surprise at his appearance. His posture was bent and this large barrel-chested man was bent short with huge arthritic knees visible through his trousers. His hands trembled much of the time, even to feed himself. Grandma was diabetic and required a daily injection which he was in the custom of administering with his shaky hand. Grandma lived with us for sixteen months and died of a heart attack on December 14, 1957 at the age of 83. I pulled my pillow over my head to subdue the sound of the old man’s agony as he cried, “Oh my Tina, my Tina!” On May 16, 1959 he passed away at age 86.

Photos:
1. Grandpa Unruh, me (Ronnie), and Dad (Edward) outside the Saskatoon railroad station. My father was 5’6” and Grandpa was noticeably taller. This was the occasion when my father and mother made the move off of the Prairies to settle in Ontario, probably 1947.
2. The Unruh men. From the right is my Uncle Neale (arrived from B.C.), my brother Murray (5 yrs younger than I), my brother Neale (11 yrs younger), and my father Edward.

Low German Language, Grandma and Sugar Bread

I understand the unique dialect known as Plautdietsch, otherwise known as Low German. It is my lifelong regret that I cannot speak it. Here is how this came to be.

I knew her in the formative years of my childhood, my father’s mother, Katrina Loewen, my Grandma Unruh. We lived in the prairie town of Hepburn. Grandma and Grandpa lived in town having moved from their farm years earlier. They were now in their seventies. I surprise myself with the clarity of my recollection of that small house. During those years when I was three and four I was at her house a lot. My parents ran a coffee shop on the town’s main street. Inside Grandma’s back door one entered the kitchen which had a large wood burning stove. There was a small pantry on the right in which Grandma kept her jars of preserves, jams and much more. All of this was done during summer months in preparation for the long severe winters. I remember particularly the large Mason jars with white cooked chicken preserved in liquid. In the depth of winter this meat would be baked or roasted and one would never know it had spent so much time swimming in its Mason aquarium.

When I was at her home we talked together. She spoke the Low German dialect that all the townspeople spoke and she required that I speak to her in English. She wanted desperately to learn how to speak the dominant language in Canada long before mandated French/English bilingualism. While I liked anything Grandma Unruh made for me, I was a sucker for home baked bread with butter and white sugar sprinkled on top. She could keep me there for hours. As I fed my sweet tooth I heard and learned Plautdietsch but I never spoke it. Years later when I was twelve and thirteen, Grandma and Grandpa left their Hepburn home to live with us in Ontario. They were in their eighties then and Grandma still did not speak English.

What a privilege to have a second language, even one as uniquely peasant and appealing as Low German. No translation does justice to some of the nuances of this language when telling stories and sharing jokes.

Mennonite communities settled in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada using Low German in their religious services and communities. These people were largely ethnic Germans whose ancestors moved to newly acquired Russian territories in Ukraine before emigrating eventually to the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The type of Low German spoken in these communities and in the Midwest region of the United States has diverged since emigration. The survival of the language is tenuous in many places and has died out in some places where assimilation has occurred.

If you are interested:
* A Learning to Speak Plautdietsch Site:
* A Low German Grammar is a very helpful site
* Listen to a podcast called plautcast http://www.plautcast.com/
* Historical Society Site
* Elmer Reimer has produced a Plautdietsch New Testament in both written and spoken form, and both are available on the internet and the Biblegateway site and can be used simultaneously.
* Canada’s only low German radio station