Interview with Geraldine (Dukart) Keen (GK), Part I

Dakota Memories Oral History Project Revised: 28 October 2009 Interview with Geraldine (Dukart) Keen (GK), Part I Conducted by Jessica Clark (JC) 22 July 2006, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Transcription by Michael Boechler, PhD Edited by Paige Sepin, Jessica Clark and Kendra Thompson It is July 22, 2006, I m Jessica Clark. It is a pleasure to conduct this interview for the Dakota Memories Oral History Project in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. To start with, can you state your full name? Geraldine Marie Keen. And what is your maiden name? Dukart. Where were you born? I was born in Allan, Saskatchewan, on my grandfather s homestead. Do you know any interesting stories about your birth? Well, I know I was born in my grandmother s house, delivered by a country doctor. Other than that, I don t know. My grandmother was the midwife. When were you born? I was born April the 30, 1938. Can you tell me some of your earliest childhood memories? Oh, I remember I grew up south of Bradwell, Saskatchewan; that s where my mom and dad lived. And I know it was just a little house on the prairie, and it 1

was, you know, a very sandy yard, not too many trees. I was born in the thirties, which was during the depression, so you had a lot of warm, hot weather. My mother said it was a year where there was not much of a crop because it was at the time of the Great Depression. And that s where all my brothers and sisters lived too. We d go to my grandmother s a lot, which was of course where the potash mine was, and I remember staying at her place a lot of the times. She d look after us while our parents would visit people family relatives they d go to places like Regina and Vibank to visit my mother s sisters. She had four sisters and they were all four nuns. I remember staying with my grandmother when my parents went to church sometimes in the winter. The only way they could get to church was to go to church with the horse and sleigh, so they d go and stay at grandma s house and they d go to church and they d come back and we d stay overnight at grandma s and then go home because it was a ten mile trip, back and forth. In the wintertime the roads were not like they are nowadays, so we were snowbound a lot. I lived down there until I was seven years old because they closed the local school, so we had to move to a different place. So my dad bought a farm near Bradwell, and then we moved up there and I started school in Bradwell, and that s where the rest of my brothers and sisters went to school (laughs). It s pretty hard remembering everything, you know. I had two sisters and three brothers. My two younger brothers were a lot younger than I was. My brother and sister were both born on the farm in Bradwell, and my other sister was born in Saskatoon. She was the first one to be born in a hospital. You were the oldest, if I remember right. Yeah, I m the oldest and I had a sister one year younger and a brother one year younger and another sister then who was four years younger than me. My other two brothers, my other two younger brothers were a lot younger. I m sixteen years older than my youngest brother. What was it like for you at sixteen to have It was quite an experience because the four of us grew up close together and then these two brothers were so much younger than us. We had to look after them a 2

lot, that s for sure. At that time we were living at the other place, it was a nicer farm closer to the town of Bradwell and we had a high school there. Things were a lot better there than where we had the originally grown up, because that was kind of, you know, more or less you could say back in those days that was some time ago, sixty-some years ago. There were not too many facilities, you could say, back in the olden days, yeah. You mentioned that it was kind of like a little house on the prairie, the first home you lived in. Can you describe what the house looked like? It was a two-story house, but the basement was just a ground-dug basement and there was no running water, there was no electricity. In the wintertime, there was no insulation; it wasn t a bad looking house but it wasn t well insulated, so it was very cold. We had to all move into the first floor of the house; you couldn t sleep in the upstairs of the house, because it would have been too cold. There was no way they could have heated it, because there was no furnaces. So you just had a big space heater in the middle of the living room. In the wintertime it was really, really cold. I remember laying in bed at night and the coyotes howling (Laughs) because out was there was a lot of wasteland around it was kind of strange kind of, but kind of cute when you think back. Nice to be able to tell your grandchildren, you know? And where was the first house located? It was six miles south of Bradwell. It s not there anymore (laughs). What did the second house look like? That s a nice house. That s one mile north of Bradwell. My brother lives there now. And it had power and everything in it when we moved there. That was great. It was one mile to the school and that was very handy. One mile to town, even though the roads were bad. We d still go to school in sleighs, you know, in the wintertime. Do you remember what year you moved into that home? 1945, right after the war. Umhmm Was it common in 1945 for houses to have electricity and running water? 3

No it wasn t. This was our own power. It was a twenty-two power, because rural electrification did not take place until 1954 when the provincial government decided to upgrade the whole province, and they put in the power. I remember that getting your first TV and that kind of stuff. Under the old power system we had what was just a plant with batteries, you know, then you d be charged up and you had your electricity. Tell me about life without electricity. What was that like? How did you do laundry and things like that? Always done with a washing machine that you had to turn by hand, and you hung your clothes on the line, and heated your water on a coal stove in a big container. It was kind of neat, when I think of it (laughs). I d still be able to do that. That wouldn t bother me to this day if I had to do that. What would you do in the winter with the clothes? You hung them outside, they got kind of frozen, you brought them in and thawed them out and they dried. It all worked. I guess our ancestors all did the same thing. Umhmm, took awhile for the country to all catch up on these things but eventually things turned around. How did you heat the house? With a wooden coal stove, kitchen stove, and with the space heater. What is that? It s just a small stove and you burn wood and coal in it and it would heat, you know, the other rooms of your house, where your kitchen stove would basically your heat kitchen. Where would you get the wood and coal from? Oh, coal were purchased. They were brought in from coal mines across either from Canada or wherever the coal came from. A lot came from Estevan where there was a coal mine. Some came from eastern Canada, down in Nova Scotia. And the wood of course you purchased wood, or else if you had a lot of trees in your yard, you could always cut some trees down and use that as wood. 4

Did you have trees in your yard? Not down there we planted trees so dad had to buy the wood. We planted trees, but they weren t big enough to cut down. When you were in this house without electricity, how often did you do laundry? Maybe a couple of times a week. It was quite a job. How far did you have to haul the water? We had a very good well in our yard, maybe about a couple hundred feet from the house. It was an artesian well, so we didn t have any problem. Water supply was good. What about bathrooms, going to the bathroom? They were indoor toilets outdoor toilets in the summer, indoor toilets in the wintertime. What was bath time like? We had bathtubs that we brought in and you heated your water on your stove and everybody took a bath. It was kind of long you had to bring your bathtub into your kitchen, basically. Usually on a Saturday night the kids all got bathed. So it would be a once a week type of thing? Or nearly, but of course as your kids got dirty you d heat up the water and bathed them. When you actually moved into the house with electricity, how did these activities change? It changed because we didn t have to turn the wash machine anymore, you know. We had a wash machine that washed the clothes for us and we had a bathroom where we could bathe. Things were a lot better then. We had building cupboards. We didn t have things all over, of course. When we got power you could have a fridge and stove and things. We still kept our wood and coal stove though. In the summertime though it would be extremely hot with the wood and 5

coal stove. And also you had a fridge. Before that we had what was called an ice house. It was a small house that was dug deep, maybe twelve feet deep. And in the wintertime you poured water and made ice like you would in a skating rink and you d put straw on when it was full, and that lasted until fall. All through summer, if your door was closed and the lid was down you had a floor and the lid down so it was closed there would be straw on top to keep the ice cool and keep it from melting, and it lasted all summer. And you know you were farmers, so you had your milk and cream and you kept it in there and it kept it amazingly cold. Before that, you know some of our ancestors had to put it down in the well, in the olden days, so this was an advantage we had until we had fridges, or deep freezes. You could not keep meat. We did smoke sausages in the wintertime when we made them and you could keep them over the summer. We never did that, but I know my grandmother, going to her icehouse and having all the meat hanging in the icehouse. They put it in brine, in really strong salt, and cured it in that, and then they smoked it. That kept all summer long; it did not spoil. I still remember that in her icehouse. People had a way of surviving or they would never have settled these countries. Can you tell me how you made and smoked sausage? You butchered your beef or your pork, you ground it up and you had a sausage maker machine, and you bought casings in the store. My grandfather made his own casings, but we bought them in the store and you fill them with the ground meat. You mixed it in a big container (motions) with salt, pepper, spices, however you loved it, and you made your sausage and you smoked them and oh, they were good. A little smokehouse that you put them in and you smoked them. You had a smokehouse? Yeah, it s just a little smokehouse that my dad smoked sausage in. Did you smoke any other meat products? Oh yeah, ham and bacon. They put it in salt brine too, in the wintertime, and then they smoked it and it was really, really good. Actually, the food was better than the stuff we buy. And it was all organic. 6

What type of food were you raised on? What was a breakfast meal like? We had cereal, like porridge, and cream and milk; that was good. We made toast the only thing is you didn t have a toaster. You had to do it on the hot coals of the stove. You put it on the rack from the stove and it was nice and brown right on the coals of the stove. More or less like a barbeque it was just the forerunner of the barbeque. What about dinner or lunch what did you call it, your afternoon meal? It was called dinner and evening meal was called supper. What did dinner usually consist of? Usually soup and sandwiches and things like that. It was usually a lighter meal. Were the soups homemade? Most, yes, they were in those days. What types of soups? Chicken soup, vegetable soup. There was no problem there. In the fall they would butcher their hens and they d make soup out of them. And they d make their own noodles, which was quite easy to make. What about supper? Supper was usually your meat and potatoes, yeah. We always had a big supper meal that was when we were family. In the summertime you had a lot of people to help you do your work on the farm. So, when I was born, I remember, my dad had a threshing outfit, he had the separator and the steam tractor or whatever it was, one of these big ones like they have at the museums, and he would thresh for the neighbors plus for himself. And then you had the whole threshing crew, and that was a whole different story because then you needed meals three times a day, full class meals, if you want to go back into that era. Did you help with the threshing? 7

Well, I was a kid. I was just a couple years old, but I remember very well this whole room, a separate room my mom had this place called a summer kitchen and they cooked in there and when they came in there was about twelve people and they d sit down. And believe me, breakfast consisted of meat and fried potatoes and cereals anything you could think of, all homemade because you didn t buy corn flakes and things like you do now, especially when you had a hungry group of people like that you needed meals a day. And I remember my mum used to hire someone to help her, usually a local girl, and they would cook for these people. Oh, I remember that hot in the summertime, and these big meals doing nothing but cooking all day long. How long did your dad run the communal threshing outfit? How old were you when he stopped that? He stopped that in the 1940 s, maybe 1942. He had a little truck before that, but he bought the first first-class truck, a 1940 Chevy half-ton, and he traded his horses in for a tractor. That was the first tractor he had and in those days what they did was they would take trade-ins of horses for machinery as the farmers were switching over. After that he had a tractor to work with and we didn t have to go through all this rigmarole anymore. And he sold his threshing company to somebody, I don t know where, but anyway. From then he bought his first combine a little power take off combine I don t know how familiar you are with farm machinery. I m learning (laughs). It was a power take off combine, so I remember that. From then on things modernized, of course as you got a bigger tractor, a bigger combine, bigger machinery. Do you remember how the tractor changed your dad s farming? Oh yeah, because he could do most of the work himself. Otherwise you always had to have people to help you, and then you needed all this cooking and all this help. So that helped a lot, yeah, this way it would be a family operation. He could do his own work and you didn t have to worry about the neighbors anymore, you know. Since you were the oldest, what type of responsibilities did you have on the farm? 8

Oh, I played with my brothers and sisters because three of them were, you know, right behind me in age, and then as we got older of course, we had to do chores. It was up to us, we d gather the eggs and when we got older, do the milking. Did you ever have to help out in the fields? Yeah we did, we help with making feed for the cattle. Hauling bales and things that was later on when we were older. How did you make feed for cattle? Well, in the old days you had what was called a binder, you know, when they threshed with the threshing machines the grain had to first be bindered. It was a machine that cut the grain and tied and then your sheaves fell down. Then they had threshers, stookers, who came and set up these stooks have you ever seen these pictures of stooks sitting in a field? I have. So this is how they set them up. When it was time to thresh, the machine would pull in the middle of the field and they d come with their racks, which they called feed racks or whatever, and there would be a bunch of men, they d load these racks and they d take them up to the steamer, they d throw them in, you know, as the machine ran and this would thresh. You have the straw stack where the straw came out and there was a wagon there to take the grain. But my dad kept his binder. So when we made feed afterwards, we didn t need it for that anymore, we cut this feed and haul it home and set it in a stack, which as a lot of work. Of course, then they decided out came the balers, so they bought balers and of course they baled, which was all done, you know, with machines, so when we took them home we had to learn to put the stacks up as kids, so we were out there stacking the bales. Can you take me through the farm equipment that was on your dad s farm when you were a kid? He had a 101 Massey tractor, and a six-foot one-way. Then afterwards he bought a Farmall M, which was a little bigger and an eight-foot one-way. Then he bought a U Minneapolis and a ten-foot one-way, and a cultivator and of course your harrows and everything. Then afterwards he had a G Minneapolis and the 9

combine became a Super 92, because he passed away in sixty-six, my dad, and after that my brothers farmed and I and my husband farmed. I got married and we moved to Blucher, north of 16 highway, which we still have land there, we still farm there. So, that s where lived then and my kids were born there out on that farm. What farm animals did you have? Oh, we had lots of them. My dad had beautiful horses, oh, loved those horses. He had nice teams. He was very particular with his horses. And of course we had a lot of cattle, we had pigs, we had chickens, everything, because he believed in being self-sufficient, he didn t believe in buying things, you know. That s how we had it until I left home, and that s how we had it too, I and my husband. We had cattle and pigs and chickens and stuff. Oh yeah, we all helped. It was a pitch-in kind of thing, you know. You milk, you feed your livestock, you calf them, you fix your fences, everything; it was fun. I think the kids are missing out on so much. My granddaughter, I try to learn her as much as I can because I think of so much she s missing out on so much they should know. When you were growing up on the farm, did your dad rent the land, or did he own it? He owned it. Yeah. How did he come by the land? His father rented the land to begin with, when they moved south of Bradwell, and then when his dad passed way he took over and bought the land. Then he sold it and bought at Bradwell. My dad believed in owning, he did not like renting. To buy the land, did he take loans? You didn t get loans. You saved up your money. And 1942 was a very good year for crop, so when they sold their grain, they got enough out of it that they bought the land. And then as years went on, you know, you purchase more as you went along. You could not go to a bank and get a loan. 10

Gk; So is the land still in the family? Yes, my brother farms it. How long has it been in the family? Since 1945 that farm has been in my family. 61 years. 61 years? Yeah, yeah that s right. I was just saying gosh I m older than that (laughs). What type of a farmer was your father, is he a diversified farmer or a grain farmer? It was called a mixed farming operation because it had both livestock and grain. Did he sell the products from the cattle? Yeah, you could take them to the stockyard here (motions over shoulder) in Saskatoon and you could sell cattle, pigs, whatever. Yeah. What type of crops did your father have? Wheat, oats, and barley. Umhmm Let s talk about family history here for a little bit. On your dad s side, his parents, your grandparents, did you know them? Yes, I did. Not my grandfather, he died in nineteen thirty-five before my dad was married, my grandfather Dukart. What was his name? Peter. And what s your grandmother s name? Marianna. 11

Did they come over from Russia? Yes, they did. Did they come straight to Canada? Yes, they did. Did your grandmother ever tell you what life was like in Russia? She never did, but my dad did, he was eight years old. Yeah, he was born in 1903 and he came in 1911. How many children did Marianna and Peter have when they came over? I think There was my dad, there was aunt Rosie, there was aunt Katie, there was only three born here, so it would have been in here (opens family album) I think Georgina made a copy here, or was it in the Kary book (opens book and removes paper)? Ok, Dukart family children Peter okay-mike, Rosa, Katharine, Frank, Joe, Bertha, Madeline, Jacob and Anna Mary. I think Anna Mary and Jacob were the only ones born over here. My dad had three brothers and all three brothers died in infancy. So it was him and five sisters, and it would have been one-two-three-four-five-six born in Russia and three in Canada. You said you got to know your grandmother a little bit. Yeah, because my grandmother passed away in 1961. Where did she live in relation to your farm? My dad lived with his parents until his dad passed away. Then he farmed with his mother until he got married and then she moved to the town of Allan, Ja. She retired. What type of person was your grandmother? She was a happy go lucky little lady. We went to see her every once in awhile; she had a nice little house in town. We used to stay at her house I remember, and when I got older, I remember, I used to help her clean her house, helped her 12

paint her house and different things, with my aunts. I liked my grandma. She had a beautiful flower garden her whole back yard was flowers (laughs). Other than that well, I spent more time with my grandma Boechler though, than I did with my grandma Dukart. Ja. You mentioned that your dad was eight years old when he came over from Russia, what did he tell you about life in Russia? He told us wonderful stories, they really loved it. They lived on the Black Sea, and the climate was very nice. They lived in a settlement there they were all family settlements. The father would live with his sons in one settlement, they d each have their own home, they d have a high fence around it, he said, and their land was out the back. They d close their gates at night; they d live in the place because they had a lot of trouble with the local environment, he said, because they were sort of not liked by the general Russian population, because they were German people. He said they d go out in the fields, they d work behind, their land strips. You know, the old senioral system, you know how that was? It was on there too. They lived in these settlements, he said; they had their gates closed. They had the girls working, helping the ladies do their work and they had local peasants hired to do work for them they themselves didn t do that much work. But he said it was a beautiful home, they had all kinds of wonderful fruits, grapevines, everything you wanted to see because you had a very nice climate. He enjoyed it very much; he spoke highly of that place. He says he remembers swimming in the Bug River with his pony. He had a pony. His parents felt bad when they came over here my grandmother, and her sister and those, they felt bad. They missed their hometown so much, in Russia, and they were so unhappy, my dad said, until the Bolshevik Revolution. He said, you never heard another word because they were so glad they were over here, because the rest of the relatives were over there and they were all taken to Siberia. And actually, some of the towns they lived in, everybody was massacred. A lot of their relatives were killed by the communists. What year did your grandparents come over? 1911. They came to England first, he said. They went to the English Channel and they had to wait for the tide to come in he said for the boat to lift so that they 13

could dock. And then he said they got on a boat and they came to Canada, straight to Halifax. Did he ever tell you why they left? Because their relatives were over here already, the Boechlers; which happened to be a half-sister my grandfather Boechler s mother was a half-sister to my dad s mother, and they were over here already. They had homesteaded first in the States and then they were homesteading here. So when they wrote them about Canada, there was this place over here and everything, they decided to sell everything they had and come over here too. So they came. There was about three families; there were Karys, Boechlers, Dukarts, Stecklers there was a whole group of people, they were all related to each other and they all came to the Allan area. And they all found farms that they could purchase from other people, because by 1911 people around here weren t homesteading; the land had all been taken up by settlers. What year did Saskatchewan become a province? 1905. Did your dad tell you what the boat ride was like? Oh, he said it was a rough ride. The lower deck had livestock in it that was transported and they were on the upper part, he said. It took quite awhile, he said, but it didn t seem to bother him; he enjoyed the ride. He remembers sitting waiting quietly, waiting, waiting because there were icebergs in the water and they had to wait until there was clear passage. They d wait until morning and then they d continue on their journey. It was just before the Titanic in 1911, yeah (laughs). How about when they landed do you know where the landed? Yes, they landed in Halifax, he said, and they got on a train and headed straight west. They knew their destination was Allan, so they headed straight for Allan. By then the railroad had reached Allan. It was 1907 the CN line came through Allan, so they could come straight here. Had your dad ever been on a train before? 14

I don t think so. Did he mention what the train ride was like? He didn t mind it, he said they were all in train cars. They had one car that they had their stove in and things, and that s where they cooked, because, you know, it was a long ride across Canada you know, probably about 3,000 miles. What was your dad s name? Michael. And when they came over they originally farmed around the Allan area? Yes, they did about a mile south of Allan. They rented a place there, yeah. A farm straight south of here. How many children were in that family total? There were five girls and one boy. There were six that were alive and there were four that passed away three sons that died in infancy, and his sister who was just a year younger than him accidently burned. She made a fire in the stove to cook for the men who were coming from the field and when she lit the stove, it didn t burn and she poured kerosene in and the flames came out and engulfed her. Was this in North Dakota? No, this happened here in Allan. You said three died in infancy? Yes, three brothers. Ja, ja. Do you know how old his sister was? Fourteen. How old was your dad? 15

He was fifteen. He put the fire out. He found her. He said they drove into the yard and she was engulfed in flames and they took the horse blanket and put it around her and smothered the flames, but she never survived. His surviving siblings, did you get to know them when you were a child? Yes, I knew all my aunts. Actually, some of them just passed away, the last one just two years ago. How often did you get to visit your aunts? Whenever they came, because a lot of them did not live here, a lot of them lived in B.C. Can you tell me what they were like and what it was like seeing them as a child? Oh, some of them moved away already when I was quite young, so I just saw them when they used to come to visit. Some of them lived here, which my aunt Annie, well I knew her well because she lived in Allan. And Anna Mary, well, she was here but she was a teacher and she was all over teaching all over and then she moved and you d only get to see them when they d come to visit. Same thing with aunt Lina she d come in the summertime and visit in and see everybody and then she d go back to B.C. A lot of them didn t want to live here, they preferred British Columbia. There was a nicer climate in Victoria (laughs). When they came to visit did they bring treats for the kids? Oh yeah, sometimes, or little gifts and their kids came with them, so we played with their kids. Ja. What types of things would you do with your cousins? Because they were not from the farm they thought it was interesting to go around and see all the animals doing the things. Ja, oh yeah. On your mother s side, did you know your grandparents on that side? Yes, I did. What was your grandfather s name? 16

Franz Boechler. And your grandmother s name? Katherine. Did they come over from Russia? My grandfather Boechler came from Russia. My grandmother was born in the States. When did your grandfather Boechler come over from Russia? In 1890. Ja. So he was early. He homesteaded. He homesteaded, they had a small place, he said. If you look in the book, it was a small farm they rented I think in McIntosh County, he said. It s written in his book, ja (motions). Did he ever tell you stories about what life was like in Russia, for him? He never told us too much about what life was like in Russia for him. When he was older he talked more about what life was like in the States when they lived there, and how they came to Canada. He was eight years old when he came to the States. I know that he talked that they lived in these little towns. He was the only survivor. He had sisters and brothers, but none of them survived, he was the only one that survived. He says, I don t know how my mother did it, but I survived (laughs). So, when they came over they came straight to Canada or did they go down to the states and the - Grandpa Boechler, which you re talking about now, came to the States. They settled in he has it in here (opens album). They came to New York harbor, he said, that s where they landed. Then they went west to. We left Russia in the fall of 1890. We boarded the ocean liner Augusta Victoria in Hamburg, Germany. We 17

crossed the English Channel and the Atlantic, to New York. We stayed a few days, and then we went to Yankton, South Dakota. Ja, ja. And how long were they in Dakota Territory? (Reading from album) He rented a little house for awhile and then they moved to a little farm. For five dollars a month they lived in a little house, ok cook stove, milk cows; I love this story here. He bought a farm for two hundred fifty dollars, that s where they lived. Then they started to have trouble with the Indians, with the uprising with the Sioux, because they were close to Fort Yates, which was about fifty miles from their home. But then he remembers Sitting Bull being killed and lying in state in one of the store windows, and they used to walk by. I don t know, this is the story I remember we talked to him. They lived in this place until one day they decided when they were going to school, they saw this map on the wall that talked about free land in Canada, so they decided to sell and that s where they moved up here. They didn t have no idea, he said, where they went, where they were going. They didn t know different, they sold their farm, they sold everything, they came up here and took up a homestead. And they wandered around here he said, in the book, it says, to a few places until they finally decided to choose Allan. They d go out and look at the land and they didn t think it was suitable for farming. So one day this land agent came out and said there s land to be homesteaded in this area out here, so I guess that s where they went and they liked the soil and there were a lot of people with them that they knew A lot of German people and they all were looking for homesteads. They needed thirteen homesteads. And they came here and they put all their names on slips and they pulled who got what homestead, by quarter, and that s how they filed on their land. How old was he when they came up to Canada? Eighteen. So did he actually take a homestead? Yes, one s in his name and one s in his dad s. How old was he when he wrote his memoirs? 18

He was his daughter who was a teacher did the writing, did the typing for him he was oh maybe in his seventies. He just wrote it down so his kids would know where he came from and like what the maiden name was all the grandmothers and everything because nobody would really, you know, unless somebody told you, you wouldn t have known. That s a great thing to have in the family. Um-hmm. And was your grandmother, lets turn to her for a little bit now, she was born in Dakota Territory? Yes, she was, in 1888. So her parents would have also come from that area? Her parents also came from that area and settled in here, yeah. Do you know where she was born at? I know they always went to a town called Eureka, South Dakota, later on, so that s probably where she was living. She didn t meet my grandfather until she was up here. She has relatives down there lots of them her maiden name was Selzler, and her mother s maiden name was Jundt, I know. Did she ever talk to you about what life was like in Dakota Territory? Oh yeah, they liked it there, but they were always worried about the aboriginals. Well, we call them aboriginals. I don t know what you do, because if we say Indians here, we get it down the neck. You call them Ameramericans? No, either Indians we re going back towards Indians, but in the last ten years it s been Native Americans. Native Americans. Ja. We call them aboriginal people, so there s been such a furor about labeling and racism so but anyway, she said that a lot of times they would go to the neighborhood fort, which I guess was Fort Yates, and they would stay there until everything was quiet and then they d go back to their 19

land. Her dad had a farm there. He was a homesteader. His name was Kasper Selzler. So your great grandparents were probably some of the earliest settlers down there in Dakota Territory. Yeah, they would have been. Ja Do you know if they left for Canada because of the Native Americans? No, they came later on in 1906 or 1907. My grandmother was eighteen years old when she came up here. She was married in 1907. So they came out here in the spring of 1905. She came in 1905. Why did they decide to leave for Canada? Well they knew a lot of the people there was a large German settlement in the Dakotas and the people sort of knew each other and the people were coming up here. So they decided to sell. I know Grandpa Selzler came up here, looked it over, had a house built south of Allan, because he was already a wealthy farmer when he left the United States. Built a beautiful house up here, it stood for a long time, it was just torn down a few years ago, and the family came up after everything was finished. When they came up to Canada, you said your grandfather was a wealthy farmer. My grandmother s father. Your great-grandfather. Ja. When he came up did he still have the good luck and fortune? Yes, he did, he had a very successful farming operation. Oh, yes. So if your grandmother was eighteen when she came up and your grandfather was up here as well, do you know how they met each other? 20

They belonged to the same church in Allan. They all lived close to the town of Allan, and that s where they met each other. So your mother then was born In Allan, yeah, my mother was born on the family farm on grandpa s homestead, ja. All her brothers and sisters they were all born on the homestead, ja. Fourteen in the family, that s a large family. That was a large family, they had fourteen children. What was your mother s name? Annie. So did your mother live anywhere besides in the Allan area? No, she lived in Allan and then in Bradwell where we farmed and where she was. My mother was a person who liked to be close to her family, and of course with the large number of brothers and sisters she had, you know So with fourteen aunts and uncles on that side of the family, did you get to know that side of the family very well? Oh, extremely well. I have a good relationship with my mother s side of the family. They all stayed around the Allan area. They all farmed around there, they all were farmers. Let s start with your grandmother on this side cause you said you were closer to her. What type of grandmother was she? She was a little lady, but a very happy little lady, and we just loved going to her place. She was very busy. And the one thing we loved about her was her garden and everything. She was a great gardener. We just were fascinated by that the flowers, the vegetables, everything. She canned everything. She spent all her summers canning because that was the only way you could preserve your vegetables. My mum did that too, but she was great for it. She would always have that big boiler on the stove and she had a big kitchen in her basement, and she had a huge house and we would just love that. We shelled all the peas for 21

her; we ate more peas than we shelled. She was a great lady. I was only twelve years old when she died. You mentioned that you stayed over at her house? Oh yeah, we stayed a lot at her house because when my brothers and sisters were born, we were at grandma s house, or if our parents went somewhere, we were at grandma s house. What would you do when you stayed at her house? We d help her. We d look after her chickens, we work with her in her garden, we d shell her peas for her. Because she had this big huge basement; we d play downstairs with her. And a lot of our uncles and aunts were not that much older than us, because my mother was one of the older ones. And so a lot of these uncles were not married Uncle Wilfred wasn t married yet see they were all still at home. And so they were there too, and they d play guitars and sing, and us kids would sing with them and we d crawl out on some of their roofs on the veranda in the evening and sing. It was fun. They had this huge upstairs with this old pump organ and we d play on that organ. It was a lot of fun at grandma s house. Was she musically Ah, not really, that I remember, her or grandpa being musically inclined. But the boys did, because uncle Wilf played in a band for years. Yeah, they all played and sang. How about your grandfather, what type of a grandfather was he? Oh, he was a grandfather he liked to sit and read. He spent a lot of time reading and of course directing everybody what to do in the yard because he had all these sons that he told what to do. But he was a big farmer, he had a lot of land. He gave his sons all farms when they got married. And my mother too she got a lot of land from Grandpa Selzler. As I say, Grandpa Selzler was a wealthy farmer. Would he play with the kids as well? 22

Grandpa, no, he d sometimes tells stories. He d have his afternoon nap, and then it s shh, grandpa s sleeping, but we were down in the basement and he was up there, so we didn t go up there too often. The only times in the evening time he d read while sitting outside reading and grandma would be doing some needlework, or he would come downstairs and read the stories. She didn t have time to read the paper, so he always got the paper. The North Dakota Herald and the Wanderer, I guess they re still published these papers, some of them? And he d read these stories and she d be sewing, doing her patching, whatever, finishing up her canning. You mentioned that he would tell stories, were these make-believe stories or history stories? More or less history stories, but he would read to her from the paper and that, or he d tell us kids little, you know little blurbs. Because he was kind of a private person. If he didn t feel well you didn t see grandpa he was having a nap. Later on, I got to know him better. After grandma passed away she passed away in 1950 he didn t die until seventy-five, so we got to know him a lot better. Because we did a lot of things for him. He lived in a little town in Allan, in a little house, afterwards. And we d go in and do his house every week. We d do his laundry for him and everything. That s what we really got to know what grandpa was like. As long as grandma was there, it was always grandma. So what did you get to know about your grandfather after your grandmother died? He became more personal, like someone you really knew more personally. And he d talk about grandma when she was young, you know, what kind of nice hair she had and all these kind of things, you know. How did your grandmother die? She died of cancer. Since you were twelve, do you remember when she died? Yes, in 1950. What was her funeral like? 23

It was a big funeral because she had a large family; not only her own children, but a lot of relatives. Because everybody in the town of Allan at that time was related to each other it was a town that was related to each other until the potash came in and then you started to get all of the different people moving in. Now it s not the same anymore. If you go to the cemetery you probably were in the cemetery? Um-hmm. You ve got the whole relationship there they re all buried in the cemetery there which is a wonderful thing. So, can you describe what her funeral was like? Did they have the service in the church? Yes they did, but we had a wake in her house. Her body was brought home on the train and we had it in the house for three days, everybody was there, all the relatives were there taking turns coming and going and then she was taken down and the funeral was in Allan. What type of service was at the gravesite? It was a traditional service like the Catholic Church has. I don t know whether you know much about that or not. She was a very religious woman, so it was all done according to the - When you talked to your grandmothers and your grandfather, did you converse in English, or German? Ah, a lot in German. My gram spoke English, but not too well. How about on your father s side, was it the same or GK; It was the same, yes. The grandparents were all German when they came here and you know they learned the language, because some of my grandmother s daughter-in-laws were not German, so she could talk English fairly well, yeah. She had a strong accent, but we talked English, but we also talked German to her. What was the reaction to marrying outside of the German-Russian? 24

They didn t really care, because they were all Catholic people all from Allan district there. Like Antonette, here (points toward page), she was French; her dad was a local businessman, so they knew them well and they had no problems with any of that. Oh, ja. 25