Saturday, July 27, 2013

For my friends

I will be back. Right now I am deep into research which enables me to do these blogs.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Threads of Life

Threads of Life

 13 July, 2013 submission of "8" for wewriwa.com

Back to the time when the four children arrived in Edmonton to be met by their Uncle Friedrich. All parents had died and grandmother brought them to her sons for care. (I am busy helping a fourteen year old grandson connect with his cousins this week. More will be written next week.)

"From that time on, some of the children lived with one uncle, Friedrich, and some with the other uncle, Carl. Odd jobs were found for them......the girls did housekeeping, Gustav helped with farm labor. Reports from Minna said her brother sometimes slept in farm out buildings with snow and cold blowing between the boards of the structure. He died at age 19, I suspect of lingering TB and pneumonia from his living conditions. He was the closest in age to Minna and she mourned his death the rest of her life. Minna progressed to working in a hotel,  I think in the laundry. While there she, a German immigrant, met Fred Paulson, an immigrant from Sweden, who worked in the furniture store and they grew fond of each other. They were married in Canada. Twins were born and died, then a daughter, Anna Augusta, who survived and was her mother's helper all of her life.

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Saturday, July 6, 2013

Threads of Life


7 July 2013, submission of "8" for wewriwa

I have spent all day weeding in my raspberry patch. As I weeded, I formulated my “8” in my mind. I am yet writing of my Grandmother Minna’s, life.

“One of the garden weeds produced a vine, which attached itself to the ground every couple of inches as well as seeded itself from flowers.  Do we have such a tenacious hold on life? My grandmother, Minna, had seven children, one of which, Edna, died at age two. My aunt, Esther, two years older than Edna, remembered that  she had asked her mother if she could have the bouquet of violets that were on top of Edna’s coffin after Edna was buried, "because Edna did not need them any more". Her mother, Minna, refused to let Esther have them. After the death of Aunt Esther, last of the living children, I found a small box,  among my grandmother’s possessions, with an artificial bouquet of violets in it, saved all of her life. Seven children, one death, but all were precious to a mother and none forgotten. I knew at once the source of this nosegay of violets.”

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