Deutshlander Emerson Farm Memories

On Oct. 30, 1910 father and mother moved back to Canada, five miles north of Emerson on the bands of the Red River. This was decidedly a change for the better. There was more land here, school and church were a bit closer, and people did not work on Sundays as they did in the State. Our mother was delighted with the change. After years on the barren prairie she was to live in the wooded shady valley of the Red. Here she was home – for here were trees, and here again was a river. The spacious log house was cold, but father would soon make it warm. Many a night after supper the whole family ran down to the river to sit and watch the running water, or to fish. Fortunately for mother, it was father who made and many a happy hour was spent on it. And so father and mother worked and planned – and dreams became a reality.

My first memories are of this home, so here the foundations of my character were laid. Mother believed in the nobility of toil. She emphasized many of her teachings and admonitions with proverbs such as "Jung gelernt, alt getan". Ein gutes Gewissen macht ein sanftes Ruhekissen". "Was man nicht im Kopfe hat, muss man in den Fussen haben". Often when she heard of someone’s moral downfall, instead of denouncing him or her she would repeat the Bible Verse, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, salketh about, seeking whom he may devour". One of the finest memories I have of my mother is that she would not let me say, " I hate so and so". What a different world the world of 1945 would be if the whole human race upheld this principle.

She told my that once as a little child I had thrown my arms about her and said, "How glad I am that you came to Canada, for who knows what kind of a mother I might have had if you hadn’t come". Although her coming to Canada probably had little to do with her being my mother, nevertheless I am still very grateful that she was my mother.

In 1912 a Sawyer Massey Steam threshing outfit was bought, but it didn’t thresh our own crop, for on July the 9^th a heavy hail storm destroyed the whole crop, although feed grain grew after that. However all the neighbors were not hailed out, so our outfit threshed their grain, finishing in December. In 1917 this outfit was sold and gasoline thresher and small tractor were bought.

In 1914 the World War broke out and two of mother’s sisters were still in Russia in the war area.

In 1915 and Edison phonograph was bought. We listened enraptured to recitations such as an old Sweetheart of Mine" or to music of the great masters.

About this time, too, father bought a gasoline lamp, which was a great improvement on the coal-oil lamp.

In the winter of 1915 and 16 there was a great deal of snow, and when spring came the snow melted all at once resulting in a flood. The boat was tied to our back door and it was certainly a great asset in visiting neighbors, rescuing wood piles etc. Father and Walter drove to the Junction, then walked the railroad to town. Casselman’s drug store beside the bank had planks on blocks of wood on the floor because of the water. However this flood of 1916 was not as high as the flood of 1897 had been.

In 1916 the new eight-roomed house with its full basement, hardwood floors, and plastered walls was built. In it father installed all the conveniences possible at that time – a telephone, a cistern connected with a pump in the kitchen above the sink, and in the basement was a little gas engine which ran a was machine and cream separator. Here also was a bathroom containing a bathtub and a stove to heat the water, a hose for cold water connecting with the kitchen pump above. Ah, to my young eyes this new home was like a king’s palace!

In 1917 Will went to Letellier to bring home our first car – a model T Ford. I, eight years of age, went out to the highway and sat and waited in the ditch for Will’s return. My eyes were focused to the north, and at last a black speck appeared in the distance. Was it our car and would Will stop for me? It was, and he did! I sat beside him filled with utter bliss, for this was my second car ride. That evening he took mother (Maria nee Deutshclander), father (Wilhelm Remus) and (son) Fred to see Reinhold, who lived one and a half miles south, having married Mary Lembke three years before. Will was cautioned no to drive so fast – he was driving at the breakneck speed of fifteen miles per hour!

This fall Walter had appendicitis and was taken away to the Misericordia Hospital by Dr. Browning. This was certainly a terrible time, for operations were not yet common. Even some doctors did not recommend them. Walter’s appendix was drained twice before it was removed. In 1921 the poor boy was operated for the fourth time – this time rupture. Dr. Browning’s brother from Rochester operated him right at home. How well I remember his groans while under the anaesthetic, as anxiously we waited downstairs, and grew more worried each time we heard him.

Mother had the rate gift of keeping secrets. I remember an amusing example of this. We had our first tube of Analgesic Balm in the house, a strong ointment to rub on the throat or chest for colds. Mother, having caught a cold, decided to use this new cure one evening after we were all in bed. She fumbled around in the drawer where it was kept, applied it, wrapped up her throat and went to bed. Next morning she kept her throat wrapped up to the ears. Josie (Miss Paterson, the Dufferin teacher who later became our sister-in-law) had spent the night at our house to give Tillie and me music lessons. She said to mother so sympathetically, "You have a bad cold". With a mysterious twinkle in her eyes mother said," Yes, very bad". A few days passed before we saw mother with her throat unwrapped. Many months later we found out why. By mistake she had taken a tube of tire cement instead of Analgesic Balm, and how that cement stuck! Poor mother tried everything even ashes before she finally got it off.

I cannot write the story of mother’s life without paying tribute to Dr. Browning. Many a time he was called to our place, day or night, over good or bad roads, with car or horses, - and he came. Once he came, when the roads were at their worst in spring, driving horses, with a temperature of 101 himself, to bring me a new drug which had arrived from Germany that day – the drug that saved my life.

In 1924 mother had gallstone attacks, and in fall at Dr. Brownings’ suggestion, father took her to Rochester. After the operation she took pneumonia and was very ill for a long time. The doctors gave her up, but our Heavenly Father permitted us to keep her. We had her at home with us for Christmas. As soon as she was able to travel she and father went to Morris to get her sister, Aunt Pauline Boggs, who had just arrived from Europe.

Poor Aunty (Pauline Boggs nee Deutshlander)! What horrors he had come through! War and revolution had swept through Berestowitz. She was also among those who, during the First World War, were shipped like cattle to Siberia, suffering from hunger and cold. Many of the weaker ones died on the way. Before leaving Berestowitz they had buried the plow and some other valuables in the ground for sage keeping. On their return even these were gone. Later she went to Germany and suffered with the Germans. Yet each time when they needed money desperately and all seemed hopeless, somehow money came from America, from her son Reinhold or from my parents. Once one of her sons was to be confirmed, but this seemed to be impossible, since his ragged clothing was in tatters and they couldn’t buy him any. Again money arrived from America, clothing was bought, and the boy was confirmed. Then came her greatest tragedy. In a beautiful cemetery of Germany her husband was laid to rest, and in stark poverty she was left alone. Finally a ticket from America came. When she arrived at mother’s she gazed about her with wondering eyes and said, "Why, you live like the Lords of Russia"!

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