Remembering Grandma 

 Katharina/Katherine

Nov. 18, 1887- April 29, 1971

Katharina circa 1909

Like Chekov's Three Sisters.
Katharina (right) with sisters Lena and Lisa 
The Russian version of Downton Abbey!

My lovely maternal grandmother was born on this day long ago and so very far away. I  am so very fortunate to have  had the chance to know her. She died when I was 11. Grandma Katharina/Katherine had a remarkable life. Born in Southern Russia in 1887 in a place called Friedensfeld ( Field of Peace). Life was very good for her family for a time. They were landowners, ran a paint factory and a flour mill. Their days were filled with music, literature and lots of love.  Against her parent wishes, Katherine married a 'lowly' but ever so handsome and learned school teacher and they had three children.  

 Then in 1917 the revolution came and things got very, very bad.  

My maternal grandparents Katharina and Gerhard

The family's large estate and all land  and property was  taken away.Villages  were destroyed by gangs of lawless marauding bandits. Katherine and her husband Gerhard learned that he was on a list to be sent to Siberia or killed.  The revolutionaries  wanted to eliminate all academics fearing they were a threat against the new communist regime. The decision was made to leave Russia and immigrate to Canada.

My grandmother had to leave her parents behind. They  chose to stay, thinking things would get better. They didn't. My great-grandparents ended up dying in Siberia.

First by wagon, then by train and finally in Southampton the journey to a foreign land began. Grandma was 5 months pregnant with my mother when the 10 day voyage across the Atlantic began on the Empress of France. 

Disembarking in Quebec, they travelled by train arriving on the Saskatchewan prairie in July 1923.  My grandfather carried  a grand total of 36 dollars in his pocket, a seashell from the Crimea and his beloved violin. My grandmother had her samovar for making tea. That was it. 

The family Samovar used for tea making.  

A shell brought along so the children could always remember the sound of the Black Sea. Home.

 Katherine gave birth to my mother in November of that year and had 2 more children. Although they had their worldly possessions taken away in  Russia, my grandparents gave each of their 6 children the gift of love, music, poetry and a good education. In their later years when they had moved to Chilliwack BC my grandfather I am told, could be seen around town on his bicycle visiting the sick and elderly in hospital. He was a compassionate man. Although he died before I was born I am so thankful to have known my grandmother Katherine. She lived to be 83.  

Probably my favourite photograph ever. Grandma Katherine

( Katarina-right) with guitar. Taken at their estate at Friedensfeld Southern Russia when life was good. 

Forever Summer- Forever Sunday

Katarina top right with her parents and siblings around 1908 .  

 From peace and prosperity in Southern Russia ( above) to a  hard life on the Canadian prairie (below).

The Dirty 30s, life during the Depression years. My mother standing at the table. Grandmother in the doorway.

The family embarking on the Empress of France July 1923, bound for Halifax and a new life on the Canadian prairie. Grandma  pregnant with my mother, the first of the family to be born in Canada

A whole new  and different life on the Saskatchewan prairie.

  I'll always remember my grandmother's beautiful silver hair, so long she could sit on it. When she was in her 80s we kids would visit on Sundays and sometimes she would get this far away look in her eyes and she was off, reciting Russian poetry by heart. Didn't understand one word, and it was beautiful.

 Love you forever Grandma Katherine