Christmas gifts long ago....

Mr brother Tom and I often would get duplicate Christmas gifts because we were close in age and had many of the same interests.

I remember in the 1960's getting these.  It took awhile for my Dad to set them up for us, because they had to be wired in the basement, but he did. They worked great for a time until the furnace came on...and then at least mine would not work.

Found photos of these...pretty cool...

My great-grandfather: A Photograph, of a photograph, of a photograph

The only surviving photograph of one of my great-grandfathers, Johannes Dieser, taken while he was in the army during World War 1, around 1914. He was my Granny Gerk's Dad..dying in 1933. My great-grandmother starved to death also in that year.

 Family members in Russia would painstakingly change the photograph, taking out any Tsarist symbols from his uniform. To have a photograph of a loved one with ANY former Russian regime insignia in the USSR, could get your entire family immediately sent to Siberia, or worse, shot, for being an Enemy of the People! The photograph, of a photograph, of a photograph…was all designed to protect the owner.

But heck, they shipped the family off to Siberia anyways!

Camera Memories continued...

I may have bought this NEVER BEEN USED Hawkeye Camera kit!!  Wow.

Cameras

Growing up, as in any family, in the 60's and 70's, my parents took pictures.

Often there was not enough money to get those pictures developed. I remember taking a drawer full of rolls of film to get developed for my parents.

Anyways, this was the camera of choice for my parents.  I remember it well. A Brownie Hawkeye camera.

I saw one in an antique store recently, which kind of jogged my memory.  I didn't even know the name, but there it was.  A quick search and it seems there are lots of them for sale online..with some folks even still insisting it is their camera of choice for snapping photos!

Alas, our camera disappeared through the years. But it's another one of those memories of my family growing up.

Next up....Looking for another Georg Gerk

All of our family that remained in the USSR ended up in labour camps.  As the years have gone by, we've been able to account for almost everyone.  We have even been able to discover the death dates and places of two of my grandfather's brothers...who perished in the GULAG.

One of the sons of those Uncles, Georg Gerk, was also missing.  Family tell me that they do not know what happened to him.

This database put out by the Russian group Memorial, is the first step to finding out what happened to him.

It confirms some aspects of where he was, obviously with his father in a city called Kirovabad (now called Ganja) in Azerbaijan.

After that he was sent to the Ulyanovsk area....where he was until at least 1943.

After that...silence....no one knows what happened.

The hunt for him goes on....

I'll keep you posted. 

My prayer for 2018

Sweetheart

When my Dad was recovering from cancer surgery, and I looked at him lying there...I told him I loved him.  He responded by saying "I love you too, sweetheart".

For those of you born in another age, probably recent, you might have never heard this type of exchange.

In fact, I remember calling one of my kids "sweetheart", and they really took offense.

I guess it's been used in a derogatory way too many times, to mean what it actually does. I tried to explain...but I'm not sure it went very far.

It's not just a romantic, or sarcastic term.  It actually does also say it can be "...used as a term of endearment or affectionate form of address."

I bring it up because Marina and I were at a restaurant recently where a big burly Dad called his son "sweetheart".

It just reminded me of my Dad.

Christmases gone by....

Not that anyone is interested, but for my own sake I thought I'd put here some of the amazing gifts I received from my parents over the years.

My Dad worked very hard to provide for his family.  Working long hours in a thankless job in the fruit industry.

But us five kids really never did without.  My parents were of that generation who were very poor growing up, so they wanted to give things to their kids that they never had.

Something both my wife and I also tried to do with our kids. We love our kids and just wanted them to know we thought they were special.

I never realized the sacrifice my Mom & Dad must have made to ensure that we kids had a great Christmas...until I had my own kids.

I've racked my brain trying to remember at least some of the amazing gifts I got...just another good memory...making me even more thankful that I had the parents I did.

There were two sources that a kid could go to in choosing what they wanted for Christmas.  Both Simpson Sears (Later just Sears) and Eaton's.  Both companies published their long anticipated Christmas catalogues in the fall.

These two catalogues were the source of many battles...as oldest siblings got first dibs on them...

My first camera, given to me at Christmas 1968/69 when I was 9 years old...this Big Swinger Polaroid instant camera just shot in Black and White...and knowing my parents, was probably purchased from the Simpson Sears catalogue....it used small flashbulbs....

It started me on my love of photography.

A great TV Show...and then the Toy came out...battery powered...my brother Tom and I had one each...

 

Major Matt Mason!  At the height of the Moon Landings, came this great toy!  I loved this!

 

Saw this at an antique store recently. Almost...almost bought one.  I remember my parents buying me this, then I charged everyone a dime for my first slide "show".

 

Every kid should get one of these at least once in their life.  It really did keep us busy, and you can still buy these today.

A Christmas Must-Watch List

Growing up, before we had cable TV, we had 2 channels.  CBC and CTV.  Not much there....and even when we did finally have Cable TV, there were just a few extra channels.

Which naturally meant you were a slave to whatever was on TV.

That was not necessarily a bad thing.  We can have 150+ channels, and still there is nothing worth watching!

At any rate, the following list of TV Shows are on my Christmas Must-Watch list.  Not that I get around to each of them....but I do try.  The kids are tired of many of them.  But I like tradition...and I certainly like the memories of my childhood....so I do watch most of them....even if I watch alone..

Charlie Brown Christmas came out the year I was in Grade 3.  I quickly organized a Christmas play for our class, being the "Manager".  I mean, what kid actually does something like that?  It convinces me to this day that I am ultimately strange.

Yes, the abominable snowman scared the daylights out of me....but I've come to love Bumbles.

My Dad's favourite Christmas movie.

No Christmas is complete without watching this.

Even a Grinch can have his heart changed.

Amazing story of what your life is worth.

I was 17 when this was first on TV.  I love the story and what Christmas can do to a soul...if you let it.

More Good Memories

 Going through old files. The first batch is a collection of "Best Wishes" from a Soviet German newspaper, called Neues Leben. I used that publication (early 1980's) to help me track down our missing family in the USSR, finding them in 1984. The next batch are the collection of notes I wrote whenever Granny Gerk would reminisce about Russia...I had to write quickly on whatever paper I could find. Good memories.

Coming after Sir John A. MacDonald

I originally wrote the following piece two years ago.

Given the events in the US, statues being torn down in a mob-like frenzy....it only was a matter of time before the mob came after one of the Father's of Confederation. (Not to worry...they will come after others soon)

Sir John A. MacDonald is once again in the news, as the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario demands that any school with his name, needs a formal name change, since Canada's first Prime Minister was a "...architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples".

It's only a matter of time, you realize, until they go after his statues as well.

But why end there?  As we seek to right the wrongs of the past, let's take it all a step further.  Hence, my call for a Cadaver Synod.

Here you go:

Interesting times we live in.

As hysterical and historical retro-activists seek to correct the wrongs of the past, it's just getting silly.

Now, I fully understand the disdain in which the Confederate flag is viewed.  I can almost understand Corporations like Amazon banning availability of the Confederate flag, while at the same time allowing Nazi and Communist memorabilia to be sold unabated....because, after all...the scourge of bigotry and slavery in American History was so much worse that the scourge of bigotry and slavery in Nazi Germany and the former USSR.  Heck....many of my family members were sent to the Gulag...but I also acknowledge that at this time in history, victims of communism are not popular....nor even seriously viewed as victims....perhaps in a 100 years?

No matter.

The next step in retro-justice is coming.

Last week the Mayor of Memphis, Tennesee, A.C. Wharton, stated it was time that the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife dug up from a City Park and moved to another location.

Digging up bodies of people we don't like? Ooooo. 

We could advocate for retro-trials.  After all, there is historical precedence... the Cadaver Synod (Synodus Horrenda) of 897, where the body of Pope Formosus was dug up and put on trial.

And found guilty.

His punishment? His body was interred in a grave for foreigners....then eventually dug up and thrown into the Tiber River.

Take that you evil Pope.

In the enlightenment we as a society now seem to possess, why not correct all the historical wrongs just like we did in the past? Why not dig up everyone in the past we have a problem with...put them on trial (Reality TV at its best) and judge them accordingly?

Even my own nation of Canada is struggling to find a way of dealing with the well-known drunkard and genocidal land-thief known as Sir John A. MacDonald...who also happened to be Canada's first Prime Minister.  

Why not just dig him up and put him on trial?

Britain passed judgement on Oliver Cromwell....and three years after his death Charles II ordered Cromwell's body to be dug up, hanged, drawn and quartered.  Cromwell's head was then removed from his body and placed on a spike at Westminister.  As a warning to all.

John Wycliffe was burned as a heretic 45 years after his death.

Vlad the Impaler (you know him as Dracula) was beheaded after his assassination.

Famous Russian mystic Rasputin was dug up by a mob and burned with gasoline.

Gebhard von Blücher was dug up by Soviet troops and his skull taken and used as a football.

There is no shortage of names, no shortage of those attempting to correct the crimes of the past.

Because as an amateur historian, I just think it's so cool that we insist on repeating history.

We've come so far in our enlightenment....so pass me a shovel and let the healing begin.

But first, I have a bone to pick, literally, with Josef Stalin.

Remembering a Victim of Communism

I never knew my great-grandmother.

She was born October 26, 1873 in the Volga German village of Semenovka.

She will go to work for the Dieser family, in the village of Josefstal, as a maid, and then marry one of their sons, Johannes Dieser, on Novermber 8, 1894.

They will have 9 children.  One of these children, Elisabeth, born August 19, 1902, will marry Paul Gerk on September 15, 1920.

My grandparents, Paul and Elisabeth, will live through the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war.

They will experience life under a Communist goverment.  Because of the Red Terror and the first famine along the Volga, Paul will escape Russia and flee to Canada as a refugee.  Paul will bring my grandmother out to Canada in 1925.

The plan was always to get the rest of the family out as well.

But the Iron Curtain will slam shut.

There will be letters.

The families will try desperately to keep in touch.

 Then, in 1933, a letter will arrive, written by my great-grandmother.  It will say in part:

Dear children, conditions are difficult here with respect to food. Times are tough dear children. Yes dear children we are having a hard time getting food.  Some people have had money sent to them. For one coin (taler) one pound of flour can be bought in Kamyshin.  If you could come to my aid could you send me 5 (taler) which would give us five pounds of flour.  Perhaps then I wouldn't starve to death, dear children.  Again I ask if you can help me so that I don't have to starve.  Now I will close this letter and greet you again and ask you to write quickly.

The letter was dated January 5, 1933.

My grandparents sent as much money as they could afford.  It would never arrive.  It would be stolen by Soviet postal officials.

On August 2, 1933, my great-grandmother, Marie Eva Dieser, will die from starvation.

A victim of the forced famine along the Volga and in the Ukraine.

There will be no acknowledgment of her death. My family will not discover her death until 1984...51 years after the fact.

When I traveled to Russia and spoke with archival officials, trying to track down her death record, I was told that even if I found it, it would probably only state that she died from "stomach disease". In the 1930's...as famine raged along the Volga....telling the truth...even on documentation of a death...would get you shot.

Such was life under Communism.

And so our family remembers our great-grandmother.  A kind and loving Mother and Grandmother.  We never got to know her....we knew only of the kindness and gentleness of her daughter, our grandmother.

Prayer for 2017

Christmas Memories

Time, once again, the ring in the Christmas season with a collection of movies.

For a lot of families, some of these movies are a major tradition in their families.

On the weekend, I watched one such movie with one of my sons.  "The Gathering" is a made-for-TV movie from 1977.  I was 17 years old when I watched it with my Mom & Dad.

I remember the movie well.  A Dad with terminal cancer seeks to reconcile with his estranged family one last time.

All at Christmas.

The movie demonstrates the power of family and forgiveness.

Some of these just bring me a step closer to my parents, because I know I watched it with them, and so it brings up fond memories.

Good memories.

35th Anniversary Adventure...

We are off on our 35th Anniversary Adventure.  More to come.

Camping.....

One of our best memories deals with camping.

Our family loved to camp...we headed out, year after year, to Ellison Provincial Park, near Vernon.

In the early years we purchased a 10-man tent, in order to fit everyone.  Usually camping in July, we were often rained out.  Tenting is great...but after 2 or 3 days of rain....despite protection of tarps, we all managed to get soaked. 

But the kids loved it, and despite all the work, we all had a great time.

We still camp...although our equipment now includes a tent-trailer, which means we don't much mind if it rains...we manage to keep dry.

This year we tried an experiment.  As our family living at home shrinks, we decided this year to still camp, but just set up and invite the kids and grandkids to come and visit.  It worked ok for a couple days, but the reality of life set in.

Work schedules for everyone are difficult to change...and manage.  By the end of the week, we found ourselves alone. We had a great few days though.

And lots of memories. We love our kids, and it was always our way of spending some great time together, making those memories.

I miss those days.

Ralph Hale and the Blakeburn Mining Disaster of 1930

It's a great thing, in our digital age, to have access to so much information.  Some wise folks in Merritt, BC, decided it was time to digitize old newspaper archives.  It created a gold mine of stories, documented history, and a dream come true for researchers of that area.

Take, for example, this Merritt Herald story of August 15, 1930, documenting the mining disaster at Blakeburn, BC....46 men perished in a coal-mine explosion.

One of the men who perished in the explosion was Ralph Hale.  He is listed above as one of the "entombed" men, whose body was not yet recovered.

Later on we see a obituary listing for Ralph, this taken from the Merritt Herald of August 29, 1930, showing leadership and bravery in trying to save his fellow workers.

Mrs. Ralph Hale would go on to place two "memorial" inserts in the newspaper, remembering her husband's untimely death:

(Merritt Herald, August 7, 1931)

and this: 

(Merritt Herald, August 12, 1932)

Here is Ralph Hale's grave in Merritt cemetery.....

And what happened to Mrs. Ralph Hale?

Mrs. Ralph Hale was originally Elizabeth Isabelle Martell (1894 - 1970).  She will re-marry on October 21, 1933...to Thomas William (Bill) Skelton (1899 - 1984) ...another one of the miners of the area.  They will adopt 2 children, William Roy Skelton and Margaret Ann Skelton.

Margaret Ann Skelton is my Mother....born in 1934.

Social Media Status Updates...in 1929

Browsing through old newspapers can be fun.  Especially if your family are mentioned.

I was thinking about our societies "status update" obsession.  That is, our use of social media to tell everyone what we are doing, where we are going...and who we are with.

Today it is instantaneous.  Yesterday, maybe not so much.

This clip from the Merritt Herald, May 17, 1929, is a common page in most newspapers of the day...showing the comings and goings....the day to day life, of those who live in the area.  In fact, you had to contact the newspaper writer who was in charge of that section of the paper to let them know!

If you compare it with today's social media updates, not much has changed.  We want people to be interested in what we are doing...so we tell the world.

Twitter and Facebook were not around in 1919, 1929, but our status updates were!

Even this clip from the Merritt Herald Sept 12, 1919, documents the same "social media".

Our family....leaving Russia in 1877?

Research in Russia can be amazing....you never know what little tidbits and gems you will stumble across.

Some years ago I was alerted to a copy of a document from 1877 suggesting that my great-great grandfather, Johannes Gerk, had applied for a Russian passport.

I've finally been able to get scans of the official application, dated 1877, and it indeed shows he applied for and was issued a Russian passport.

I have no way of knowing if he and his family actually left Russia, and then returned at a later date.

I do know that his 2 sons, Johann Georg Gerk and Johann Georg Gerk will indeed leave Russia.  The eldest Georg Gerk will leave Russia and settle in Argentina.  The youngest, my great-grandfather, will leave Russia during the Russo-Japanese war, travel to Argentina, but then return to Russia, where he will die in 1924.

It's a fascinating history, at least for my family.

The application states that Johannes Gerk is age 50, his wife Katarina is 50, son Johann Georg is 23, wife Margareta is 23, daughter Anna Maria is 2 and son Johann Georg (my great-grandfather) is 8.

A page from the passport that was issued, No.153

(These documents were obtained from GASO, State Archive of Saratov Province)

And, of course, showing that Johannes Georg Gerk was in Russia later on, here is his death record,  stating that he died in Josefstal on 27th July 1886, at the age of 59. Listed as his survivor is his wife, Katarina, and son, Joh. Georg, age 18. (my great-grandfather).

Steeped in its burning layers

Bridge of Spies

 Once in awhile there is presented a story that is fascinating for a whole host of reasons.

Bridge of Spies is one such story.  Based on the book, "Strangers on a Bridge", the book is the story of a Soviet Spy who is caught during the height of the Cold War.

I always look for themes and lessons to be learned or applied in the movies I watch....and this movie had lots.

The history also fascinates me....the "kinder and gentler" way life was in the 1950's and 1960's.

At least, compared to today.

In my collection of postal stamps from the former USSR, I even have a commemorative stamp honouring Rudolf Abel, the main character in the book and movie.  A tacit admission by the Soviets that Abel was indeed who he was thought to be.

Anyways, principals such as standing for what you believe in, treating those who you disagree with with respect and dignity....and of course, the spy world in all its glory.

Such is the story told here.

The book is also a fascinating read, with even more links to other stories...but that is for another post.

R.I. Abel.  1903-1990 Postage stamp Issued in 1990 in the USSR

Bridge of Spies movie poster for Russia

Dear God....

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life