Mary Wiebe Friesen, born 1913 in the Terek Settlement
Note: Mary Friesen celebrated her 101 birthday in January, 2014.
My family and I lived in the Terek Settlement of Russia, established in 1901, which covered 24,800 acres. My parents had a mill; I was one of eight siblings, born in 1913.
In 1918, when I was five, we were driven out of the area; I, along with my seven siblings and parents fled to the Kuban Gebiet (territory) on a wagon. During this time, a typhus epidemic raged through the area; sister Helen died shortly after our arrival in the Kuban. My mother, Katharina Dueck Wiebe, died in October of that year, and my father, Heinrich died a month later, all of spotted typhus, a highly contagious and frequently fatal fever. I remember running to look at mother in the coffin.
My Wiebe grandparents were living in the Mariawohl Settlement in Molotschna where the Fransens also lived. Brother Henry got sick on the train ride there and needed to stay in a village on the way where he died. Shortly after our arrival, my eight year old sister Anna and Grandmother Wiebe Fransen died of typhus. A nurse there took me for a walk and sang Mariechen sass auf einem Stein (Little Mary sat upon a rock) to me. By this time only four family members remained: John, Elizabeth, Tina and I. My parents, four sibilngs and two sets of grandparents had all died.
Eventually I was placed in the Franz and Anna Fransen home where I lived for six years. They had no children of their own and the three of us lived in one room. I attended school in Mariawohl until 1925. Here Mr. Janzen was my teacher.
In the meantime, brother John had married Mary Flaming and they, along with Elizabeth, Tina and I decided to leave Russia. We came to Canada and travelled on to Acme, Alberta. Here we stayed with a Klassen family for five days before going to the Dyck family where I helped with the children and attended public school. After one year I moved to Langham, Saskatchewan where I lived with my Aunt Elizabeth Baltzer, mom’s sister, for six years. Here I helped my aunt and attended school.
In 1932, I moved to the Reesor Settlement in northern Ontario where my sister Elizabeth and husband Jacob Ediger lived. Some time later I, along with Jessie and Tina Bergen, got work as maids in Kapuskasing. One day, when I explained to her that I was moving to St. Catharines, the lady of the house said, “Now that you’ve learned how to iron my husband’s shirts properly, you’re leaving!”
In St. Catharines, I got work as maid at Dr. Poriers who had an office in his house. Here I had one Sunday per month, Thursday afternoons and Tuesday evenings off. When I came down with pneumonia the Poriers took loving care of me and even brought me my meals in bed. I went to Vineland to the Fransens to recuperate and was paid for the entire month off work.
In 1936, Mary Dick and another friend and I went on a visit to California by bus where Mary Dick had relatives. On the way home we stopped in Leamington, Ontario. Here I met Abe Friesen who lived on Talbot Street with his mother. The Boschmann family and Vera Hamm’s family lived nearby.
During my absence from St. Catharines, a new baby daughter had been born in the Porier family. When I decided to leave there, the baby was four months old and Jessie Bergen Neufeld took my place.
Our engagement was announced in the Leamington church on the same morning as Ewald Wiebe and Elizabeth Braun’s. We were married October 29, 1938 in the Leamington United Mennonite church on Oak Street by Rev. N.N. Driedger.
Abe and I first lived on Talbot Street with Abe’s mother, then moved to concession three to John and Margaret Konrad’s farm, and then bought a five acre farm on Fraser Road of Leamington. At this time I purchased a used Singer sewing machine at Boschmann’s Secondhand Store for $15. Since that time only the belt has been replaced; it still runs like new in 2008!
Abe died of a heart attack when he was 47, in April of 1954. After his funeral, the church youth group came to plant our lettuce crop. Today I have four children, nine grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren.
