Category: family

WR Immigration Partnership presents the Global Migration Film Fest

Many Canadians never think about how and why our ancestors came here.

My father’s ancestors emigrated to North America from Alsace in the early 1800s.  Although no one knows why they came, it may have been that they were German at a time Alsace was in French hands, but it was probably economic. They did wander through the US and Canada quite a bit before setting roots in the vicinity of Walkerton.

The family was Catholic when they entered the US at Batavia New York and Protestant when they were buried near Carlsruhe, Ontario.

In the early 20th Century—as a very young woman—my paternal grandmother emigrated to Canada all on her own.  She left Germany at the height of the post WWI runaway inflation, so economic chaos may have been part of the reason she came.  But there’s also a story about an unsuitable romance her family wanted to break up.  That sad part of the story is that she died in my first year so I never had a chance to ask her.

Although my mother and her brother were the only children in her family to be born here, her parents gathered up their five children and fled fled the Russian Revolution.  So my migrant forbears certainly include refugees.

All three of these stories have stirred my curiosity and fueled my interest in history.  There are many reasons for migration.

Last week I discovered the Waterloo Region Immigration Partnership is hosting a Global Migration Film Festival that will run through December.  I’ve already missed a few films I would very much have liked to see, but the remaining lineup of documentary films looks pretty spectacular.

Lately extremist politicians have been making negative pronouncements in the main stream media about the issues of recent global migration.  When we meet people from other cultures and get to know them,  we can see them as the real live living breathing human beings they are.  Then it becomes much more difficult to dehumanize people.  Canada is a colonial country that owes much to migration.  Waterloo Region owes a lot of its success to the fact it has long been a destination for Canadian Immigrants.

Come see the films and listen to the stories.  I did manage to make it to Friday’s screening  Bushfallers – A Journey of Chasing Dreams.  It was well worth it. Watching films like this can help break down the walls of “otherness” and help us learn something about some of the people who have come—or will come—here to Canada.

Admission is free, but a food bank donation would be appreciated.  You can also bring a friend… or several!

Thursday, December 13th, 2018

A Thousand Girls Like Me
7 p.m. at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts
60 Dickson Street, Cambridge,ON
MOVIE TRAILER:

Friday, December 14th, 2018

I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts
6 p.m. at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
101 Queen St N, Kitchener
MOVIE TRAILER:

Tuesday, December 18th, 2018

Abu Adnan
6 p.m. at the Kitchener City Hall Rotunda
200 King St W, Kitchener, ON
MOVIE TRAILER:

Salaam B’y – A Story of a Muslim Newfoundlander
7 p.m. at the Kitchener City Hall Rotunda
Kitchener City Hall Rotunda
MOVIE TRAILER:

[republished and expanded from Whoa!Canada: Global Migration Film Festival]

Clancy The CatMy son was born into a home with four cats.  The…



Clancy The Cat

My son was born into a home with four cats.  The most recent addition was a black kitten named Clancy who had needed a home because the children in his house were allergic to him.  

So unlike our other cats, he knew exactly how important human children are, and he adopted ours.  Clancy would let the baby touch him, and even pull on his hair a limited amount.  When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he would sit just out of reach.  As the boy grew, the two were inseparable.  

Clancy liked to sit under the table when the baby was eating because he knew babies dropped food.  As the baby became more competent at feeding himself, the treats stopped, so on occasion Clancy would nibble on toes to remind his human to share.  

There was never any question that boy and cat belonged to each other.  

This was before we became a leashed cat household.  We actually tried to put a harness on Clancey when he was still a kitten, but when we did he went limp, making it very clear he found such restraint would make life unbearable.  

As he got older, Clancy developed allergies, so he only liked going outside at night (when the pollen was less bothersome).  We lived in a Brampton subdivision.  You know the kind; a Knots Landing sort of place where commmunity consists of mostly single family dwellings huddled around a cul de sac.  People travelling along the big thorough fares that surround these clumps of community only get a view of the lines of back fences.  

This was a decades old neighborhood, so when I walked my son to school beside these fences, I kept my son well clear of the more rickety unkempt back fences that leaned alarmingly toward the sidewalk.  I was never sure if my nervousness was reasonable or not.  

Until the dark and stormy night Clancy never came home.  We weren’t sure whether to be nervous at first.  The next day was a school day, so I didn’t start getting concerned until the afternoon.  I had not mentioned this to my son, who was busy playing with his best friend next door.  

Next thing I knew, two very upset boys were bringing me out the front door to the bushes where they told me they had found Clancy.  They were very upset because he was hurt.  And the fluffy little cat was grievously hurt.  Thankfully my husband was home, so we had one parent to drive and another to carry the cat and comfort the child.  When the vet examined hum, she told us his back was broken.  We would have done anything… but when the vet said she had never seen a live cat with such a low temperature we knew there was nothing that could be done.  

My son was only six, but Clancy was his cat.  He had to make the decision to euthenize his life long companion.  It was the hardest thing he had ever had to face in his young life but he did it.  We stayed with our son, comforting Clancy until the end.  

And we grieved together as a family.  We spent the rest of the day, and much of the next remembering Clancy, sharing stories, looking through photos.  My son drew pictures and I made him this puppet Clancy.  Love got us through the pain, to where only memories, good memories, remain.  

lauragaederusswurm: Laura’s baby photo is actually a detail…



lauragaederusswurm:

Laura’s baby photo is actually a detail blown up from this snapshot taken with her mother, Rosalia Adeline Tietz Gaede and her brother, Robert Gaede.

Robert (Bobby) and Laura were the last children born to Rosalia and Franz, and the only two born in Canada.

My mother’s family were Russian refugees during the Russian Revolution. Only the two youngest kids ~ Mom and her brother Bobby ~ were born in Canada.  I think Bob (on the left) would have been about 4 years old in this photo. 

lauragaederusswurm: Laura’s last remaining sibling, Robert Gaede…



lauragaederusswurm:

Laura’s last remaining sibling, Robert Gaede passed away on Saturday.

Obituary of Robert Gaede

Gaede, Robert “Bob” A.O.C.A. After a long and very productive life, Bob Gaede has “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and set up his easel in a better place. 

He is now reunited with his beloved wife Audrey (2016) and much missed siblings Olga, Frieda, Laura, Frank, Henry, and Rudy. He leaves behind his much loved children Jennifer Snider, Deb Gaede, and Rod (Eveline) Gaede. Lovingly remembered by his grandchildren James Gaede (Emily), Chris Snider (Tati), Jordan Gaede (fiancée Vallery), Nick Gaede (Tara), and Jackie Snider. Bob was also blessed with five great-grandchildren and one on the way. He had a special place in his heart for his nieces and their families, Elaine (Bert) Meng, Judy (Lee) Bell, and the late Sharon (Jack) Soeder. 

Bob’s passion in life was his art. He had many stories of his enjoyable years in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art. His memories of his beloved village of Conestogo were often portrayed in his landscapes and his annual Christmas cards. In later years, Dad developed a liking for cats and he will be missed by his feline friend Jimmy. 

Memorial visitation will take place on Wednesday, October 11, 2017 from 7-9 p.m. at the Dreisinger Funeral Home, 62 Arthur St. S., Elmira. 

A memorial service will be held on Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 11 a.m. at St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church, 131 Flax Mill Dr., Conestogo. Interment of cremated remains in Winterbourne Cemetery will follow. 

Thank you to his family at St. Matthew’s for their visits, prayers and concern. In Bob’s memory, donation to St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church in Conestogo or the Grand River Regional Cancer Centre would be appreciated.

“For I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
 —Robert Frost

Print

My Uncle Bobby ~ Robert Gaede ~ was a talented artist.

Back in the day Bob studied at the Ontario College of Art alongside a young Peter Etril Snyder.  (Bobby graduated; Mr Snyder didn’t.)   Bob was always very supportive of artists in the family, as my brother Lance, sister Liana (also an OCA alumni), and he even liked the West Montrose motif sign I designed for my husband’s political campaign. 

Concrete lions molded from  Robert Gaede’s original sculpture can be found around Ontario.  This pair stands on guard in front of the Huether Hotel’s Lion Brewery in Waterloo, Ontario.   I don’t know how accessible these lions are today (amidst the LRT construction); my photographs were taken in 2012.

This morning is Uncle Bobby’s memorial service .

Thursday, October 12, 2017
11:00 a.m.
St. Matthew’s Evangelical. Lutheran Church
131 Flax Mill Drive
Conestogo, ON

MAP

Interment in

Winterbourne Presbyterian Cemetery

will follow.

MAP

lauragaederusswurm: Laura’s last remaining sibling, Robert Gaede…



lauragaederusswurm:

Laura’s last remaining sibling, Robert Gaede passed away on Saturday.

Obituary of Robert Gaede

Gaede, Robert “Bob” A.O.C.A. After a long and very productive life, Bob Gaede has “slipped the surly bonds of earth” and set up his easel in a better place. 

He is now reunited with his beloved wife Audrey (2016) and much missed siblings Olga, Frieda, Laura, Frank, Henry, and Rudy. He leaves behind his much loved children Jennifer Snider, Deb Gaede, and Rod (Eveline) Gaede. Lovingly remembered by his grandchildren James Gaede (Emily), Chris Snider (Tati), Jordan Gaede (fiancée Vallery), Nick Gaede (Tara), and Jackie Snider. Bob was also blessed with five great-grandchildren and one on the way. He had a special place in his heart for his nieces and their families, Elaine (Bert) Meng, Judy (Lee) Bell, and the late Sharon (Jack) Soeder. 

Bob’s passion in life was his art. He had many stories of his enjoyable years in Toronto at the Ontario College of Art. His memories of his beloved village of Conestogo were often portrayed in his landscapes and his annual Christmas cards. In later years, Dad developed a liking for cats and he will be missed by his feline friend Jimmy. 

Memorial visitation will take place on Wednesday, October 11, 2017 from 7-9 p.m. at the Dreisinger Funeral Home, 62 Arthur St. S., Elmira. 

A memorial service will be held on Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 11 a.m. at St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church, 131 Flax Mill Dr., Conestogo. Interment of cremated remains in Winterbourne Cemetery will follow. 

Thank you to his family at St. Matthew’s for their visits, prayers and concern. In Bob’s memory, donation to St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church in Conestogo or the Grand River Regional Cancer Centre would be appreciated.

“For I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
 —Robert Frost

Print

My Uncle Bobby ~ Robert Gaede ~ was a talented artist.

Back in the day Bob studied at the Ontario College of Art alongside a young Peter Etril Snyder.  (Bobby graduated; Mr Snyder didn’t.)   Bob was always very supportive of artists in the family, as my brother Lance, sister Liana (also an OCA alumni), and he even liked the West Montrose motif sign I designed for my husband’s political campaign. 

Concrete lions molded from  Robert Gaede’s original sculpture can be found around Ontario.  This pair stands on guard in front of the Huether Hotel’s Lion Brewery in Waterloo, Ontario.   I don’t know how accessible these lions are today (amidst the LRT construction); my photographs were taken in 2012.

This morning is Uncle Bobby’s memorial service .

Thursday, October 12, 2017
11:00 a.m.
St. Matthew’s Evangelical. Lutheran Church
131 Flax Mill Drive
Conestogo, ON

MAP

Interment in

Winterbourne Presbyterian Cemetery

will follow.

MAP