Remembering our roots ~ Ed and Donna Thiessen

John Godsman
Times Contributor

 

Ed Thiessen’s ancestors were Mennonites, originating in Northern Holland and Germany, before settling in Russia in the 1700’s, when Catherine the Great invited the Mennonites to settle in her land. The Mennonites were recognized as excellent farmers, and the Russian Tsarina(Queen) needed people to settle and farm on land seized from the Turkish Army.
Moving forward, we find Ed’s grandparents and family including Ed’s Dad, Jake, with five brothers and one sister moving to Southern Alberta in 1925. Jake was born in 1910, so he would have been 15 years of age when the family arrived in Aldersyde, near High River. For the next six years they lived and worked as farm labourers in Aldersyde and Youngstown. In 1931, they started farming near Namaka, and in 1941, Jake and his brothers bought land which included the Bow River valley section where Ed and Donna now live. One of the stories told to Ed about his grandfather was that when he arrived in Canada, he bought a large quantity of oatmeal and Roger’s Golden Syrup, so that his family wouldn’t starve!
Ed’s mother Mary (Manja) was born in 1911 in what is now the Ukraine, the daughter of Martin George Wingerter and his wife. George and a brother operated a large farm, but George was mistakenly shot to death by the Red Army, who were looking for another family member! In 1929, the family started on the long journey to Canada, first moving to Germany, then England, from there by boat to Halifax where they arrived in 1930, then to Winnipeg, and finally to Namaka.
Mary and Jake met in Namaka and were married in 1940, which produced
three children including Ed who was born on Dec. 1, 1941 during a dust storm. He was born on the farm, served by a gravel road, located on the south side, and three miles east of the current intersection of Hwy 817/901. Ed attended the one room Namaka Farms School, before moving to Carseland School where he graduated at age 16 and moved to the University of Manitoba; where he earned a Mechanical Engineering Degree and joined Schlumberger Ltd who sent him to their Dawson Creek location.
Donna’s family originated from a Welsh/English background, where her great-grandfather James Ellis was a railway engineer. He emigrated to Mount Forest, Ont. in the early 1800’s, and married Elizabeth Lovelock. Her grandfather Walter Ellis was born here, and married Myrtle Small, which produced two children including Donna’s father – Arthur Ellis born in 1910. When he was five years old, the family moved to Wadena, Sask. where three brothers and a sister were born. Following graduation from school, he became a pharmacist. Donna’s mother, Sophie, was born in 1912 in Czechoslovakia, and moved with the family to Margo, Sask. in 1927. Arthur and Sophie met, and were married in Saskatoon in 1937, the day after he graduated from the University of Saskatchewan as a pharmacist. They had a son born in Wadena and over the next 17 years lived in places like Salvador, Sask., where a daughter was born, Port Arthur, Ont. (now Thunder Bay), and Toronto, where Donna was born in 1942. The following year they moved to Vancouver, where her father continued to work as a pharmacist.
Donna attended school in Vancouver and area, but in 1954 following a visit to Dawson Creek, her father moved the entire family, pharmacy and store, to Dawson Creek. Donna graduated here, then joined Finning Tractor, where she was working when she met Ed, and they were married in 1966. They spent a short time in Brooks before returning to Dawson Creek, then in the spring of 1967 they moved to the home farm at Namaka, where Ed started farming with his father Jake. This was a new experience for Donna, who was really a city girl! Back in those days (1967) they fed 87 head of cattle by hand, and milked 10 cows by hand, and there was a small cow/calf operation and grain farm.
Ed and Donna had five children, Stuart (Leta), Douglas (Lisa), Andrea (Darcy), Bryan and Amy. The hardest thing they ever went through was the loss of their daughter Andrea to cancer, at age 31. They also have 10 grandchildren. Ed still goes off to his office at 6.30 a.m., working many hours a day at the farm, or on the phone line, or on his computer.
He has been a member of the Alberta Cattle Commission, Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, and VIDO (Veterinary Infectious Disease Organization). Donna is an active member of the Anglican Church, belonged to the Namaka Friendship Club, and has been a volunteer with the Youth Justice Committee and Victim Services, and has many hobbies when she has time for them.
The biggest change they have seen are the bigger farms, and rural areas becoming semi-urban.