My Father’s Early Life
In an earlier post, I mentioned that our family moved from Uxbridge, Ontario, to the small town of Bothwell, Ontario, when I was 9 years old. But before I write that story, I need to tell you a bit more about my father.
David Jacob Toews was born in March 1914 in Suvorovka, located in the Caucasus region of Russia. He was the 6th child of 7 from Jacob Toews and Katharina Loewen.
The Toews family were Mennonites who lived in a number of different colonies in South Russia. You can see them highlighted in the map above. The early 1900s were very difficult years in Russia, especially for Mennonites, and the family moved many times as my grandfather, Jacob, tried to find work to support his family during a turbulent period fraught with wars, disease and famine.
In February of 1919, tragedy struck the family. Mother, Katharina, died of typhus followed two days later by her daughter, Lena.
This photo is a traditional Mennonite custom with the family lined up beside the bodies at the funeral. My grandfather, Jacob, is on the right side holding his youngest daughter, Agnes, and to his left is my father, David, not yet 5 years old.
Jacob was left to raise 6 children without a mother. Following another Mennonite custom, three months later he married another woman, Louise, recently widowed with 4 children of her own.
Jacob and Louise had 3 additional children together from 1920 to 1925 which made it even more difficult for the family to make ends meet. With 13 children, it was hard to deal with the scarcity of food, widespread disease, and the pressures of the conflicts during the Russian Revolution and the First World War.
After many attempts to secure visas from the Russian government, the blended family were finally granted permission to leave the country. In 1924 they emigrated to Canada following in the footsteps of many Russian Mennonites before them.
Canada was one of a few countries that accepted the Mennonite immigrants. In 1872 the Canadian government passed the Dominion Lands Act, encouraging the settlement of the Canadian West by offering ownership of 160 acres of land for a small registration fee. Mennonites were ideally suited to take advantage of this offer since they were hard-working and very much used to farming.
The Toews’ family journey began on Sept. 14, 1924 when they travelled overland to the port of Libau, Latvia. They then travelled by ship to London, England, and on Oct. 2, boarded the Minnedosa, bound for Quebec City.
David, would have been 10 years old at the time. I can only imagine what that journey would have been like for him. Uprooted from his home, travelling by sea for many days to a strange land after the loss of his beloved mother a few years earlier.
According to their immigration documents, the Toews family was headed to Herbert, Saskatchewan. However, it seems the family didn’t stay in Saskatchewan. This photo shows my grandfather, Jacob (3rd person), working in 1925 at the Morden Experimental Farm in Manitoba where the Canadian government did agricultural research. This should have been the ideal occupation for Jacob since he was a skilled arborist and gardener.
Nevertheless, from family letters written in 1926 we find that the family had moved to a rural area near Headingly, Manitoba, about 15 km west of Winnipeg. Apparently this was so they could have a few acres of land which Jacob hoped would provide a better income for them. Throughout his life, my grandfather was always looking for opportunities to have a plot of land which he could cultivate and make a living from.
In one of the letters, Jacob describes their ongoing financial difficulties. My father would have been 12 years old and probably was not working in the fields like his older brothers who were trying to bring in some money to support the family. David had to go to school and that meant quickly learning a new language because he didn’t speak English. Years later, in one of the few comments he made about his early life, he told my mother that he ended up with the equivalent of a Grade 8 education and then had to leave school to help support the family.
In 1932 a series of postcards written by my grandfather’s brother, Johann, who was in exile in Russia, tells us that David and his family were living in Winnipeg. Jacob is very ill with pneumonia, and had lost his job which means he might have to get support from the city of Winnipeg. This idea is repugnant to him.
David would have been 18 at the time. Adding to the turmoil were indications that there was a great deal of discontent within the family. This resulted in a divorce for Jacob and Louise in 1933.
We aren’t sure exactly when David and Jacob moved from Manitoba to Ontario but it was sometime after 1933. David’s two older brothers were married by then and one of them moved to Leamington with his family, probably about the same time as David and Jacob. A cousin gave me this photo from 1937 of David (2nd from right in back row) with her father, Abram, in a Bible study class in Leamington. Abram married David’s younger sister 2 years later.
My father’s early life must have been so traumatic for him that he did not want to recall any of it. He never spoke to me about those early years, and he told my mother very little. It is only because of my interest in genealogy and in connecting with some of my cousins that I have learned more of his story.
This picture may have been taken about 1940 when David was 26 years old. Perhaps it was taken for an application to attend a Bible College course; I’m not sure, but to me it has that feeling about it. You see, sometime around this time period my father began to embark on his own spiritual journey, something different from the Mennonite tradition. Since I was never able to speak to him about this, I’m not sure what inspired his search.
This would have been a dramatic step for him and not one taken lightly. A big part of Mennonite life is their religion. To forsake that path, even to join another recognized church, would not be looked upon favourably by family members.
So how does all of this relate to our move as a family to Bothwell in 1956? It was the culmination of my father’s spiritual quest that brought us to a small town of 800 in southern Ontario when I was 9 years old. The story continues in my next post.
2 Comments
Pam Jones
I look forward to reading the next instalment, Ruth Anne. Your father’s early life is very interesting. His family came to Canada 3 years before my dad’s. My grandfather was already here, so grandma and 5 children came on their own. She had 25 British pounds with her. I must look what that would be worth today.
Ruth Anne
Thanks, Pam. I hope to be able to post the next instalment soon, but sometimes it takes a while to make sure you have written everything the way you want it.
I didn’t realize that your father came to Canada around the same time as my Dad. I guess we didn’t get into those topics when we were in university – those many years ago! I’m glad we are still in touch.