The Gefreiter Story

Erwin and I moved to the Rosser district at the beginning of September, 1964. We had been living with my parents at McCreary, Manitoba, but it was now time to be on our own again.

I had come out of the hospital at McCreary a few days earlier after giving birth of our youngest son, Dale, Mavis, our oldest, had come to Rosser earlier to start school. She stayed with her uncle and aunt, Fred and Olga Lange and started her first term with her cousins, Kathy and Martin.

We moved into a home owned by Mr. Fred Krym. It was beautiful living in the country. We had a huge garden and there was lots of room for the kids to play.

When the teacher at Meadows School left at Christmas-time the following year, I started teaching there. I was there for a year and a half- the last teacher at that school.

Mavis learned to bake at Rosser. On weekends she would bake cookies for our lunches for the following week.

Barry was big boy- always big for his age. We had a golden retriever dog. If Barry was going where he shouldn’t the dog would push him over and sit on him. Barry was about four at the time.

The winters we were in Rosser weren’t too bad- not too much snow. I remember talking to Fred Krym one day, commenting how we didn’t have the snow and the high drifts that he remembered when growing up. Shortly after that we had that March blizzard of 1966. There was a row of evergreens on the north side of the yard and after that storm, only about a foot of the tree tops were showing. Mavis, Barry and Dale really had fun playing on those snowbanks while they lasted.

At the end of April in 1967 we moved to Stonwall. The school at Meadows was closing and I was taking over one of the Grade Two rooms in Stonewall. The first Monday of May we had another snow storm. It was on my first day driving to Meadows from Stonewall and I wasn’t sure of the road. The visibility was bad. I took a wrong turn at Warren and ended up in a farmer’s yard north of Stonewall- a first trip I never forgot.

I continued teaching in Stonewall until my health failed in 1973 and have been unable to work since.

Mavis and Barry finished school in Stonewall. Mavis has herown accounting office in Winnipeg. She has been married since 1980 and has given me my two wonderful grandchildren. Her husband, Paul, was a long distance trucker. He is now working in the office at Arnold Brothers Transport.

Barry has done a number of things but has spent most of his time in the trucking industry. He is presently living in northern Alberta.

Dale took his high school education at Selkirk Comprehensive School where he took mechanics. He then went into the trucking field. He spent eight years as a long distance driver. He is now living in Winnipeg.

I am living in Lion’s Manor in Stonewall, where I moved at the end of December 1989. I am living here with my mother, Mrs. Jennie James of McCreary, Manitoba. She has lived with me since my father’s death in 1979.

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