49. In Alberta

            Anna's brother John Wiens had come to Canada during the time when it was still possible to sell their farm and bring money out of Russia.  He had purchased a sugar beet farm in Alberta and this is where Peter and Anna Friesen with Betty, Mary, Anne, Katherine, Peter, and Jack arrived in early summer of 1930.
            Anne remembers: "We got to Coaldale, Alberta on Pentecost Sunday.  Nobody was there to meet us because the telegram we had sent had not been received. Dad walked all the way to the church and then they came to get us." 

            Mary remembers: "Well here we were. We did not know a word of English, but we went to school and soon learned to both speak and write it. The teachers were very kind, but our school clothes were very out of style. School was our heart’s delight.  Every song and story was very important and I remember them to this day.  We sang "God Save Our Gracious King", and "Good Morning to You" and then we said The Lord's Prayer.  I was twelve years old, so the teacher let me make the first three grades right away, I skipped grade four and then had one year in grades five and six."

            John Wiens owned a farm and also rented another farm 5 miles away that had a 2 story house.  This is where the Friesen's made their first home in Canada.  Some of the family slept upstairs and some downstairs.  The house had a coal heater in living room.  In Sept. 1931 another sister was added to the family and they named her Agatha.     

            Coaldale was a small prairie town that had a few stores.  There was a rural school for lower grades and the higher grades went to Coaldale.  Mary went to the Coaldale school.  Grade 5 had a music teacher who taught higher grades.  There were 3 rooms on the lower floor.  There was also a school down the road for grade 1.  Mary was ashamed of her lunch because they had brown bread and 'greive schmoltz'.   They rode to school in a covered wagon that had a small coal fire to them keep warm. 

            After a time the family moved close to another relative, the Schmidts.  The Schmidts lived in a big house.  They also had a rambler duplex ¼ mile down road for farm-hands.  The Friesens shared this duplex with another family.  They had a small kitchen with no cupboards, just a table and chairs.  The other room served as the living room and the bedroom.  They made up their beds every night and put everything away every morning.  The children slept on the floor on the feather blankets they brought from Russia.  Mary continued to go to school in Coaldale and transportation was on a covered back of a truck. 

            Coaldale was 12 miles from Lethbridge where Betty worked.  She would come home and say, "Is it clean here or have you let the place go?"  They had to clean the windows and the lamp chimneys to meet the standards of their older sister who worked in the city. 

Anne, Agatha, Mary, Katherine and Jack