Photos From My Family Tree
Dad's Side
Klaas and Anna (Warkentin) Friesen and all their children and grandchildren in late 1918 or early 1919. Dad is the little fellow in suspenders sitting in front of his grandmother's knees. His brother Johnny is beside him.
The couple on the left are Dad's great-grandparents, Cornelius and Maria (Hiebert) Friesen.
The couple on the right are Dad's grandparents, Klaas and Anna (Warkentin) Friesen, who immigrated from South Russia to Canada and settled first, in Manitoba, and then when their oldest son, Cornelius wanted to move on to Saskatchewan (then known as the North West Territories), Klaas decided that his whole family would go too, and homestead together. Which they did.
My Dad's parents, Henry W. Friesen & Maria Spenst in their retirment years in Clearbook, B.C.
Grandpa Friesen was a story-teller. I think Dad inherited that nature, and so did I. Grandma Friesen was a creative woman, sewing and making things. A certain photo reminds me of the coat and hat sets she made for my brother Ernie and me when we were very young.
On the right, above, are Dad's maternal grandparents, Gerhard and Elisabeth (deVeer/Fehr) Spenst.
Here is my Dad, Henry H. Friesen, as a young man. Handsome, eh?
I used to tease Dad that we were stuck with each other until he was 100. There are a lot of long-livers in his genealogy. His parents and many other relatives died in their late 90s. His Uncle John Friesen got to be 104 in Herbert, SK. Then, his sister, my Aunt Jessie (Friesen) Switzer, just died in Vancouver on Oct/20/22 at 102. If she had lived to November 9th, she would have been officially 103!
Mom's Side
These were my Mom's grandparents, on her mother's side, Isbrand and Anna (Neudorf) Friesen. They were of godly, noble character.
I'm afraid I have yet to ever see a photo of Mom's Neudorf grandparents. I have not ever seen a good one of the Kroeker ancestors either, although I've heard them described so that I almost think I can picture them. Somewhere there is a vague photo of Great-grandpa David Kroeker carrying a sheep in his arms. At least it was thought to be him.
I do have a cache of old photos that need to be scanned, and then some more can be added here.
For now, I have this one of Mom's mother, my beloved Gr'ma, Elisabeth (Friesen) Kroeker. Yes, the one whom I sought to honour with my book, "A Godly Inheritance." You'll read a lot of her on this site.
Here is Mom, Elizabeth (Kroeker) as a young woman, in a photo taken just shortly before she was married to Dad.
Right! It is interesting that the two Friesen lines tied together in Mom and Dad. I have long had a theory that if I can just go back far enough in our family tree, I'll be able to prove that they came from the same root of Friesens. I've gone back 14 generations, but haven't reached that point yet. I keep saying just another generation or two should prove it.
Mom and Dad Together
My parents, Henry H. Friesen & Elizabeth Kroeker on their wedding day, October 17, 1947. Dad was 30 and Mom was 29, so it was a later in life marriage than had been the case for their siblings. Both grew up in Saskatchewan, but met while visiting relatives, who turned out to have mutual friends. The met just before both were returning to Saskatchewan, so they promised to write each other. So their romance was all by correspondence, even though neither were keen to write much of anything the rest of their lives.
About My Friesen Genealogies Collection
You will find among my eBooks for sale one that is 622 pages, and when I printed out my copy I had to put the pages in a binder as the cerlox binding I used on the others would not work with such a heavy book.
Our Friesens & Assorted Friesens covers both Dad's Friesens and Mom's Friesens, PLUS I've collected from others their Friesen genealogies and put just a condensed version into this big book. (At one point I had 30 Friesen lines! But this last winter, as I checked each one in the GRANDMA database, I found earlier ancestors for several that tied them together. So now I have just 20 besides my two lines). If someone should find their own family line in this book, they may have the extra clues that would allow me to connect MY two Friesen lines. What a scoop that would be!
