| I do not have a lot of memories about my grandparent�s home because I was only 4 years old when my grandmother died on Dec 20, 1951. I always called her �big grandma� to differentiate between my other grandma whom I called �little grandma�. From my point of view at this time, it had mostly to do with size. However, I remember how loving my �big grandma� always was. She would take me on her lap and tell me stories, though I don�t remember what they were about. She had a big rocking chair in the living room near a big fern. I think she liked plants because she had other house plants there too. We lived in McTavish, but in 1950 when the flood came, my parents and I evacuated and my mother and I went to live in Greenland, where we stayed in my grandmother�s home. I was about 2 and a half. My grandfather had died before I was born, but my uncle Harvey was still living at home, and my cousin Evelyn Esau was there too. My mother and I were given a room upstairs. I can remember playing with some kind of a wind-up metal car in our upstairs bedroom. In the downstairs kitchen, I remember there was always good food being made. I especially liked the �grandma buns� which were the double-stacked kind that she always made. Mmmmm, delicious! Especially when they were fresh. Once I remember seeing their horse, Smokey, who had gone to live at my uncle Jacob Reimer�s farm, about 10 miles away in Giroux. One morning someone exclaimed �There�s Smokey!� and I begged to see him too. I was lifted up to the kitchen window where I could see him trotting around the yard. My mother tells me that he had jumped over a very high fence at uncle Jake�s to escape, and had come all the way home! My uncle Harvey went outside to round him up. Uncle Harvey also kept some chickens, and would be kept busy with that for most of the day. I really admired him. He was so big and strong and looked so confident. I remember him at the supper table. During grace, he would pray with his arms folded across his chest. I would sometimes try to imitate him. After the food was laid out on the table, he would invariably reach across and cut the big slab of butter into small cubes. Evelyn was my baby sitter and she would take me out for walks sometimes, and even showed me down into the basement where they kept all sorts of home canned goods. She tried to teach me to tie my shoes, or at least tell the difference between my right and left foot. One time we got a cereal box that had a tiger mask on the back of it. I was allowed to cut it out and attach strings to it. I wore that mask with great pride. But there were no other children there to show it off to. My cousins Allan, Carol and David Reimer lived a half-mile away. I could see their house across the fields, so I decided to go and see them and show them my new tiger mask. I got on my tricycle and started pedaling. I was there or nearly there when my absence was noticed. I�m not sure if my aunt Helen phoned or if Evelyn or someone else had spotted me wearing my tiger mask pedaling down the road. Uncle Harvey came after me and took me back home. I got sick with tonsillitis during the time we stayed in Greenland. I remember being taken to the Steinbach hospital. I didn�t want to go, but I was not given a choice. Uncle Harvey drove us there in his blue Fargo pickup truck. I think it was about a 1948 model. The day we went to the hospital was a rainy day, and I watched the windshield wipers clean the windshield sweeping across and towards each other till they nearly touched near the center of the windshield. I thought it looked like they were kissing. We arrived at the hospital and I was taken into a room where there were some other children. They had cribs with very high shiny steel bars, so that once I was placed inside the crib, it was like I was in jail. Of course, I didn�t know about jails, but I did know that I did not want to stay there. I think someone managed to distract me for a while, because I had settled a bit, but then caught a glimpse of my mother waving to me through the window of a double swinging hospital door. That set me off crying again. I knew then that I was being left there. It was an awful, horrible feeling of utter abandonment. I didn�t know what to do, but was very angry. Although I had been toilet trained long before this hospitalization, I now deliberately soiled my pants. It was the only thing that I could control in this unfamiliar situation where I was out of control. The fact that the nurses were angry that they had to change me gave me some small satisfaction�though none as much as when my mother �liberated� me the next day. She told me that when I saw her, I didn�t say �hello�, but just started crying and asking �Why did you leave me here?� Thanks to antibiotics, I was well enough to go home. After the flood was over, we went back to live in McTavish, but still came out to visit my grandmother in �yant sied�. In the following year, she became ill and no longer was able to get up out of bed, though for the brief moments I was allowed to see her, she was still pleased to see me. I didn�t understand what was happening to her, but I loved her very much. Then I found out that she had died and had gone to heaven. I remember going to her funeral and wanting to throw myself in the coffin with her so that I could go to heaven with her and be with my �big grandma�. Later, I would sometimes imagine myself once again sitting on her lap, feeling loved and totally cared for. I would think about her in heaven looking down at her grandchildren and me and I would imagine that she was still sending her love from that far off place. The Toews Family get-togethers: I always enjoyed getting together with my Toews (descendants of Jacob G. Toews) relatives. There was always so much good food, and everyone seemed to enjoy each other. There was a lot of laughter and fun. We would be divided according to gender and age. The women and older girls would be preparing food and setting the table while the men gathered in the living room to talk about important matters of farming or the world. The children would play together till it was time to eat. Then everyone would gather for a prayer, and depending on how many were present, we were instructed how we could partake. Sometimes we had to eat in shifts, or most commonly, it was presented �buffet style� so that we could take our plates back to where we could continue socializing. I have always been impressed at the love I have felt in the extended Toews family of uncles, aunts and cousins. I have seen this in the way my mother and her brothers and sisters interacted with each other over the years and have always known that their love for each other came from the love and nurturing they received from their parents. Though I never knew my grandfather, since he died about 2 years before I was born, I have seen him in the lives of my uncles Ed, Lee and Harvey. I am told that he was a man of faith and prayer, deeply spiritual and generous, who had great concern and love for all his family. The fact that there are so many stories told about him, point to the impact he had on his family and those that knew him. After reading the stories of Johann Toews (1793-1873), published in Delbert Plett�s book �Leaders of the Kleinegemeinde�, I was further impressed at the legacy of faith that has been handed down in the Toews family. My great, great, great grandfather Johann Toews wrote the article �The Watchful Eye of God� in which he recounted several instances in which he believed that God had intervened and spared his life. He wrote this testimony and poetry to encourage his children that even in circumstances that appear hopeless, God is always present. I am thankful that my ancestor Johann Toews has passed this precious legacy of faith to his descendants�the fruits of which I have witnessed first hand in the Toews family. Visitors have always received a warm welcome. |
| Toews Family: My Grandparents |