I thought you might enjoy a few stories from Mom's autobiography
We lived in a small house at Macmillan and Nassau Street in Winnipeg, next door to a Jewish 
synagogue. When I was less than a year old, on a cold winter day, the water pipes in the house froze. My 
father tried to thaw them out by holding burning newspapers under the frozen sections. Unfortunately, 
the house caught on fire and the fire department had to be called. There was a lot of smoke damage but 
the house was saved. During the fire, my mother placed me in a small basket outside the front door to 
avoid the smoke. The older children were also outside shivering in the cold wintry air.

All the children started earning their own spending money while in upper elementary school. 
With this money, they were able to buy school clothes and supplies. A dressmaker would have us 
purchase mew material, a dress pattern, and would sew a dress for just a few dollars. Beginning in fifth 
grade, we had two new dresses a year, which we washed and ironed every day until they sparkled. We 
also polished our shoes just about every day. Once my shoes were ladies high tops, button shoes that 
reached almost to my knees. This was very mortifying because they weren’t in style at all and it was very 
unpleasant to wear them.

Following this, we moved to Clybourn Avenue when I was in high school. At the time I met 
Leslie, in 1942, we lived on Vine Street. It was at this location that Vater had a great idea for saving fuel bills in the winter time. He located a source of pecan shells at some establishment in the city. He had a truckload brought to our basement to supply our wood burning furnace. This worked fine for a week or 
so, but then we noticed flying insects emerging from the pecan shells. Soon they come in hordes and 
covered the walls of the entire house. Memory conveniently fails me as to what finally happened after 
this event!

And finally...

It has been a wonderful life. I never dreamed I would get to do all these things. We had such a 
nice family who made us feel proud. And now we have two grand children to see through their “growing 
up” stage. People say we will get younger because of this. Perhaps! In the meantime we are enjoying 
life, keeping healthy and busy and thanking the Lord that we can enjoy life to the fullest. 

Dorothee