My parents Jacob Isaac Lehn and Helene Janzen were married in Chortitza, Russia in 1922 and came to Canada in 1923 with my grandparents Isaak and Maria Lehn. I remember hearing that my parents had been married near the well-known Chortitza oak tree. My siblings are Isaac Lehn (deceased), Helen Koop, Irene Froese, Marie Dick, Leona Willms, Rudy Lehn, Neil Lehn.

My first memory is of Dad taking grain to Herschel with a horse-pulled wagon. This was about 1929 and I remember that it was difficult going downhill. I was sitting beside my Dad. When my parents bought their first car, a 490 Chevrolet, I recall filling a can of water in the horse trough and pouring it into the gas tank.

Shortly thereafter we began to feel the effects of the Great Depression and lost evertyhthing. We moved to grandpa Dirks place in Waldheim, Saskatchewan and farmed ther two years. I helped with the threshing; grain sold for 25 cents per bushel. I started school in waldheim. There were many Mennonites in my class.

After two years, we moved 15 miles to Rosthern where Miss Luke was my teacher. At this time my parents took in out-of-town boarders who attended the Rosthern Mennonite Academy. We had a good sized home and boarded as many as seven students at our house at one time. I recall a Christmas program in our church when I was about eight. When the program director asked for Freiwilliges (voluntary contributions) I stood and recited the following:

I had learned this poem in German school held on Saturdays in Rosthern. Miss Demke, who was German, taught me in grade 3. Our family lived in Bergthal for a while and I took grades 2 to 4 in Rosthern.

Before our planned move to Ontario we had an auction sale. Mr. Zacharias was the auctioneer and our mother said that he must have been anxious to get home early that day. As a result, everything was sold quickly and cheaply. For instance, my hockey stick sold for 10 cents; it broke my heart! The sale brought in a total of $18.

In 1937, our mother, with her four daughters and two sons moved to Leamington, Ontario. The seven of us sat on one bench on the train from Rosthern to Saskatoon. Our uncle Peter, who lived in Saskatoon, took us to see a movie and to the Woolworth store which was very exciting!. Dad had come to Leamington earlier on a cattle train where he was in charge of feeding the animals during the long trip.

We lived on concession 8 one winter near the Hiriam and Glenn Hatt farm. Our family lived in the brick house located back from the road at Goldsmith. We attended S.S.#9 where Edna Atherton was teacher.

In 1938 we moved to the Ridge and I went to the Ridge school in Leamington where the wonderful Miss Lindsay who taught grades 7 and 8 was principal. She could keep law and order without strapping or spanking. She played classical music on the grammaphone before 9 a.m. and during lunch time One day I made a paper airplane in class to shoot at a classmate. It missed him and went on to hit the teacher at the board. That was the biggest trouble I got into!

In the meantime, two more sons were born to our parents which made a total of four girls and four boys. Our family lived just west of the cemetery on the ridge. I attended Leamington High School one year. Then our family moved to Union where my dad did the gardening, etc. for Dr. Weihenckle, a surgeon from Detroit. They lived near the lake where "Irish Linens" are located in 2008. It was 1940 and dad was earning $50 per month. By this time my parents had four sons and four daughters. When I was 16, I got work at Salmoni's grocery store in Kingsville for $18 weekly. I drove their pickup truck to deliver groceries as far as Union and surrounding area. Gasoline was about 20 cents per gallon. In August I, along with Nick Krahn, John Brown, Jake Mathies and others, went to work on the Delhi tobacco farms for $7 and board daily. I did this four consecutive years from August until October. In 1945 we earned $9 daily and when I had saved a total of $300 I bought a 1936 Chrysler car with a radio. A short while later, a drunk ran into it. Insurance was not mandatory at that time so it cost me a lot of money to have it repaired.

I met Frieda Warkentin at Sunday School. One day in 1946, I drove down the street and saw Frieda and a group of friends walking. I pulled up along side the curb and asked her for a ride. Her friends nudged her to accept the ride and she did. I worked at Hodges, the Kingsville tobacco factory at the time. Frieda and I were married at the Mennonite Church on Oak Street by Rev. Abram Rempel. The first year we lived in London where I had carpentry work. Then we moved to Kingsville to the Harry Matthews farm for one year; after which we took over the 11 acre Cook farm in Kingsville for four years. Here we grew 6 acres of tomatoes, plus cabbage and other vegetables. Following that I worked at Darryl Brown trucking on Oak Street of Leamington until forty men, one of whom was me, were laid off in 1963.

We had built a new home on William Street of Leamington in 1958, so we sold the house and bought the Parkdale store. Here we had two dependable employees, namely Betty Adams and Cecil Helmer. We sold the store to Jake Willms in 1971.

In 1972, we built our dream house on the lake. In 1999, Frieda had a stroke and in 2002, after being on oxygen for three years, she passed away. Today I have one son, three grandchildren and five great grandchildren. I attend the Faith Mennonite Church; my best years were when Frieda and I were in our forties.

AK 2008

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