Welcome To The September 2019 Issue Of Story Quilt!

 

The story by Barbara Tiessen in the last issue inspired me to write something about my Oma.

My Mother was Bertha (Epp) Janzen. She had immigrated into Canada as a young child with her parents arriving in the 1920s. Her parents were Jacob and Susie (Pries) Epp. These were the only Grandparents I knew growing up. My Father's parents' story, the Janzen line, has been written in these pages before. I never met them.

Susie Epp, my Oma, was a friendly woman with a stern personality. She had trained as a nurse in Russia and in Germany and served on both sides of the revolution when called upon. Rarely would she talk about the Hell she witnessed but when she did the stories were brutal. Hence her stern personality.

Much later when over 90 years of age she flew from Vancouver to London, Ontario where we were on sabbatical at the University of Western Ontario. Our two kids were small and now she enjoyed them being silly and building cardboard houses in the bedroom. I had never seen her laugh and totally let herself go like that when I was small.

My Oma Epp lived to be well over 100 years of age and was remembered in the Old Folks Home as someone who demanded cleanliness and punctuality of the staff even to the annoyance of management!

Way to go, Oma.

 

Ed Janzen

 

Response from Barbara Tiessen:
I was pleased to see you refer to my story, Survivors Every One, in your Editor’s remarks in the September issue of Story-Quilt. I was delighted that my story took you back to memories of your own Oma. They were remarkable women, weren’t they?