It is not easy...

...being an immigrant.

Ms Katie's parents, my Oma and Opa, were immigrants from Russia to Canada in the early 1920's, aound the time of the Russian civil war. I grew up hearing the stories of persecution, violence, traveling by night, family members disappearing, illness and finally freedom. Early in our journey, Ms Katie's niece handed us a bag of papers that her mom, Ms Katie's sister, had given her.

Treasures!! There are passports, immigration cards, letters and naturalization papers all with names, dates and birthplaces that I have never heard or seen before and much of it in Russian. There are many questions loudly rattling around in my brain - why did you leave when you did, how did you prepare, how many miles did you walk, how long did it take, who or how many were lost on the way and who are still in Russia...

As Ms Katie and I drove through Manitoba we saw the name signs of familiar towns and the stories of old family history began again.

Oma's brother immigrated first, several years earlier. He settled on a farm in Manitoba and raised chickens. Lots of chickens. Thousands of chickens! When Oma and Opa arrived in Canada, they and Ms Katie's five older siblings lived in the summer kitchen. A summer kitchen is a small, one room out building designed to be a kitchen and nothing else. So, here is a family of seven, with two more on the way, struggling, destitute, dependent on the grace of others, deciphering a new language and culture, grateful to be alive and working toward becoming independent once again. It takes years. It is not easy to be an immigrant.

I remember as a child playing on this farm with Ms Katie's cousins children; running, scaring chickens, eating fresh eggs and homemade sausage, listening to stories - some in English, some not and never knowing until now that this is the farm where Ms Katie and her twin brother, Abram, were born!