Heinrich Zimmerman must have been a very tired
groom when he pledged himself in marriage to the widow Elisabeth Boldt Willems
on March 18, 1906. –Zimmerman family information[i]
indicates that the marriage ceremony took place the same day that the Zimmerman
family arrived in Saskatchewan!
It would not just have been the groom who was
travel-weary when the widow and widower said their vows. Heinrich’s five children, ages four through
thirteen years, were likely beyond tired, exhausted from the trip,
shell-shocked from all the disorienting changes that had taken place in their
young lives—the long trip from their home in South Russia in 1903, their
mother’s debilitating illness when they arrived in Winkler, her death April 6,
1905. Now the children had traveled to another
brand-new home to live with people who were strangers to them. They
now had nine new brothers and sisters. A woman they’d never before seen was now
to be their ‘mother’. Would their new stepmother be kind? Would their new stepbrothers and sisters be
nice?
I
doubt that anyone at the time gave any thought at all to how Heinrich and
Elisabeth’s children felt about their parents’ remarriage. Even in today’s psychotherapeutic culture
couples are often oblivious to their children’s perspective when second marriages
are made. A hundred years ago, I doubt
that the question would even have glimmered.
The decision to marry was one for the adults to make: Heinrich was a
good man; Elisabeth was a good woman; children needed both a mother and a
father. How could anyone doubt that
everyone would be better off because of this marriage? Looking at it now, though, looking at what it
must have been like for the new stepbrothers and stepsisters, one can see that
bringing those two families together was not likely to produce one big happy
“Brady-Bunch” family.
When Heinrich and Elisabeth exchanged
vows on March 18, 1906, it was not just a new couple that emerged. That wedding was the marriage of two
families. On that day, whether they wanted
it or not, Elisabeth’s nine children and Heinrich’s five became stepbrothers
and stepsisters.
Elisabeth’s
children
Cornelius 23 b. 1 May 1882
Jacob 22 b.
8 Aug 1883
Elisabeth 20 b. 12 Sep 1885
Anna 18 b. 14 Sep 1887
Gerhard (George) 16 b. 30 Nov 1889
Heinrich (Henry) 14 b. 25 Apr 1892
Maria 11 b. 22 Oct 1894
Katherina 7 b. 11 Jul 1898
Margareta 5 b. 13 Jun 1900
Looking at the list, what is quickly obvious is the
wide range of ages. The two youngest
children, Margareta and Katherina, were just little girls. The two oldest, Cornelius and my
grandfather,Jacob,, were fully grown young men. Cornelius and Jacob were both still single,
but both had already staked out homestead claims. Elisabeth, who was 20, and Anna,
who was 18, were old enough to marry, so it was possible that one or both were
gone. But even if all four of the older
siblings had left home, the house would still have been full. At least six people were living in
Elisabeth’s house when the Zimmerman family arrived, and the number could have
been even higher.
My grandfather and his brothers and sisters had to
be curious about their new stepbrothers and sisters. The younger kids may even have been excited
about gaining new brothers and sisters. But
there must also have been resentment, too, and possibly some hostility, especially
after Heinrich and his family actually moved in. Six new people had to be fitted into an
already crowded house. The coming of the
Zimmermann’s must have felt like a home invasion.
Heinrich’s children
Lena 13 b.
5 Feb 1893
Anna 12 b. 25 Apr 1894
Henry 11 b.
4 Dec 1895
Marie 6 b.
25 June 1899
Jacob 4
b. 21 May 1901
The Zimmerman brothers and sisters were
moving into the home of an already established family, a family that was both
bigger and older than their own. Six of
the new stepsiblings were older than Lena, the oldest of the Zimmerman children. Four of the Willems stepsiblings were males,
new older brothers. My grandmother Lena
and her brothers and sisters probably felt more than a little overwhelmed and
intimidated. They must have felt like
intruders, outsiders unsure of their welcome.
This big, new family was probably more than a little bit scary.
[i] Zimmerman emigration history, full text: “Left
Russia, 28 July 1903 and arrived Halifax in Aug. 1903 and went on to Winkler,
Manitoba, Canada. Then moved, in Mar.
18, 1906, to Sask. Can. In Nov. 1920,
the Zimmermans came to Calif. Reedley.
Then Jacob D. Left for Chicago in Nov. 1924 then went to Canada 1925 in
Dec. Then went to Calif in 1926.” [This was part of the packet of Xeroxed family
information received from my aunt Mary Davis in 1994.][i]
