Sammlung 128 - Abram Thiessen fonds

Abram Thiessen was born March 1, 1863 in Einlage, Chortitza. He married Anna Krahn who was born September 22, 1872. Abram kept a diary of life in Einlage which he wrote as a gift to his son Abram. In the diary he includes when churches and schools were built, marriages and many other subjects which involved village life. Abram Jr. was sent to Siberia from 1938-1939. His family kept the diary hidden and safe for many years.

After arriving in Canada, many of the articles in the journal were printed in Der Bote. Soon people who had immigrated from the 1920's were asking to borrow the book to prove their birthdates for pensions. The book travelled across Canada and with some effort, the family was able to track it down. They were dismayed to find that people had torn whole pages from the book to obtain information. After that, the family numbered all the pages as they did not want to risk losing any more pages. Towards the end of the book, Helene (Martens) Thiessen and Helene (Thiessen) Friesen made notations.