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Sketch of a newly-built ice cellar by a corner of Marta's family's housebarn circa 1395
"Finally we have an ice-cellar! It is built somewhat like a semlin. Other summers we hung our cream and butter in the well for cooling. If then sometimes the big cream can accidentally spilled, we'd have to pump out the whole well!
Milk buckets on a post - to drip (dry)
Circa 1935"

Sketches of the original semlin that Marta's grandmother's family lived in when they moved to Canada
"Semlin-living
The Benjamin Fehr family move to Canada in 1874
This is how they lived during the first years:
Their Katherina becomes my grandmother! The Frank Goertzen, Neufeld, Penner grandparents (1874-75) likewise:
One digs three feet or so into the ground, stacking the sod for walls, lays branches to form and hold up the roof.

Fragments of sketches of a semlin, probably based on the one Marta's grandmother's family lived in once

Sketches of a semlin like the one Marta's grandmother's family lived in
"Two more early sketches of (earlier) Mennonite Architecture as my (Marta's) great-grandparents lived in their first years in Canada. The parents could not afford a separate "Semlin" for their animals, chickens, etc. and partitioned their habitat to accommodate. Also it was late in the season and so, timewise, it was not possible to put up even a rougher version for them. Circa 1874
Who could have predicted us descendants of the Semlin generation would ever get to live in such a fine penthouse apartment as we do in only a century plus, thanks to you, Vic and Rosemarie, with some sold input by Geschwister Vern and Frieda, and Mary who set up a hospitality tradition here that permeates the whole community. Bravo! Circa 1874"