{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/ms3jw87h10/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Interview with Susana Miller (née Doerksen)"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/128/original/UA_Logo_WHT_RGB_%281%29.png?1725471982","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003ca href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\"\u003eAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)\u003c/a\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Kule Folklore Centre (Creator)","Miller, Susana (Interviewee)","Kampen, Christine (Interviewer)","Thiessen, Angela (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2005-04-29 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["5 audio files; wav; 2:18:03","audio/x-wav"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["qv33rx821 (avalonid)","LC163 (other)","2005-091-4747 (local)","2005-091-4748 (local)","2005-091-4749 (local)","2005-091-4750 (local)","2005-091-4751 (local)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["oral histories (topical)","labor (work) (topical)","education (topical)","photographs (topical)","religion (topical)","farm life (topical)","Winkler, Manitoba, Canada (spatial)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Interview"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date First Ingested"]},"value":{"en":["2021-02-03"]}},{"label":{"en":["Note"]},"value":{"en":["Includes some German (language)","Interviewee: Miller, Susana (creation/production)","Interviewer: Kampen, Christine (creation/production)","Interviewer: Thiessen, Angela (creation/production)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003ca href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\"\u003eAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)\u003c/a\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["University of Alberta Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["University of Alberta Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/128/original/UA_Logo_WHT_RGB_%281%29.png?1725471982","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/006/small/audio-default.png?1640631661","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 5 - 2005-091-4747.wav"]},"duration":2000.25977,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/006/small/audio-default.png?1640631661","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/006/original/2005-091-4747.wav?1660934096","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":2000.25977,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 1 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Clothing, farm life, school","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=5.0,231.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"(Susana Miller née Doerksen was born September 12, 1916 in Reinthal, Manitoba.)\nMiller starts the interview with a picture taken when she was 12 years old, in 1928. It depicts her and her sister, she doesn't know when it was taken (she obviously looks at another picture). The interviewers ask her to talk about the first picture. Miller recalls that she was wearing an old dress, it had all faded out, and then they had dyed it black. Her mother had made her a little pig tail in her hair to keep it out of her eyes. She wore a pair of stockings, they were 95 cents at that time but she got them for 50 cents. They seldom had shoes. Later, her father bought a little acreage 5 miles out of Winkler. They moved to Winkler in 1927. She liked to work in the garden, pick potato bugs, and all little odds and ants. They had a garden with all kinds of quack grass. Miller asked the interviewers if they know what quack grass is. It is a grass that has long roots, it's hard to kill. Some people say you can kill it with salt. After rain, you can get the roots out when you dig around. it was so much fun pulling these roots out. They had piles and piles of them, she and her brother did that. They had a wonderful garden after that because all of the bad stuff was out. It could grow just like everything. She loved to be on the farm there but then they moved to town. Miller attended school at Winkler for only two years. She wasn't fit for the school year, her clothes didn't fit. She had just one school dress, but she was at school all week. When she came home for the weekend, her mother washed and patched it wherever it needed patching, and next week she wore it. Once a girl at school asked her: \"Susan, you've got only one dress?\" Miller replied: \"No, I have an old one that I put on after school because they did not wear their school clothes at home.\" They did \"all kind of dirty work where you could get them spoiled or even torn or something.\" Once, a friend made her and her daughter a red Gingham dress with checkers, she made them the same dresses. She was proud of the dress but maybe the girl was jealous, and when Miller wore the dress, she said: \"Oh, you've got Katherine's dress on. And when she (her friend) wore her's, she said: You got Susan's dress on.\" They never wore them at the same time, she doesn't know why. Her friend didn't want to look like a twin.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=5.0,231.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Working for Jewish families in Winkler, Manitoba; working for farmers in Roland, Manitoba","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=231.0,1030.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller states that she enjoyed her life, \"I enjoyed my life very much\". They lived right next to the synagogue, the Jewish synagogue. She didn't have a picture but she described the building and someone drew it (obviously, she has shown that drawing the interviewers). It was a Levenger building. Miller does not know why there is no picture to be found anywhere, at least she can't find that. She lived next door, the doctors lived there. According to the Jewish religion, there were things they could do and things they could not do. On Friday night, they couldn't shut the lights off, blow out candles or things like that. The church (obviously: synagogue) was next door, and when they had church there, they came to their place and asked her to blow the candles out and switch the light out. She got a nickel for that: \"That was cash, I didn't get much cash those days.\" Miller got six cents a night cash for sleeping at this Jewish lady's house when her husband was out in the country with a pedal wagon. Miller enjoyed that but the lady wanted her to spend more time with her but she couldn't, she had other places to go and help. On Saturdays, they weren't allowed to light a fire, so she had to light a fire in quite a few places, and then she had to check if the fires were out, they weren't allowed to add to them either. When it burns down, you add some (fire wood) but they weren't allowed to do that. If the fire was out, she had to make a fresh fire. She also got a nickel for making the fires. They killed the chickens for a penny and a half a piece. When they sold them, they never got cash, they always had to take goods in the store. In those days, they never had refrigeration. Sometimes, they had to go at midnight, they (the people they worked for) had an old house at Mountain Ave. They had to go at midnight, she and her five brothers, and then there were other people too. She told her father that she didn't want to go, there were no other girls there, but she was told that she had to help and to see that her parents didn't starve, they had to support them. They killed chickens there from 12 to 3. Then they went home \"as lousiest as we could be because the chickens were just full of lice\". When they came home, they would strip themselves, and all the lice would be in their hair. They lived for an hour, and after an hour they could go to sleep, the lice were gone, they were dead. There were \"such poor chickens, you know, very skinny, just scrap chickens.\" They (the owners of the chickens) wanted them to take to Winnipeg early in the morning, that was the reason why they had to kill them at night. They had no refrigeration. They had to kill the chickens, clean them, \"have them all nicely cleaned\", and then they had to wrap the head in brown paper, and tie it up so that they wouldn't bleed onto the others. The boys (her brothers) would do it (kill the chickens) in the barn and then bring them to the kitchen table and then Miller's mother and she would pull out the pin feathers and put the wings in the dining room. They had to put saw dust on the floor so that the blood would leak on there until they got there. They tied the heads up later before they sent them back.\nMiller recalls that she did \"all kinds of stuff\". She did washing, for some Mennonite people too, but mainly for Jewish people. One lady said to her: \"Would you work for me, I'll give you two dollars a month, and you come everyday to our's.\" Miller could come every time that suited her. When she washed, she went from 8 to 12. She could do other things in the afternoon, like cleaning the upstairs or making the boys' beds, washing the kitchen floor, \"all these little odds and ends I had to do, but then everyday\". The lady said: \"If I will be satisfied, I'll give you a little present at the end of the month.\" At the end of the month, Miller was very curious what she would get. They (the people she worked for) had a store, they let her pick up material for a dress. She picked out some bright green dress with big white dots. Then she had a dress made out of that. Miller worked at three Gladstones. She also worked for the Danzkers. Later, when she was married, she lived at a rented place where they could rent for two dollars a month. They didn't have any money, there was no money to be earned at that time. Miller did a couple of jobs in Roland, Manitoba, working for English people. At one place, she worked for five dollars a month, she had to do all the spring work, like flattening the garden, whitewashing the chicken barns, milking, everything, to do the whole house cleaning: \"They were not very kind people, they weren't very kind.\" Miller had to get up at 5 in the morning, and lots of times she had to work until 11 at night: \"The lady wasn't very kind.\" The lady always had porridge in a cast iron pot, and the girls (obviously: the lady's daughters) would sleep late, and the pot stood at the stove, and the porridge would dry on. When it came doing the dishes, Miller was out in front of the house, on her knees, trying to get that porridge pot clean. The lady said: \"Oh, you must really take it hard, down on your knees doing the porridge pot.\" Miller was seen as \"this little piece of chore girl\", and she repeats that she had problems to get the dried on porridge off. Miller stayed there for one month. One day, it was very windy, and the lady had an old tin pail, the ones that were small at the bottom and wider at the top, and the lady sent her for a pail of water, and they had a pump, it was very hard to pump. She hung at the pump and she couldn't pump with one hand, so she took both hands to pump, and it fell off and was damaged at the bottom. And the lady scolded her so hard although the pail had lots of mendings at the bottom already, it had been fixed with many mendings with little screws. Miller said she would pay for the pail but she should stop scolding her. The lady let her go home.\nThat was one place. At another place Miller worked long hours like that. The lady was different but it was threshing time. There were potatoes to be peeled, they were going to get threshers. Miller had to do the washing by hand, with hand power (she shows a picture: \"you can see my little machine there, with a rocker\"). The lady was going shopping to town and said that Miller wouldn't have to make dinner if the lady's husband didn't come home. They had a big pot of gravy for beef, and the lady and she ate that. Miller did all that washing by hand, wrought it, hanged it and brought it in, and she was supposed to peel those potatoes. Miller prayed that the lady's husband wouldn't come home. She didn't know what to make for dinner, she was only 15: \"Then he didn't come home, and I thanked to Lord that he didn't come home.\" When the lady came home, she asked if Miller had peeled the potatoes. Miller said no, she had done all the laundry, had brought it in to the living room. The lady said that Miller had \"no business going into the living room.\" Miller asked her where she was supposed to put the laundry: \"I don't think you want me to put it in my room, and in the dining room we have the table set for the threshers.\" Miller didn't know where else she could put it, she didn't go into the room, she just put the laundry around the door at the chair. The lady scolded her for that. The lady was very fussy, when someone came over for company, she wouldn't look what she had on the stove. If she had something cooking, and Miller had to go milking: \"She yelled at me, I let that burn on the stove, I said, well, I had to go milking, I didn't know what she had on the stove, she wouldn't stir it while somebody is there.\" \"She was mean to me, and after two weeks, my feet were so sore, and I asked her if she could buy me just a cheap pair of shoes so that I could rest my feet. No, she wouldn't, she said maybe she could find a pair from her girls but she never did. That evening, they got company, and I found out that I had a ride to Winkler.\" Miller told the lady that she would go home. She was supposed to get eight dollars for the two weeks, and the lady said: \"I'm giving you nothing, and she never did.\" Later, Miller heard that she never paid her people anyway \"but nowadays you go after it, then, in those days, if they don't pay, they don't pay.\" This was also in Roland, Manitoba. Miller \"never got nothing\" and was scared to go home as her father was waiting for money, she would come and always had to give her money to him. Her mother said that Miller should better stay in town and work here and there and help her in the house, \"that's much better than being out on the farm. If I would have known how to get home, I would have walked home.\" Miller repeats: \"She said, I'll give you nothing.\" The lady used to tell her to put the potato peelings in the garbage, she told her that they always used to give them to the cows. One day the lady said to her: \"Why do you put the potato peelings in the garbage when you can give them to the cows.\"\nAsked about how Miller got the job, she recalls that people came to town and she doesn't know exactly how she got it: \"Some people came down and wanted somebody to help on the farm. Of course my parents didn't have much, we were quite poor.\" Miller didn't know the people she would work for before. Miller was glad that she was back home and could do that (working for Jewish families). She also did cleaning for her mother and helped her: \"That was very nice, I liked it much better.\" Miller didn't mind the chicken cleaning either but she didn't like to go out in the night, \"just me among all those men, I didn't like that.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=231.0,1030.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Halloween","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1030.0,1085.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller went out \"Halloweening\" with friends. They didn't say just \"Trick or treat\", they would go in and sing: \"We'd sing for them, we'd earn our treats.\" They always got apples. At Dr. Weed's they got 25 cents cash for the seven of them. The cop's son said: \"Let's give it to Susan, she can buy candy and divide it in seven parts, and bring them to school. Oh, I thought, I was big cheese, you know.\" Miller felt proud of herself. She did that, and they all got their shares. \n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1030.0,1085.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A burning accident in 1928, parental home in Winkler, MB","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1085.0,1559.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller had an accident in 1928 when she helped her mother to wash. Her mother boiled the laundry first. They had a step outside that was three feet deep, and there was a hole in it, and her mother put a board over the hole so that Miller wouldn't step in there and fall in to her hip: They knew what would happen. The board moved, and Miller fell in, and she scalded her whole leg. They had neighbours that just came that year from Russia. One of them said: \"Susan is so happy, she is jumping around in the yard.\" In reality, if was out of pain. She has deep scars on her leg, she got deep blisters on there. Her mother was never educated, she just lived \"like a slave cleaning houses for others\". Her mother didn't know much about anything like that, so she sent Miller's brother to the clinic to Dr. Weed. The doctor gave her brother a little brown envelope with powder in it, he didn't write anything on it, and didn't say anything. So her mother \"naturally thought\" that she would have to sprinkle it onto the blisters that were wet and scummy. When the doctor came over, he said: \"Are you ever dum. You were supposed to dilute it in water and wash it with that. Well, couldn't he have said that? He should have said that or write that on there!\" When the doctor examined her, he said that he could not save her, \"he gave me up to die\". Her mother fanned her with a straw head as Miller's leg burned so much. Her mother put oil over her sore with a chicken feather, and it healed up. Miller spent two weeks in bed, she used a chair with a hole. It was very painful. Some school children came over, and they played post office. The people across the street, an old couple which had the first store in Winkler, and they had no daughter at home during the day (she was going to Winnipeg), so Miller was ask to come over and to comb the lady's hair and fix her food and \"kind of take care of her of them for the day\". When the accident happened, the old store keeper came over and brought her all kinds of food, although Miller had no appetite. His name was Ben... (not audible). They tried their best to recuperate her. She loved prune plums, they made mouse of them but she had to go to the can all the time. One day, her brother and his wife came over. She had a little bag with jelly beans she had bought, and Miller ate one after another, there wasn't that many. When they had moved to Winkler from their farm, they hadn't known the big stores before, they were just \"flabbergasted\". The house they moved in had \"electric things\" and had push-buttons for the light switches, it were generator lights because there were no lights in town, there was no power. The doctor had to have power. (Miller is reminded by the interviewer that she has a picture of that house that they bought, and doctor Thiessen was to live there.) Miller recalls that her father had bought that house for 1,200 dollars with everything in it except their personal belongings. Later, they learned that they had made an auction sale and sold half of their stuff. Miller says that they never complained and loved there to be. The house had a veranda (porch) that can be seen at the picture. She has another picture of her standing there. The house had three rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs, and a hall. After her parents' death, the house was sold for 600 dollars, and then it was moved to Second Street, and what happened later, Miller doesn't know. They never had had stairs before, they had to go out to climb up to the attic. They were flabbergasted that they had an upstairs, \"an a walk-in closet even indeed. That was news to us too\". Miller's mother died in 1951, and her father was taken to a nursing home, so Miller's one brother that was left moved to a hotel and worked there and had a place to live. The house was bought in 1927.\n\"Here was the wood\" (Miller points at the picture):. \"The boys\" (her brothers) would go and saw wood and sell it for 25 cents a cord. The picture was probably taken around the time Miller's parents bought the house. There was \"an old barn-thing yet at the back there\". They had a cow and 30 chickens when they moved. The moved the cow tied on a hayrack with some feet on there. She walked long ways to keep the cow going. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1085.0,1559.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"School years, married life, children, pregnancy in Steinbeck, MB","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1559.0,2000.25977"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006/index/52113/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller didn't like going to school in Winkler, she didn't fit in. Another thing: She started school at age six. Miller had \"bad eyes\", and the nurse said, if she wouldn't get glasses she could be blind but she never got glasses until after she got married. Her class mates said that they didn't want to play with her because she wouldn't see the ball. There was one girl who was from a poor family, she was very kind to her, they were good friends until the end: \"Most of them, you know...I wasn't good enough.\"\nThere was one similar (house?) in the blue block, the 75 block, the Epps lived there, the one who thought that she was so happy when she jumped around following her burning accident. She had another picture, she took it to Michigan, because she moved to Michigan after she married. She had a big place there (she lists the rooms in her house). They could earn more there, they had eight children: \"We moved wherever we got a job after we got married, you know.\" Miller recalls that her son who lived next door was born in Steinbach, Manitoba. She recalls that it was a very lonely time at the Steinbach hospital because she didn't have to do anything. There was a lady next to the hospital who took women in that were pregnant. She was allowed to stay with that lady although Miller didn't have any money, they were living in a shack. The lady had three beautiful children, two boys and a girl: \"The were just so good.\" The oldest boy who was 14 took care of the pail they used as a toilet, he said that this was his job. The second boy, Jake, who was 12 took care that the wood drawer wasn't empty. The lady's mother had a gallstone operation, and Miller doesn't remember anymore whether the lady's mother was 88 and had 80 gallstones or 80 and 88 gallstones. The mother stayed there for night, and one morning, she made dough to bake, and she wouldn't let Miller do any hard work but she let her wash dishes and things like that. Miller was asked to make buns but she never had done that before, and she made it different the lady expected them. The lady's daughter, Emily, was eight, and said: \"Mrs. Miller, I can dust the stairway for you.\" Miller compared the children's behaviour with that of children nowadays: \"Would they offer to do something if they wouldn't have to? Most of them wouldn't.\" Miller repeats how kind the children were, they immediately accepted when they weren't allowed to do something, \"there was no dirty faces\". The lady's husband was a mover, he moved buildings. The lady always bought lots of material. When she stayed at the lady's place, she would also visit her cousin's wife living next door. When she was invited by another lady for dinner, her water broke and she had to go back where she lived. The lady was so excited because Miller's first child had taken only 20 minutes (that was her second child). The lady said: \"If I had a plane, I would send you across the street with a plane\". This was 10 minutes to six, and at six o'clock, Miller had a 8.9 pounds boy. Miller said: \"Is this soon enough?\" The doctors never got ready. First, they thought that she must had have beans for supper, she said: \"I didn't have supper yet.\" When the lady came to the hospital at about 6.30, she asked her what she was doing. Miller wrote a letter to her husband to let him know that they had \"a big boy\": \"They couldn't get over it. Others stays for days.\"","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133006#t=1559.0,2000.25977"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 5 - 2005-091-4748.wav"]},"duration":2105.77125,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/007/small/audio-default.png?1640631812","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/007/original/2005-091-4748.wav?1660934120","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":2105.77125,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 2 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Living conditions in 1930s, problems at school","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=0.0,217.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller continued to talk about giving birth to her son. That happened on 17 March, 1939. They were living at Hunger Beware in a shack at that time. That was  how the place was called because it was so poor. They didn't have nothing but their one child. They would have starved if they weren't invited to eat. Miller's husband worked at the bush to do cord wood for 25 cents: \"It was more tar on his clothes than what he got for that.\" Miller doesn't know who named the place. Miller's younger brother \"that had all those kids\" wrote them a letter, he wrote \"Jake L. Miller, Hungry Waredee\". They got the letter at Grunthal, it was 5 miles south of Grunthal. The boys (her brothers) never had much schooling because they had to work on the farm. She herself only had four grades. She went to school seven years and had four grades because of her eyes. They teacher looked at her eyes and said that they look good but Miller couldn't see good. She told the teacher that she couldn't see what the teacher was writing at the blackboard. Then she was pulled out of her seat, that one time she was disobedient. Miller had been put in the very back seat by the teacher, and she was surprised that she would move now when all the damage was done. Miller said: \"There is no way to pull me out of my seat, I will move when I'm good and ready, and not before.\" Miller knew that is was wrong for her to say that but she was upset. She was left alone by the teacher after that. Never again she had any problem, from the top seat she could see the blackboard and could \"write my stuff\". But she was always put back: Seven years in school, and she was getting to grade 4. Miller did a lot of learning after she was out of school, \"and I still learn, I still learn\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=0.0,217.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"School life, classmates, games","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=217.0,565.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They look at a picture of Miller's school class. She identifies herself in the middle with the white hat on in the picture. She also identifies her twin brother, called \"blondy\" because he was the only one who was blond (he was the one who moved into the hotel). There is another brother in the picture too but she can't see him now. Asked whether the girl sitting next to her was the one who was nice to her, Miller says yes. She recalls that she never had apples at home, and the girl would cut an apple in half and share it with her whenever she had one. The girl is still alive, she was \"very kind, very kind\". Her name was Tina Penner, and now she is called Katherine Klassen. Miller wanted to make a book with her school pictures and then share it with her \"school people from there but there is only a hand full left, they're all gone. There is very few left.\" The former minister is still alive. (Miller obviously looks at another picture: \"This is my sister's oldest child.\") Miller was seven or eight when the picture was taken (they talk about the school picture again). Miller shows a picture of her parents' house on the farm. The school picture was taken at Reinthal, Manitoba, where they lived at the beginning. In Winkler, the school was located at 8th street in a big stone building where now the elementary school is. It was a big brick school at the corner between 8th Street and Mountain Ave. Miller's experiences were much better at Grimsby school she attended before they moved to Winkler. She liked it that in the summertime, they could sit on blocks of wood and have school outside, or they could have their spelling match and read outside. They had a game they played, called: \"Fine or Superfine\". They counted: \"1, 2, 3, 4, buzz, 6, 7, 8, 9 fuzz. For every zero, you had to say fuzz, and for every five, buzz.\" If one didn't say that, one had to give some of her/his items to a classmate, e. g. a pen for punishment. Then they put someone behind that person and said: \"Fine or superfine. Fine was the boys, and superfine was the girls.\" Then they would say what they would have to do to redeem that item. Sometimes, they would say that they had to go to the flagpost and crawl like a rooster, or run around the school. She liked that game but all who came from there say that they don't remember that game. She wished she could have played it in Winkler. Asked what she played in Winkler, Miller recalls that she doesn't remember doing much. When she started school in Winkler, they played with all these coloured sticks, making piles.\nMiller knew a little more German, and her cousin was in there too, and she could help him a little in his work. Miller repeats that she wasn't used to town. Her parents had very seldom gone to town, her father used to go by himself: \"If mother ever went, we couldn't go to town.\" It was too far to walk, \"I guess we could have walked it but...\"","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=217.0,565.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Life in Winkler, MB; life on the farm prior to 1927","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=565.0,748.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Asked why her parents moved to town in 1927, Miller recalls that her parents had \"to sell out\". On the farm, they 70 something wild cherry trees, they had goose berries and wild (inaudible), they had currants. They had a big garden with trees where they had a swing, they had an old table there and could do their dishes out there if they wanted, they had a summer kitchen where they cooked in the summer. Miller recalls that it was cool inside in summer when they went to bed. She loved it on the farm: \"Well, things not always pan out the way you want.\"\nAsked what her father did in Winkler, Miller recalls that \"my father never did nothing after we moved to Winkler\". Her brothers couldn't get \"much jobs\" either. One of them had a bicycle shop later on and fixed bicycles. \"The others, they took whatever job they could get.\" Miller did \"by hand washing\" for the Epps, their next-door neighbours. She got three quarts of milk for doing the washing and three quarts of milk for doing the Saturday work, because they bought a cow and did everything they could for milk. And the milk was at that time 12 quarts for a dollar, so I got 25 cents worth for washing and 25 worth for that Saturday work. The milk was used \"for meals and stuff\". \nAsked about how Miller felt moving to Winkler, Miller recalls that she \"didn't know nothing\", she can't say what she felt then. She remembers that there was a crystal hall in Winkler, at the west side of Main Street. She went in there when she was 16, it was a dance hall. She danced there with Ernie Sirluck, (the son of) one of the Jewish people she worked for. He is a big doctor and big chief now, and she thinks he is still alive. She danced with him when she was 16.\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=565.0,748.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A trip to Hunger Beware, Manitoba; a car accident around 1932","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=748.0,1407.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller's brother wanted to go to Hunger Beware, Manitoba, where one sister was already living there with her husband. Her brother had no children, so he liked to go there. Her mother wanted to go too. They had an old Model T (Ford), there were curtains around. Miller went with her brother and two widows, one of them with four children. They were six in the back of an old Model T. They started out from Winkler on a cool fall day. They traveled so slow because a Model T would go 30 miles an hour, that was the most it could go. Miller didn't want to go so fast. Her brother was sitting up front and had bad eye sight, and Miller didn't want to have an accident. Every time her brother put the lever down to the bottom, that would be 30 miles an hour. She put it back up to 15. The tires went into the gravel, and all of them sat in the ditch. Miller felt like the \"fifth wheel anyway\", she was the last of 14 in the family, so nobody asked for her. One widow was dropped off before the accident. The other lady asked: \"Where is Susan?\" So Miller climbed out whereas her brother, the driver, was caught behind the steering wheel and couldn't get out. She and that lady lifted up the car, it was a \"power from heaven\", and they climbed out. They went for help to the nearest neighbours, they brought a car, were very kind and helped them right away. The women and children got into the car, and the men (they brought two men) got the car out of the ditch. They were glad that they were in the car because it was getting cool. They put the car back onto the road. They had no windshield, no top, no curtains, \"we were very bare\". Then they took off and went to Steinbach, Manitoba. She doesn't know how they got there but they got there at night. Kind people gave them supper. The next morning, they had breakfast, and Miller and her brother went to Hunger Beware for their sister. She was living in the woods, they looked for the roof of this shack which wasn't very tall. Miller had bought a pair of new shoes for a dollar and a quarter before they went there. When she worked for the Jewish people, she always saved her money. They stayed with their sister for a week or two. They hauled the car there, and Miller's brother waited a couple of days and then took off by foot, he walked to Winkler. Then he came back by horse with all the repairs he would need to fix the car. After a while, they started to go home because they had been gone quite a while. There was a drizzle, and it was chilly without a top over their heads. They came to Saint Jean (Saint Jean Bapitiste, Manitoba) and they had to go to the garage a bit. They traveled on what they called the \"Post Road\", that was \"pure clay\". The wheels got stuck with clay, \"you couldn't move the car an inch, you couldn't move\". Again, they had to go to the \"neighbours\" who hauled the car with horses and brought it to their place and kept them for the night, and gave them breakfast the next day. They left on the railroad track because they couldn't walk on the road, it was all clay. They walked to Rosenfeld, Manitoba, and from Rosenfeld to Horndean, and from Horndean to Coulee (Plum Coulee, Manitoba). Miller was already walking on her bare feet, her shoes were all gone (unusable) but she took them along as she wanted to show them to her mother. She wanted to show her that she did all the walking. Miller figured out that she walked about 28 miles on that trip. On the track, it is hard with shoes too, with all that gravel. In Plum Coulee, they had an aunt and uncle, by the name of Jacob and Elizabeth Braun. They left Miller there and gave her 30 cents so that she could came back by train the next day. Uncle Jake would take her to the train so that she could go home. As Miller had no shoes or socks, her aunt Elizabeth gave her a pair of light blue stockings (like the colour of one of that boxes, Miller shows them to the interviewers), and a pair of home-made slippers. That was how she came home by train, and Miller was upset that nobody came to greet her at the train office there, her family could have come. She had rheumatism that she walked like an old lady at the age of 16. When she got home, she wrote that whole story down. She wrote a few stories. Tillie (one of her daughters) is re-writing that story and putting it into a heritage book. Miller showed the shoes to her mother and told her that she (her mother) never could have made that trip and that she should be glad that she had let her (Miller) go instead of herself. Miller recalls that she had \"been in nine car accidents, mind you\". They moved to the States for 12 years, and when they moved back, they went to Amazon for coffee from time to time, and once, they had an accident as their car was hit by another car. None of the accidents were her husband's fault. Miller recalls the various accidents and the people that caused them: One was suffering from bone cancer, another one was looking which way to go or was looking for something in the glove compartment. Miller states that \"everybody seems to be smacking into us\" when they were on the road. Miller describes the accidents in more detail, including the fact that the bumper of their car was damaged. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=748.0,1407.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"A photograph with her sister, health issues and last pregnancy","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=1407.0,2105.77125"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007/index/52112/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They look at a picture depicting Miller with his sister who was just married then and had one daughter. Miller does not remember when it was taken. One day, they decided to take a picture to look who looked more than their mother (obviously, she shows a picture of her mother). Later, they took another picture wearing their mother's clothes. Miller thinks that she herself looked more like her mother than her sister who was 12 years older than her (the oldest girl in the family). The second picture was taken on her 80th birthday (eight years ago). The interviewers again ask when the first picture was taken. Miller recalls that she got the material (of her dress in the picture) from her brother John. The picture was probably taken in the late 1930s on the veranda of their house. Miller explains another picture from her 80th birthday, depicting numerous family members.\nAsked if she was close to her sister, Miller says yes but not as close as to her other sister that passed away (two other sisters passed away). Miller's sister in the picture was \"picking on me\": Miller had to learn catechism to become baptized at the age of about 17 to 18, and her sister told her, if she was going to be baptized, she had to \"get rid of my boyfriend\". Miller recalls that her sister was the only one she could ask as she would not talk about something like that with her parents. Miller did not want to leave her boyfriend, so she was not baptized until 1973 when she and her husband moved back from the US. Her sister was \"rather picking on me but in the last years, she was very nice to me\". Miller recalls that she had \"a better shape, a better figure\" than her sister, and could wear smaller clothes. In the last years, Miller would frequently visit her sister in Winnipeg. Her husband worked in Winnipeg at Burns but she would not move there. She was afraid to lose her son because she could not keep track of him there. Her husband worked at Burns, he was a beef boner in the first place. When he stuck a blade into his body and almost bled to death, he would quit that job. Her husband would also work as a carpenter. In 1951, they moved to Ontario, and worked \"in the fruit\". In 1956, they moved to Michigan. They had seven children then. They were asked: \"Have you just come?\" Miller recalls that she did not understand what they meant because \"we weren't immigrants\". Miller did \"housework for people\" there, she used to bake a lot of buns, she baked them \"in these little meat pie dishes\". She sold them \"for a nickel a piece\", the neighbours would come for fresh buns. She loved to bake although the flour in the US was different to that in Canada. She also did house cleaning. The lady she worked for had \"a fever where she can't do everything\". Miller also worked for a doctor's wife. She liked that \"but when my children got married\". Now they are living 1,200 miles from here. One child came back from Alberta to care for her, and helped her out and took her to the doctor today. Miller recalls that she maybe needs a blood transfusion. She had a lot of surgeries. When she was young, she had a bad cough and ear aches. When the doctor said that she might need a blood transfusion, she replied that she had had one in 1961 when she was pregnant. The doctor did not believe she was pregnant then but she felt very weak, and although the temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, she had to put on a coat. She was freezing sitting with her husband on the porch. She went to a clinic with her husband who said to the doctor: \"If you can help my wife, I will pay one, but if not, I won't give you a cent.\" Her husband told the doctor that he spent all his money on his wife's treatment but she did not get better. The doctor told her husband that he would find out what was wrong with her. She told the doctor she was pregnant but it could have also been a \"15 pound tumour\". Miller recalls the blood transfusion she underwent in great detail: \"And then, when I came home, I was like a new person\". When she got a call to return to the hospital, she was  baking buns. She did not want to throw the dough away, so she took it to her daughter, and she baked it. Miller was suffering from anemia. Her youngest child was ten years old then. When her last child, a daughter, was finally born, the people in the neighbourhood could not believe it. A neighbour who had a baby too and who was better off gave her some hand-me-downs. As her daughter was born in Michigan, she could be either Canadian or American. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133007#t=1407.0,2105.77125"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 5 - 2005-091-4749.wav"]},"duration":1906.63692,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/008/small/audio-default.png?1640631952","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/008/original/2005-091-4749.wav?1660934151","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1906.63692,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 3 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Building a \"snow plane\", building furniture, the \"Red River Flood\" in Morris, MB","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=7.0,447.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller takes about another picture (obviously depicting the parental home of her husband and a \"snow plane\"). Her father-in-law made \"Bennett-wagons\" and pick up-trucks. The house had some kind of shelter at the front door. They decided to build a \"snow plane\". Most of the work they did inside in the kitchen. The \"snow plane\" was constructed with parts from old cars. When it was finished, they were very eager to try it out. They almost froze because they never had many clothes to wear. Her husband never had any warm clothes or any underwear, just a pair of pants and a shirt and a open suit jacket. It took them several months to work on the \"snow plane\": \"If they would have had money, they would have put a cab on it.\" Miller tells the story of a gifted young mechanic they called \"Henry Ford\". The snow plane was not a plane but would drive on the road. Asked why it was called a \"snow plane\", Miller recalls that it was also called \"snow flyer\". It did not have wheels but skis like a sleigh. It was like a snowmobile.\nMiller recalls that three families were living in the house in the picture: Her husband's brother with his family (his wife is still alive and lives in Ontario), his parents, and she and her husband. Miller never took a ride with the \"snow plane\" because it was too cold, she would not even try with the clothes they were wearing in those days. But she knows that it went fast. The winters were a lot colder than now. They took a picture of the \"snow plane\" right by the house. She did not have a camera then. Later, when she got a camera and took pictures of her grandchildren, she \"beheaded\" then in the pictures. \nWhen she was living with her husband in Ontario, they built a lot of furniture just in their kitchen. They did not have a table saw but just made the blades coming through the plywood, and that is how her husband built furniture. For one Christmas, her husband built 18 pieces of furniture, \"with really no tools at all\". They built a big dresser for one family. They also made closets and double dressers: for the man on one side and the woman on the other side. They made a lot of kindergarten furniture. They would go to any place in Michigan and measure up, and then install the furniture. Before they were living in Ontario and Michigan, Miller's husband worked in Morris, Manitoba, where the flood was. Her husband helped to clean out the houses after the flood. There was a dry cleaning place where a horse lie in there. Her oldest daughter worked in a grocery store then, and they just put papers on the dirty shelves so that they the people working there could get some food. Miller herself stayed in Winkler then. (Obviously, Miller is talking about the \"Red River Flood\" of 1950.)\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=7.0,447.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Living with her husband's family; a sketch of Winkler, MB; working for Jews","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=447.0,1029.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Asked how it was to live altogether with her husband's family, Miller recalls that it was \"good\". Her father-in-law had a sister, and they had a butcher shop, and she would get some bones. For a while, Miller cooked on her own on a little stove upstairs in their little room. Later, they ate together. Her husband's father was a thresher, he arranged threshing for people. Whatever he earned, they spent together so that they could all live. Miller recalls that she had a \"wise father-in-law, he never scolded me ever\". Miller explains how she used the soup bones. Tillie (her daughter) asked Miller to make some sketches of Winkler, she is interested in genealogy too. Miller complains that she has two bad knees, and one is particularly hurting. She shows the sketches she drew of Winkler, Manitoba (e. g. of 6th Street). Miller explains her drawings in detail. She recalls who lived on that street and what businesses were there. She mentions a lot of names. There were 14 Jewish families in Winkler: She recalls several names. Fleshman was a pedlar, he did not have a store. Miller would spend the night with his wife as she did not want to stay on her own. At 8 o'clock, Miller had to leave to go do washing at other people's places, and the lady let her out and went back to bed. Miller enjoyed staying at that place, as her family was pretty poor, and the lady always had fruit and cinnamon buns. Miller recalls that she liked all Jewish people, she got along with them well. She earned 10 cents an hour when she went to that lady. Only one lady always cheated her on the time. The lady kept asking her if Miller did not find some money, Miller said no, otherwise she would have given it to her. One time the lady said: \"I am sure I dropped a penny\". Another time, that lady said that she would give Miller \"a little present\", and she gave her three pennies. Another lady, Mrs. Mitchell, would give her the change. She recalls that she does not know why the second lady was mistrusting her. Once, Miller had to make her an embroidered apron out of a sugar bag. Miller recalls that she never thought that there was \"anything wrong\" with Jewish people. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=447.0,1029.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Jewish customs \u0026 laws","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=1029.0,1353.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller is asking the interviewers if they \"get any use of me at all\". The interviewer says \"yes, absolutely\". Miller states that she knows she is talking too much but she can't help herself.\nAsked whether there was any friction between the Jewish and the Mennonite community in Winkler, Miller replies: \"not that I noticed\". The Jews thought that it had to rain at certain times, and if it did not rain, the men had to dress up in their Sunday clothes (suits). They had a little shack right next to the Jewish synagogue. In those days, they didn't have hoses, and Miller's father had to haul water with pails and to pour it onto them. So, the Jewish men were sitting in that shack and they got wet, otherwise it was not kosher for them. Her brother Jonny had to kill the chickens for Jews but he had to do it in a particular way: \"Moses hat es verboten: nicht zu stechen, nicht zu stoßen, nur zu schneiden hin und her.\" (in German: Moses has forbidden it to stab and hit, only to cut back and forth.) The pipe had to come out in a particular way, otherwise it would not be kosher. In that case, they would sell the chicken or give it away but not eat it. They slaughtered the chicken in a kosher way at the Jewish synagogue, and Miller would see them as they were living next door. She also would hear the Jews when they had their \"Jewish church\", they made \"big noise\" but Miller couldn't understand anything. Miller recalls that she could \"talk Jewish\" (Yiddish). When Miller wasn't married yet and waited until her boyfriend would have finished his work, she stayed with a Jewish family on a farm. Some other Jewish people came to have a look at the farm (maybe they wanted to purchase it), and the Jewish farmers didn't eat kosher. Miller was told not to give the guests chicken for dinner because it wasn't kosher. Her boyfriend was afraid that the guests would be aware that they weren't offered chicken while they themselves had it for dinner afterwards. Miller says a sentence in Yiddish: The guest asks for a thread to repair his pants as he had been working in the woods. Miller recalls that she worked long enough for Jewish people to understand them. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=1029.0,1353.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Meeting her husband, wedding in 1935","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=1353.0,1906.63692"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008/index/52111/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller is asked how she met her husband. His name was Jake Miller, he was born \"right in that house\" where the interview is taken. They went to school together but she got to know him better when he came to her parents' place and visited her brothers. Her father was very strict, she was not supposed to stay out, she was supposed to stay in at 9 o'clock, when it was not even dark in the summertime.\nThey look at a picture. Miller cannot remember where it was taken. They lived on 12th Street (in Winkler, Manitoba) at that time, so it must have been taken there. Miller states that her son hated the way she had her hair (obviously in the picture). She talks about her dress in the picture: She went down to Harry Gladstone store on Saturday night. They had that on sale: three yards for a dollar. It had a yellow background and flowers. She bought herself two pieces: the yellow and the navy. She made the navy dress herself, she would wear it for work. She used it a lot in Ontario when she worked \"in the fruit\". They didn't go to church at that time, it was a long way to go. One Sunday morning, her husband said: \"Today I'll make you a dress.\" It was \"out of the blue\", he never sewed anything. Her husband worked a long time to get that dress (she is wearing in the photograph) made. Her husband thought that long dresses look Hutterite. Whenever they went anywhere, she had to wear that dress. Her husband was a Mennonite. Miller recalls floods she lived  through with her husband. She talks about a family called Miller they are somehow related to them. She used to work for them too. Their son Matthew Miller was blind, he used to look after the cemetery. He was very smart in recognizing voices and knew her and her sons by name when they greeted him. She is very proud of the picture they look at, \"because he made me that dress, and he had never sewed before. I couldn't have done it\". He husband did not have much more than she did. Before they married, she bought him a pair of jeans, black jeans for a dollar and a quarter. She also bought him a light green shirt for 79 cents, it was on sale. Finally she bought him a felt hat for a quarter. Her mother would wash her future husband's shirt and iron it and get it ready for him. It was the only shirt he had that was wearable. It doesn't last long when you wash and wear it all the time.\nMiller and her husband got married in 1935. She recalls that she \"didn't have much of a wedding\" because she was already living with her husband's parents. They had aunt and uncle across the street, they were Lutherans. Miller and her future husband just went over there and uncle Mat served as witness, and the reverend was rev. Ehrthal, a Lutheran minister. They had their wedding after they got home from work, and \"we never had no honeymoon\". Miller was wearing a wine-coloured celanese dress, the material was called celanese. When Miller asks now what celanese material feels like, people don't know, so maybe it's outdated. They didn't have the two dollars for the marriage certificate, so they wouldn't get one. After that, Miller's husband worked at the Burns meat boning plant in Winnipeg. Miller didn't move to Winnipeg because she was scared to lose her children. Her husband came home every weekend by train to bring his family some meat from where he worked (only later they would have a car). Her husband met the reverend on the train and said: \"Here is the two dollars\".  That's how they got their marriage certificate.\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133008#t=1353.0,1906.63692"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 4 of 5 - 2005-091-4750.wav"]},"duration":2075.81751,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/009/small/audio-default.png?1640632099","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/content/4/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/009/original/2005-091-4750.wav?1660934176","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":2075.81751,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 4 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Family relations, eating candies","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=14.0,601.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller recalls that she has written a book about her life. She states that it is important to her to record her life because after her death she expect her children to \"throw almost everything out\".\nAsked why she had such a small wedding without her own family, Miller recalls that she \"didn't have much family\", and her family wasn't near then. She had her parents there but where would they have the wedding? Their house wasn't big enough, and they didn't go to church at that time, so \"that's the only way actually I guess we could have had it\".\nAsked why she was already living with her husband prior to her marriage, Miller hesitates to answer: \"I lived part of it out\". At home, she had five brothers, \"and they were always picking on me\". They wanted her to leave so that they would get her bedroom. Miller got pregnant and had her oldest child in Winnipeg in the hospital. She was living with her future husband after that, and they got married after people came back from threshing in the evening. She never got anything from home. Her older siblings got a cow, and a horse, and 10 chickens when they got married. She never got anything because her parents didn't have anything left. Two of her brothers never got married. All her siblings passed away. When her family moved to Winkler, she was the only girl in the family, with five brothers. Her brothers didn't have a permanent job and did whatever they could. Her brother Henry would help at the auction sales and do the writing. Her brother Blondy was in service for a while. Her brother John used to dig graves for others. When he passed away, he had dug 1,500 graves by hand, even in the wintertime. Her brother Peter had \"this kind of epileptic fits\". They were always told not to get him upset. He could get very angry and ferocious. Peter worked on motors. Her brothers would also go threshing further west if they had the opportunity. Her brother Abraham worked in a canning factory, and on the side line, he cut hair for 10 cents a hair cut. Later on, it was 25 cents. Miller herself also did whatever she could, including cleaning in the synagogue. She also attended Sunday school at the Enns' place, the parents had passed away and the children were living there. Later on, they built apartments there, and they called it the Enns Court (in Winkler, Manitoba). Elizabeth Enns was her Sunday school teacher, and 11 or 8 people attended. Miller recalls in more detail who of the Enns family passed away. Elizabeth was her school teacher, she had a picture of her.\nMiller talks about her family pictures: She gave a lot of them to her children who were allowed to pick out from her albums whatever they want. Her children make memory books for their children. Miller wrote a memory book too and just put in what she can remember. When she was still on the farm with her siblings, her brothers would go and hunt bumblebees by the caraganas. They ate the stomach, that was honey. The tobacco can had a very sharp edge on the lid, and they used it to open the bees up and get the honey. They ate the caragana flowers too, as well as tea leaves. Miller did not want to eat that kind of honey. She was never that hungry for candy. They used to watch when they needed coil oil, they would loose the screw on the pipe (on the spout), and they would put a gumdrop on there so that it would not spill on the way home from town. At home, they would get that gumdrop. They did that on purpose, \"it was naughty\" but, sometimes they did that.\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=14.0,601.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Identity","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=601.0,1139.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller asks what the interviewers would like to hear. They ask Miller about her cultural identity. Miller states that \"I don't really know what identity is, I'm not that well schooled\". The interviewer explains to Miller that they are interested in what role being Canadian or Mennonite play for her. Miller never thought about anything like that. She mentions a doctor in Ontario who told them that Miller and her husband were \"Holland-Dutch\" but they are called Mennonites. It does not really matter to her as she never thought about it. She asks the interviewers how they would answer something like that. The interviewers tell Miller that the way she did was fine. It is a valid answer that not everyone thinks about identity. Miller feels uneasy: \"How is that an answer?\" She explains that it is not that she did not want to answer it. The interviewers ask how Miller would identify herself in the census. Miller recalls that her father came from Russia, her mother was Canadian, and her mother-in-law was from the United States but she is not sure. Miller states that she is \"not highly educated\". But she \"did a lot of learning\". She has written \"a couple of songs\" and about 100 poems. She has done volunteer work in things she thought that were good. She visited the sick and went to the hospital with her bible or hymn book, she read to them and sang to them.\nThe question of identity makes her uneasy: \"I always thought of myself as being nothing, the fifth wheel\". She was the last one in the family, of 14 children. Her family would say that she \"is just put together from all the left-overs\". She was \"not really appreciated much\". Once, she said to her son-in-law what she was born for? Is she not good for anything? She can't do anything perfect. Her son-in-law told her what she was doing for her family, \"and he was just going on, and on, and on\". When she made anything for her children, she told them in advance: \"If it's perfect, you know I didn't make it because I can't do nothing perfect.\" Miller recalls that she always felt pushed aside so she does not know what she should feel about herself. But she knows that \"the Good Lord loves me\". She has tried a lot of things to help people. She has provided a lot of help, also financially but she can't do that anymore. She is just on pension. She talks about the prices for her pills. Her children figured out that she should live a long time yet. Her son living next to her is afraid that she is \"overdoing\". Miller states that she is not doing anything. Told that she should \"take it easy\", Miller replied to her son: \"How much easier can you take it when you do nothing?\" She does still making meals because her son lives next door, and instead of both making a meal, she prefers to make a meal together. Her son buys the groceries, and she does the cooking. She makes perogies and bakes bread. Miller laments that she is \"not a good cook\". The interviewer adds: \"But you're certainly a good storyteller\". A girl from the high school, Lisa Wall, came to interview Miller. Then she wrote her a nice letter how much she enjoyed interviewing her. Miller states that \"the Lord\" gives her a good memory for her age. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=601.0,1139.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Chasing gophers, weasels killing chickens, a turkey gobbler; delivery of her 4th child","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=1139.0,2075.81751"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009/index/52110/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miller recalls that she used to go and \"drown out\" gophers with her little dog. She took her tools and her mustard can with salt to put the tails in, because she sold the tails. Her dog would know in which hole there was a gopher. When her dog found a hole, Miller came with a pail of water to drown the gopher. Then she would cut off the tail.\nMiller recalls that they could not drown out the weasels. When they ordered 300 chickens, and 29 of them were left when they took them to the slaughter business. The weasels sucked out the blood of the chickens and planted them under the woods. Once they \"saved\" a chicken that was being attacked by a weasel to cook it the next day but the weasel had not gotten enough blood and took another chicken during the night.\nMiller explains that she once killed a turkey gobbler. She felt very bad about that. They lived around Emerson, Manitoba. The people they were renting from gave them a turkey gobbler and two hens, so they could raise turkeys, so eventually, Miller had 80 little turkeys. There was a turkey gobbler visiting them all the time, \"a rotten one\". The children could not play outside. When a pedlar came along, Miller told him about that turkey gobbler. Miller was taking her husband's big shoes, so every time the turkey gobbler attacked her, she would throw the shoes on the gobbler. When she didn't have any shoes anymore, she took a stick to hit him, and the turkey gobbler was dead. Miller thinks she \"hit him right\". When her husband came home, he told her to drag the dead gobbler to the road so that they would not have to pay for it and it would look like an accident. Miller said she killed the animal \"in self-defence\". A neighbour told her the next day that the turkey gobbler would not bother anymore because he saw him by the road, \"somebody ran him over\". The man took the gobbler's ring from the leg and hung it at the house, as they were living in a haunted house. The neighbour took a spade and buried the turkey gobbler. Some time later, Miller was in the Emerson hospital, and was told that there was \"somebody in here you know\". It was the owner of the turkey gobbler, and he asked her why she had not eaten it. They didn't have a fridge then. Miller admitted to killing it but said she had no idea whose it was. The owners of the turkey gobbler owed them money, and when Miller had her fourth baby, they offered her help with the delivery (the lady was a nurse). They had a bad ice storm then. Miller and her husband were looking after a farm, the owners had gone to a warm country for the winter. When a calf was going to be born and it wasn't coming the way it should come. Both she and her husband stayed in the barn with the cow, and when the calf was finally born, Miller went back to the farm house to look after her children. The house was quite far away from the barn. The had some baby-pigs, and one of them was sick and had to be fed with a spoon. She had them in an apple box in the house. When she came in, the pigs had gotten out of their box and were running on the waxed hardwood-floor. In this moment, Miller felt that her baby was coming, and she told her husband to call the hospital. Her husband called twice but there was no connection. The night before they had repaired the telephone line to make sure they would be able to call the doctor, and the line had worked the night before. There were party-line phones, every time somebody called, the others were listening in. A female doctor and a minister who were stuck in the snow came and took the baby into the kitchen. She had delivered the child on her own and was very scared. Miller felt that there was something wrong with her baby. It turned out that her daughter was born clubfooted. The doctor advised her how to get the foot straight. Miller didn't have much time to hold her baby because there were threshers coming in, and she had meals to cook, and to look after her other children. Miller had bread fever (milk fever) at the same time. Pus was coming out when she did the breast-feeding. She had a very hard time because she could not get any rest. The lady that was supposed to help her would come only a few days later. When she was asked who her baby did look like (suggesting that it was not ours), she told her baby could even look like Adolf Hitler.\nMiller states that she hopes \"I was some use to you\".","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133009#t=1139.0,2075.81751"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133010","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 5 of 5 - 2005-091-4751.wav"]},"duration":197.41605,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/010/small/audio-default.png?1640632118","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133010/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133010/content/5/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/010/original/2005-091-4751.wav?1660934187","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":197.41605,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58695/file/133010","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]}]}