A LETTER HOME
Grandpa and Grandma Roedde

Grandfather Roedde was a young newcomer to Canada, born in Nordhausen in Germany, orphaned at fourteen, and apprenticed to a bookbinder and printer, his godfather, I believe. His parents had been fairly well off, but he saw none of the money. He had his trade and he was a fine craftsman. After about seven years of apprenticeship, he left Germany and sailed for America.

In Cleveland he met my grandmother, Matilda Marie Johanna Cassebohm. They married and went to San Francisco where my mother was born. That was in the early 1880's; here he practiced his trade until the idea of a union became objectionable to grandfather's way of thinking. He could see that not every man was as good as the next; he himself was a perfectionist and felt that shoddy workmanship should not merit equal pay. So, with his wife and his two young daughters, he sailed up to Victoria. There, he couldn't get work in his own trade, so he started up a box factory and made containers. But he kept his eyes and ears open, and when he heard that Vancouver was growing and needed a printer, he moved to the mainland. He became the first in his trade here.

A hundred years ago, immigrants had a difficult time traveling and communicating with the country they left behind. There were no e-mails to carry news and no fast airplanes to whisk you back to Germany in a day - travel had to be done by ship and train. Journeys often took months, so letters home were important ways of keeping close to the family you left behind.

Activity: A Letter Home

Click Here to find out about your family history

Here is a gallery of letters from my family scrapbook, and I'd love to see your family letters after you complete the exercise below.

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