Ottilia Schultz
By Adrian Paton
This story is about one woman “Ottilia Schultz”. To better understand her story we must learn a little of the history that she lived through.
On July 22nd 1736, Catherine the Second of Russia issued a manifesto inviting people of other lands to immigrate to Russia. In this way she hoped to gain some good farmers from Germany. To attract foreign people generous promises were made: Free transportation; freedom to settle anywhere in the country; freedom to practice any trade or profession; sixty disidee of land (approximately one hundred and eighty acres); freedom of religion; exempt from military service; their own language, schools, and churches; freedom from taxes for five to thirty years, depending on location; and freedom to leave again if they found Russia unsuitable. (1)
Many Germans on small holdings, suffering under heavy taxation and religious prosecution were lured by these promises. More than seventy thousand families moved to Russia during the years 1764 to 1767.
When they arrived in Russia they found things not as rosy as had been painted. Much of the land was forested and took a great deal of labor to bring under production. They were harassed by nomadic Mongols who stole their livestock and threatened their lives. (2)
Of those who went to Russia not all were farmers. Some were barbers, tailors, shoemakers and other tradesmen. They had a difficult time adjusting to an agricultural lifestyle. As time went on the Russian Government like many governments before and since, changed the rules. The German people found themselves suffering from poverty and starvation; the men were being inducted into the Russian army.
Many of the German people began looking for a better place to live. About that time the Canadian Government was advertising for people to settle the great expanse of western Canada. Many of these Germans from Russia came to and settled in Saskatchewan. They found work on the railroads and in many kinds of construction. A good number took up homesteads and farmed the land. One of these Germans from Russia settled in Arcola and was hired by a land agent to help recruit others of his kind to come to Saskatchewan. He returned to Russia, was caught in the Revolution and he was never heard of again.
One other German from Russia who came to Saskatchewan was Ottilia Schultz. (Her story has been garnered from interviews with her daughter Bertha Boyer (born 1909) Jack Purdy (born 1912) who was the son of the hotelkeepers where Ottilia worked for many years. Also from newspaper clippings and contact with people in the town who remembered her.
Ottilia Schuktz was born in 1862 near Berlin, Germany. Her parents and younger brother died in a cholera epidemic in 1870. Ottilia and her sister were taken in by relations. Ottilia went to live with her mother’s sister, Mrs. August Winters. At about this time the Winters family moved to Russia.
Bertha remembers as a child hearing her mother say, that Russia was not a good country to live in. Besides the Mongol tribes, there were also roving caravans of Gypsies who begged and pilfered and sometimes stole children as they wandered about the countryside.
The Winters family moved back to Germany here Otillia married Julius Hankey. Bertha remembers her mother’s discription of him: “blue eyed, curly haired, young and handsome. Ottilia and Julius had five children, the oldest was born in 1893, one child died in infancy. Ottilia, Julius and some of their relatives and friends made plans to move to Canada. At that time Julius was an overseer of horses at a way-station where the horses for traveling coaches were changed. Julius was moved to a new station. He arrived there on a very hot day. The people at the station were giving the departing man a farewell party. Julius drank some cold beer and died during the night with a stomach disorder. Although totally devastated Ottilia continued on with her plans to move to Canada. She wished to provide a better life for her children.
The Winters family had already moved to Canada and taken a homestead near Willmar in SE Saskatchewan. Here the story becomes a bit vague; it is unlikely that Canadian immigration authorities would have allowed a widow with young children into the country. It is believed that the Winters arranged a marriage between Ottilia and a bachelor neighbor of theirs, a Gustave Belgart. Gustave was a Prussian and a shoemaker by trade.
Four children were born to this union: Louise 1904, Alma 1906, Gustave Jr. 1907, and Bertha 1909. The marriage was not a very happy one. Gustave knew very little about farming and cared less. He became a heavy drinker. Sometimes when he took a load of grain to town he would not return for several days, he ran up bills and borrowed money. When people came to collect they took Ottilia’s chickens and turkeys, her only source of income and one of the ways she kept her family fed. On one occasion when her husband did not come home Ottilia took her four children aged six, four, three and a baby and walked 30 kilometers to the village of Kisbey. There she was able to stay with the Kimball family; Mrs. Kimball was Ottilia’s cousin. She worked at the Kisbey Hotel. The Kimball’s were able to find Ottilia a small house and got her a job in the hotel’s dinning room. This arrangement did not satisfy the authorities. The children were taken from Ottilia by the police and taken to Regina. (When Bertha was telling of this event she mentioned that her older brother had told her that as a baby she had bitten the policeman when he picked her up.) Although Bertha was the youngest she was always high-spirited and quick to intervene if anyone threatened the family.
The authorities would not release the children to Ottilia without their father’s consent and this he would not give. To keep her children Ottilia reconciled with Gustave. The family moved to Arcola in 1912 and Gustave opened a shoe repair shop This venture was no more successful than the farm. Gustave died in 1927.Life was not easy for Ottilia. When they first moved to Arcola she did washing and other odd jobs but she soon got a job as cook working at The Hotel Arcola for Mr. and Mrs. Purdy. Wages were $15 to $20 dollars a month for 10 to12 hours a day or longer seven days a week. Ottilia considered herself very fortunate as she lived just across the street from the hotel. She was able to go home for a few minutes between rush periods of cooking and washing up to take care of her family.
When her married son’s wife died in 1930, two young grandchildren, Margaret, five and Glenn, four came to live and be raised by their grandmother. All of the children under Ottilia’s care contributed. Chores, errands and odd jobs were a way of life. Bertha remembers when she was quite young she got a job looking after two small children from eight until midnight. For this she received twenty-five cents. She took the money home and with a little reluctance turned it over to her mother who told her they could use it “To buy quite a lot of sugar for the family.”
One of Bertha’s chores was to haul water. The well was about three blocks away near the telephone office. Sometimes the operators would let Bertha run the switchboard. The girls were glad of the break but her mother thought that she had gone to the next town for the water. When Bertha was 15 years old and had finished grade ten, she was offered a job as a telephone operator. The chief operator in Arcola told her that she would send her to another town where they did not know that she did not have her grade eleven. (Operators were required to have grade eleven). Bertha would not do this as she did not think that it would be honest. Her secret dream was to become a nurse.
Out of necessity Bertha went to work at the Arcola Hotel waiting tables in the dinning room. Her wages were $10 a month which Bertha was able to double in tips. She gave her mother her $10 wages and was able to buy her clothes etc. with her tip money.The family acquired a small barn on the outskirts of town about three blocks from their home. Here they kept a flock of chickens for meat and eggs. Every spring Ottilia bought two weanling pigs. These were fed in part on scraps and slop from the hotel, this was hauled by means of a shoulder yoke with a bucket on either side. In the fall one pig was butchered for meat the other was sold to bring in some much-needed cash. The Belgarts also owned a cow that provided them with milk to drink and for cream and butter.
Their cow was allowed to graze with other neighborhood cows on CPR property and other grassy areas on the outskirts of town. It was Bertha’s job to bring the cow home at night to be milked. One night the cow hoisted her tail in the air ran off and refused to go home. When Bertha reported this to her mother she sent Bertha’s older brother to take the cow to a farmer near town who owned a bull. “This meant we had a calf to raise every year and I became aware of the ways of the world” was Bertha’s way of putting it.
When fall came and the cattle buyer “Old Cooper”, came to pick up the calf it was a very tearful time for the Belgart children who always made a pet of the calf.
To help supplement the feed supply for their animals the Belgart children and others would sweep out the empty grain cars at the elevator. The older cars that were lined with paper to help prevent leakage often had grain lodged behind the paper. These cars often yielded more grain than the newer cars. This came to an end Bertha said “When that damn Mr.so and so? got greedy and bored holes in loaded grain cars and stole some bags of grain.” They also grew a large garden to help feed the family, any surplus vegetables were sold to the stores or the hotel. Ottilia loved flowers, it is stated in her obituary; “She loved working in her garden and many of her friends said she could get most anything to grow.”
The old saying that if you want something done ask someone who is busy certainly rang true with Ottilia. When a five-year old neighbor girl was killed in a traffic accident it was Ottilia who comforted the grieving family and laid out the little body for burial.
Most of us today would consider Ottilia’s life very hard and would not care to trade places with her. That would be all right with Ottilia as she was quite happy with her life. She was a very intelligent woman with a keen mind and a wonderful sense of humor. Otillia’s store of knowledge was vast and diverse. She readily accepted the scientific data that is deemed so necessary by western civilizations. She tempered it with the learning and legends that she had acquired in Germany and Russia and from the wandering bands of Gypsy palm readers she had encountered. She marveled at new discoveries and inventions but was ever mindful of other times. She coached her children to be respectful and courteous to their elders and to defer to all old crones, for she firmly believed that some had the power of witchcraft that could be used for both good and evil.
When it became apparent that Ottilia’s time on earth was nearly over, the good doctor made arrangements for her to spend some time in the hospital. Ottilia convinced him that she would be just fine at home. The doctor was led to believe that the daughter “Bertha” was coming home to take care of her was a registered nurse. Ottilia’s definition of a nurse was far broader than that of people in the medical profession. Bertha and her brothers and sisters remembered their home as a happy place where games and laughter were often shared and boredom was unheard of. No child ever suffered from hunger or cold or felt unloved in Ottilia’s home.
Ottilia died as she had lived quietly and with dignity in the home where she had raised her children and grandchildren, she was 93 years old.
As I talked with Bertha and listened to her stories I am made to think of today’s lifestyles: Unemployment Insurance – Food Banks – Medicare – Child Care – The whole range of social services and I wonder if our society today is half as smart as it thinks it is.
The Ottilia Belgart’s (Hankey) (Schultz) story was compiled from interviews with her daughter Bertha (born 1909)And Jack Purdy (born 1912) a friend of the family and son of the hotelkeepers where Ottilia worked. Also from conversations with older people of the community and from Ottilia’s obituary in the local paper.
(1) Poets Corner – Lampman and District History Book - page 482
(2) History of our Forefathers (unpublished) Fredrich Hilderman Family - page 9
Picture of Ottilia Schultz
