Interview with Albert Nieberding 1.1

Segment Synopsis: Albert Nieberding was born on February 24, 1924, in St. Paul, Alberta. His father came to Canada in 1911, his mother in 1921 from the Oldenburg area in Northern Germany. His father came from a family of doctors. After hearing stories of adventure, his father went to New York and traveled throughout North America. Nieberding recalls that his father worked in a survey party in St. Paul, Alberta, where he applied for a homestead and spent the years of WW I there. His father was fluent in French, English and German.
Nieberding himself grew up in St. Paul and came to Edmonton at the age of 26 where he worked in the elevator trade. Later he was in the insuring business. After quitting, he worked in the Canadian North as a construction supervisor for the federal government.
Nieberding recalls that he finished school with grade 10 and took most of 11 without finishing it.
Nieberding grew up with two siblings. Apart from his immediate family, he had no other relatives in Canada. He talks about distant relatives in Germany. He once went to a Nieberding reunion in Germany where he met relatives from Australia, the US and Belgium. There is a book on his family history.
He remembers that his mother was writing letters to her mother who was still living in Germany, as well as to a sister.
Nieberding recalls that his mother had been a Red Cross nurse during WW I, and when she developed a hernia, she went back to Germany for surgery and came back after a year. She took her children with her.
Despite his ancestry, Nieberding considers himself a Canadian. He says that he can understand some German but he never learned it in school.

Keywords: St. Paul, Alberta

Subjects: ethnic identity; family life; immigration; labor (work); languages

Segment Synopsis: Nieberding recalls the meals of the day. He also talks about problems with food supply his mother had when still in Germany. He recalls about kerosine lamps and why his mother was cooking stews so often. He had to boil potatoes to feed the pigs as a child. Nieberdings shows the interviewer a picture of his mother's vegetable garden. Fishing also played an important role.
At Christmas, they didn't have nothing too special. His parents never went to church and criticized others that they wouldn't give their horses a rest on Sunday as they went to church with them.
Nieberding recalls that an ancestor of his was excommunicated from the Catholic church when he married a Lutheran woman.
For him, the 1940s were more difficult than the 1930s as food was rationed.
Nieberding recalls that when his mother came to Canada, the family spend only 45 dollars a winter. He recalls what his family was purchasing in stores in his childhood.
HIs parents employed farm hands who would work on a farm for 5 dollars a month paid by the government during the Great Depression. He talks about what the family produced on their farm. The explains what kind of clothing he was wearing.

Keywords: Great Depression

Subjects: Christmas; chores; cook stoves; farm chores; fish; lamps; mail-order catalogs; pigs; potatoes; religious identity; stews; turnips; vegetables