oksolflessnerhistory: August 2021

On August 12, 2021, I received a two-page typewritten letter from "Margaret Ann" and six photographs, which completed the mosaic I had started some time ago, trying to piece Ruth's life together.

Below, the original photo plus a duplicate with a description. Six original photos/twelve photographs altogether. The original photos are now in a binder with Bruce.

1909: home in Manson, where Ruth's "Aunt Edna" was born.

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1917: photograph of Reka. At age eighteen, this was most likely a graduation photograph.

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1938: Margaret Ann's baptism; she was born one month after her father was killed in a farming accident in 1938. Her brother, Gil, is standing to his mother's right. I believe that is Ruth to Margaret Ann's immediate left, and to Ruth's left, her brother, Don.

Would that be Reka right behind Ruth? Most of the others in the photograph is the Wessel family; Edna was married to Roland Wessel. Where was Ekke? Did Ekke take the photograph?

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Perhaps my favorite photograph in this series. This is Ruth in 1946. The war had been over for one year. She is standing next to her cousin Margaret Ann, probably about eight years old; considering how often Ruth talked about Margaret Ann, I do think these two were very, very close.

Margaret Ann was born one month after her father was killed in a farming accident. Her brother, Gil, a little over one year old at the time, was sent to live with one set of grandparents, the Folkerts, while Margaret Ann was sent to live with the other set of grandparents, th Flessners.

Ruth would have visited her grandparents at the farm often and played with Margaret Ann.

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1951: four generations -- great-grandma Hinrika (I think this is the first photograph of Hinrika that I have ever seen); grandma Reka; Ruth and Bruce, born August 14, 1951.