52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 11 Prompt - Hobbies

2025

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 11

Prompt – Hobbies

I would think that many of the ancestors really didn't have hobbies. All free time was spent working to live. Especially those homesteading on farmland in “the new world”. I believe their time was spent breaking the land, plowing the land, planting, building a home shelter, finding farm animals, building barns or corrals or both. The women would also be very busy at home - preparing food, cooking food, looking after the gardens, preserving the garden produce for winter time and looking after many many children. I suppose that their hobbies would come from necessity. The women might sew materials for clothing or knit sweaters, scarves, hats and mittens and socks. 

1920's ca. Marion Hoffart With Spinning Wheel

Bill's paternal grandmother, Marion Hoffart, had a spinning wheel (made for her by her two oldest sons) to spin the sheep's wool into yarn to knit family clothing as above. Was this a hobby? Maybe. Just like Bill's maternal great-grandfather, Daniel Fesser was by all accounts an excellent carpenter and built many shops and homes in Killaly when he arrived from Germany in the early 1900's. Not really a hobby but a dandy skill set to have when immigrating to a new country.

Fast forward to now. Our lives are quite different from our ancestors. We have so many conveniences that allow us to have free time. I have noticed that the further we go into retirement the more time we seem to have.

Before Bill retired from The College of Arts and Design he became interested in the 3D printers that they had on site. . Bill was not just happy with what the thing could print, but how it worked and thus how it was built. The machines were expensive to buy. Bill searched on line for all the information he could find and before long he was designing and constructing his first 3D printer. He has built 6 of them. He tends to make the newer ones by using the previous printer parts. In the past few months he has begun to build the latest version. Version 7 will be the biggest one. He has explained its workings but I could not even tell you exactly what he was talking about. It is impressive to see it built up. He spends many hours upstairs on the computer designing and re-designing it. He then heads downstairs to his shop and starts to build it. He is not finished but had me go down to his shop an inspect his work His knowledge of such things continues to floor me. He is so happy working on his 3D printer project. It must be a sense of accomplishment; of producing something from nothing. Not unlike his maternal grandmother's spinning wheel and the making of clothing needed for a cold Saskatchewan winter. Or like his paternal great-grandfather making structures where once there was none. A sense of accomplishment and pride in your work. 

March 2025 - Bill Working on 7th Version of 3D Printer

 

 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 10 Prompt - Siblings

2025 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 10 

Prompt - Siblings

Elizabeth Wendel (nee Fesser) is Bill's maternal great-aunt.  That is Bill - Clara Jahnke (mother)  - Ida Bachmann (grandmother) - Wilhelmina Fesser (great-grandmother). Wilhelmina's sister was Elizabeth Fesser. Elizabeth Fesser married Peter Wendel , Elizabeth and Peter immigrated to Canada about 1888 from Galacia, Austria. They married in Winnipeg circa 1892. The 1891 Canada Census has Peter Wendel as a single gentleman living in Winnipeg.  The 1901 census has Peter and Elizabeth Wendel living on a farm in Saltcoats, Saskatchewan. 

I found this photograph in Clara's batch of saved photos and it was named "Wendel Siblings; ca 1915". It took me a little while to figure out who they were in The Hoffart Family Tree.  There was something about the photograph that I liked.

Wendel Siblings ca. 1915.

The descending heights was amazing. They obviously had their children very close together.  I also thought what a lucky man Peter Wendel was to have so many male children to help on the farm. Their oldest child was a female named Wilhelmina and she was born in 1894 meaning she would be 20ish and probably married at the time of this photograph. They also had another daughter named Carolina born in 1898 making her about 17 at the time of this photograph.  She was not married until 1919.  This makes me think that photographing his sons was the main purpose of the photograph. 

Below is a list of their children.   I think from the list that you could match up the names to these children.  I haven't done it.

Parents
 

Peter Wendel

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Wendel

 

 

 

 

Wendy

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 9 Prompt - Memory

2025
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 9
Prompt – Memory
 

Bill and I quite enjoy watching curling especially at this time of year when Scotties and Briers Championships are on. Once we did participate in a Bank of Montreal Work gathering one weekend
where we played a “funspiel” between different branches from Saskatchewan. I liken it to a “team building' effort. For a time in the 1970's I worked as a bank employee for one of the branches from Regina. Our team was pretty awful. The only rock that I got over  the hog line,Bill fell on it! We had a banquet and trophy presentations. Our team was presented with the skunk award trophy and we deserved it. The trophy was cute with a little porcelain skunk with a furry tail on top of a pedestal. 

Skunk Trophy

 Sometime during the past week while watching a curling broadcast they played a special interest feature on “Jam Can Curling'.  Well now, I haven't thought of this in a very long time.

 I found a good explanation of this in a Curling Canada Facebook Entry.
“Many books on curling history will tell you that the sport of curling had a boom with participation during the years after World War II. When you look at a lot of curling club-building corner stones, they will read a date from the 1950’s or 1960’s. Adults flocked to the clubs to be part of this rock-throwing craze. Advances in youth programs also took place, with the junior aged youth, those 13 years of age and older. In the majority of cases, youth younger than 13 years were not physically strong enough to
propel the 44 lb. granite stone down the ice. You also have to remember that advances in ice technology were not as refined as they are today, therefore more effort to throw the rock was needed than on the keen ice surfaces of today.
In 1945, the Principal of Lakeview School in Saskatchewan, Harold Covell came up with the idea to have a fun outdoor game by throwing jam cans down a snow cleared ice surface. In those days, jam was bought at the store in cans, about the size of a 2 litre can of paint (okay, I know paint does not come in 2 litre sizes, but for a moment, just imagine). The bottoms of the cans were pounded outward rounding the bottom so the can would slide on the ice. These cans were then filled with concrete to add weight; metal handles were fashioned and stuck in the concrete. When the concrete dried, you now had small rocks that kids of all ages could throw. This was called Jam Can Curling. While it is unknown who can be credited with the idea of jam can stones, these are the grand parents of the rocks we use today. “ 

Historic Jam Cans

In the mid sixties, 1960's that is, I recall spending our phys-ed classes outside on the community's outdoor rink playing “jam can curling”. The outdoor ice was less than flat. Over hill and dale we threw our jam cans to the end of the rink. I do not recall any painted house. Maybe there was just a line that we tried to get over. The weather was bitterly cold as Saskatchewan winters tend to be and no amount of rock throwing warmed you up. That is about the sum total of my memories of “jam can curling”. 

Historic Photo of Backyard Jam Curling Circa 1950's

Apparently today there are numerous “jam pail curling” bonspiels. In Medicine Hat, they celebrated The Sixtieth Anniversary of Jam Pail Curling on February 21, 2025. Children from grade 3-6 plus local residents came together to play off. However today they do not play with jam cans but milk jugs filled
with coloured water which is frozen.

 

Bill's father belonged to a Saturday night league. Bill said every Saturday evening his father and mom went curling. He couldn't remember if his mom actually curled. Maybe she just enjoyed the beverages and fellowship and an evening out.

1959 Saskatoon Community Curling Team - Tony Hoffart is seated on the left.

 

1965 Saskatoon Community Team With Winning Trophy - Tony Hoffart on the Left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are my memories of curling in Saskatchewan.

Wendy