Berthold Herman Seiler

Berthold Herman (Bert) Seiler, 1911-2004

We will remember Berthold Herman (Bert) Seiler as a devoted husband and a loving father who taught us the importance of working hard, pursing a goal tenaciously, and taking pride in a job well done. He helped us appreciate how adversity brings out the best in a person.

Dad grew up in Rodalben, a picturesque village in the Rheinland Pfalz region of south-west Germany, next to the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. Residents invariably tell visitors that Rodalben has one major claim to fame: on his return from Moscow in 1812, Napoleon and his troops passed through the village. By the turn of the twentieth century, the village had become a shoe-manufacturing centre, and every able-bodied person in the village worked in a shoe factory. Dad completed the equivalent of grade 11 and then went to work in his uncle's factory. On weekends during the fall, he played for the village soccer team, throwing himself into the inter-village tournaments. Participants and spectators would hold a massive celebration in the forest after a tournament, roasting potatoes, drinking beer, and singing songs late into the night.

Life was difficult, if not uncertain, during this period of inflation, which extended from 1914, when the WWI broke out, to 1923, when Germany's monetary system collapsed. In 1914, 4.21 German marks traded on the foreign exchange for one American dollar; in 1923, 4.2 million million (the number 4.2 followed by 11 zeros) marks traded for one dollar. People who were lucky enough to have jobs were paid everyday at noon; according to some reports, they ran to the nearest store with their sack full of banknotes to buy anything they could at any price. In their frenzy, they paid millions of marks for cuckoo clocks, shoes that didn't fit, and so on. The price of a cup of coffee would double in the time it took to drink it. Dad told us that people in the village would wallpaper their outhouses with thousands of worthless bank notes.

In 1930, Dad persuaded his cousin (Eugen Seiler) to immigrate with him to Canada, hoping to make a better life for themselves. Dad's parents borrowed the fare. Like many immigrants of the period, he wanted to go the United States, but found it easier to enter Canada. (The Canadian authorities in Pirmasens were recruiting farm labourers.) They sailed from Bremen on the Berlin (a converted battleship) to Halifax, landing on April 13, 1930, and then travelling by train through Montreal and Winnipeg to Cutworth, in central Saskatchewan, where they worked as labourers, clearing the land and preparing the ground for planting crops, earning $20 a month ($5 a month during the winter). As it happened, they had exchanged the hard times of Germany for the hard times of Canada. The stock market had crashed in the fall of 1929, and times were getting worse. The annual amount of precipitation in many areas on the Prairies dropped considerably, and by the spring of 1930 the subsoil moisture was just about gone. The price of wheat tumbled to an all-time-low, and unsold western grain constituted one of the severest problems of the day. Conditions worsened, including economic confusion and unemployment on a colossal scale; seven lean years of crop failures, 1931-39, occasioned by the drought of catastrophic proportions, followed. The dust swept across the flat fields in a constant face-smashing stream.

Judging that his prospects in Saskatchewan were not very good, Dad moved to Alberta in the fall of 1940, and (as he remembered) this marked a turning point in his life. He worked at a variety of jobs, including truck driving for Colpitts Ranches, a major employer west of Calgary. Here he met and later (in June of 1942) married Margaret McKady (my mother). They rented rooms in a rooming house near City Hall, bought a house in Bowness (this would be in November 1943, when I was born), and then bought a bigger house in Belfast (this would be November 1947, when my sister, Maria, was born), now called Mayland Heights. He took on other jobs, including packaging flour at the Robin Hood Flour Mills and driving truck for MacCosham Storage and Cartage.

This was a difficult time in other respects: during the WWII my father - now classified as an enemy alien - was required to report to the mounted police every month. He rarely talked about this period of his life.

Dad retired (with great reluctance) in 1991, but always able to see the bright side of a situation he was able to enjoy his retirment. He worked part-time in his basement and took pleasure visiting friends and family. He especially enjoyed treating friends to lunch and joining his family for special occasions. My family has many fond memories of Sunday dinners and Christmas meals shared with Mom and Dad. We enjoyed listening to his stories, his reminiscences of his life in German and his first days in Canada. He took special pleasure in playing gin rummy with my step-son Mark. In June 1998, he travelled to Swift Current to celebrate Gene's 90th birthday.

We are glad that we were able to find a place in Westview (a fine lodge) form Mon and Dad during the period 2002-2003.

Dad's fondest memories included the many friendships he formed with his colleagues at the City, family outings, such as taking us to drive-in movies and picnicing at Twin Bridges, not to mention travelling to Germany with his family to visit relatives. These excursions included visiting Heidelberg and travelling up and down the Rhine.

Dad is survived by his sisters, Lucia Helfrich and Else Matheis and their families, living in Rodalben, Germany; his wife Margaret of 62 years; his son Robert (Tamara) and his daughter Maria (Frnak Huizing); Erik, Anne-Marie, and Jennifer Huizing, Christopher Hanlie, and one great grandchild (Jada).

Bert was predeceased by his brother (Jakob) and his sister (Maria), who passed away during the WWII, his son (Karl) in June 2002 and his daughter (Carol Hanlie) in March 2004. He will be sorely missed by all those whose lives he touched with his kindness and generosity.