Here we go into a new month, and summer is going by so fast again with another long weekend upon us, it just seemed like we got done with winter just a little while ago, and now we are half way through summer, where does the time go? This weekend is a Civic Holiday on Monday, so if you get it off, hopefully the weather is nice and a person can get out and enjoy themselves.
Bingo evening happens again this coming Tuesday – Aug. 5 starting at 7:15 p.m. and takes place at the Botha Seniors’ Centre. So make sure you come out for one great evening and who knows you could be one of the big winners taking some prizes home with you.
Saturday, Aug. 16, make sure you come out for one great event taking place starting at 1:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. at Botha. The Erichson/Drewes families would like to invite everyone out to their open house and help them celebrate 120 years in Canada and 110 years living and farming in the Botha area. They are going to have a lot of displays out for the public to see and lots of other items they have collected in the last 110 years. So make sure you come on out and help celebrate this special occasion with them.
A little bit of history that a person would like to share is first Klaus Erichson was born on April 18, 1911 in Suderbrarup, Northern Germany. In 1928, at the age of 16 years, he came to the Stettler area where his uncle Carl Truelson, was farming.
Marsha Erichson, nee Drewes, was born July 16, 1914 in Plant City, Florida. In 1916, the Drewes’ family returned to their homestead in the Botha area. In 1930, Marsha attended Alberta College and upon her graduation, started work keeping books for her father (William Drewes) in the Sunburst Flour Mill in Stettler.
In 1930, Klaus Erichson began to work at the flourmill as a mill hand and truck driver. This is where the relationship started and on April 1937, Klaus and Marsha became one in holy matrimony. In 1938, they moved to William Drewes’ homestead, farming it as well as raising hogs in partnership with William utilizing waste from the flour mill, which they purchased from him in the year 1941. Before this, they rented a house from Marsha’s father. In 1947, the mill was closed down.
In 1905, there were two log houses built on this homestead, so Klaus and Marsha lived in one. These houses were extremely hard to build as the men had to get the logs from the Red Deer River using horse and wagon to carry home the logs. At that time, there were no trucks to haul any home so it was all manpower instead. One of these log house still remains standing today, so they were sure built good.
Klaus and Marsha had strong Lutheran convictions and were very active supporters of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Stettler, where Marsha was the organist for over 40 years. Besides farming, Klaus and Marsha also had and raised six children, and through the generations, there have been six generations that have stayed and farmed in the Botha area, so as you can see the Erichson family has been in the Botha area for a lot of years.
Heinrich Drewes and his wife Anna emigrated from Center Germany to Canada in 1894, accompanied by their sons, Henry (14) and William (6) along with two older brothers who settled in the Strathcona area. With his two sons Henry and William, Heinrich went further and inspected land in the Botha area in 1904. This time they decided to homestead in Botha area. The year was 1912. Unfortunately Heinrich passed away peacefully at the age of 65, leaving his great grandson Donald Erichson to farm the land.
Born in Central Germany in 1817, William came as a small boy to Alberta. In 1894, joining his older brother (Henry) and his dad, and then as he grow older he selected his homestead next to them in 1904 and registered his homestead in 1905. In 1910, William was united in marriage to Dorothea Christine Wischoff. In 1916, William, Dorothea and their daughter came back to Botha area. After they came back their little family increased to five as two more sons were born.
So make sure to come on out on Saturday, Aug. 16 and see what the families have planned for everyone to see. It will be a great afternoon and very educational to learn about the farming back then and all the hardships they had to go through to the farming they do now. You will not want to miss this opportunity and they would love it, if you all show up and help them celebrate all the years that have gone by living and farming in our little community.
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