Was this Ste Agathe or Ste Adele, Quebec? The year is likely to be 1954 ... spring. Oma is keeping a firm hold on the cat (name forgotten), Margaret has her doll Bärbel. Gundel and Else are wearing handknits, in variously fine wools - indeed, everyone is, except the cat.

Steven at the mink sheds, in his blue anorak.

Susan's christening, April 1959.

Early 1950s - Margaret, Alfred, ?, Oma - and two shadowy figures in the back. Possibly still Gersfeld (1951) or possibly early days in Quebec (1952).

Shipboard scene, crossing the Atlantic in the Columbia, April 1952.

Steven and Margaret, 1954, Ste Adele.

April 1952 - Margaret with her best friend, Margit Weber, and Fritzl the dog, just before leaving for Canada. When Margaret went back to Gersfeld to visit Aunt Anni in 1984, they ran into Margit in the shoe store.

Paul, and Peter Benjafield, on the way to Keremos - 1952, perhaps, in the days when young men went up to the logging camps to work. Paul started out as a camp cook, and I hope he'll add his experiences....

At 18035 Ford Road, 1956 - Margaret, Gundel, Steven, Oma.

Oma in her Gersfeld living room, early 1952.

At 18035 Ford Road - Steven with a couple of the Saunders kids, and Saunders' house in the background. Probably 1957.

In the late 1950s the sheds at 17515 Ford Road held mink in cages, being raised for their fur; this went on for only about three years, though it was in order to have a mink farm that the family moved to Pitt Meadows from Vancouver. At the first property, 5 acres, the neighbour had a turkey farm and got byelaws changed (to needing 10 acres) to prevent having mink next door - hence the move from 18035 to 17515 Ford Road.
Steven once got a badly bitten thumb, to the extent that the nail fell off. The mink were vicious creatures (undoubtedly made more so by being trapped in a cage; not something we would do now). They needed feeding and watering twice a day. The food was fish waste from canneries, I believe; it must have been delivered fairly frequently, and taken to the sheds in the wheelbarrow.

Oma (on the right) and her sisters Emma (left) and Dora.

Emma Niebling had six children - Mariechen, Ernst, Friedl, Gretchen, Ewald, Paula.

Dora married Karl Braubach and moved to Hannover. Her son Hans Otto moved back to Gersfeld.

Another sister, Anna Mueller, also lived in Hannover and had a son named Werner.

The youngest sister, Leni, married Ewald Korte in 1936 and lived in Gersfeld.

Alfred's family on the way to Paul's wedding - outside 2635 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, with Alfred's VW in the background.

Alfred and Gundel drove a VW to Vancouver in the summer of 1954, in the days before there was a Trans-Canada Highway, using up their last 25 cents on gas. According to family legend, at the time there were only three VWs in BC. That car was black and had a split rear window. The kids loved to travel in the luggage-well behind the back seat.

Vancouver (West 10th Avenue), 1955 or 1956 - Alfred, Gundel, Steven, Oma, Margaret. In the background is Kitsilano High School.

Baby Steven, spring or summer 1953. Steve was born a couple of months early, in August 1952, in St Adele, Quebec.

Gundel, Oma, Margaret, Steven, Else, Alfred at 18035 Ford Road, Pitt Meadows, in 1956 or 57.

Gundel, Oma, Anni, Alfred, about 1950. Could this photo have been taken at Anni's, before the departure for Canada in 1952?