Emelia Anton – A Deck of Ancestors

52W Mark IV – Week 40: Card L1 Heronimus Michael “Jerome” Lerner and Emelia Anton

Heronimus Michael “Jerome” Lerner (1895-1954)
Emelia Anton (1903-1997)

Welcome to the last suit of the deck of ancestors I’ve been writing about for the 2025 edition of the 52 Ancestors Challenge – with the unique spin I’ve given the challenge this year. This final suit relates to my mother’s maternal grandparents, Heronimus Michael “Jerome” Lerner (1895-1954) and Emelia Anton (1903-1997). Both were Germans from Russia. I never met my great grandfather – neither did my mother – but I knew my great grandmother very well, who passed away shortly before I turned 30.

Very long story short, just after Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, came to power in 1762, she issued a manifesto inviting foreign settlement in lands controlled by Russia. A significant number of those who responded to the offer were German peoples (as there was no “Germany” at the time). Even a summary of the reasons behind Catherine’s invitation and why so many Germans responded would significantly detract from the topic at hand.

There are some similarities between what Catherine promised in her manifesto (and subsequent manifestos by future Czars) and what later was promised to homesteaders by the United States and Canada. Catherine’s incentives included free transportation to Russia, free land, freedom from taxes for 10 to 30 years, interest-free loans to buy equipment, freedom of religion, exemption from military service, retaining their language, and local self-government. However, circumstances changed, so in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the descendants of those original colonists left to homestead in the United States and Canada.

Both Jerome and Emelia’s ancestors originally hailed from what is now western Germany, particularly the Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg. Those ancestors all settled in colonies located in what is now the Ukraine (“Odessa” or “Black Sea” Germans), particularly what was known as the Beresan District, north-east of Odessa. Most of the colonies took the names of the German cities and towns from which the settlers came. Many of my German-Russian ancestors were located in Rastadt and Karlsruhe.

^{The Beresan in the 1800s (source: http://www.rollroots.com/beresanmap.htm). Essentially all colonies were based upon the religion of the settlers. Rastadt is in the upper right corner; Karlsruhe is close to the centre. Both were Roman Catholic colonies.}

^{The Beresan District in relation to Odessa, in what is now Ukraine.}

Neither Jerome nor Emelia were born in the Beresan, where each of their parents were born. Jerome was born in Henrietta, Texas on March 12, 1895, less than two years after his parents emigrated from the Beresan. Emelia was born in Selo Suchoi, Veronesch, Russia on January 1, 1903. I assume that date is under the Julian calendar. Emelia’s parents had left the Beresan sometime around 1899 and remained in Russia until 1912, when they left for Canada.

Emelia’s family first settled near Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. By 1920, they were living in Rastadt. Just as the German place names followed the colonists to Russia, they followed them to the new world as well. In the meantime, Jerome’s older brother had moved to the area, starting a gradual migration of the Lerner’s to and from Saskatchewan. Jerome came to Canada in 1917 and settled near Fox Valley, not far from Rastadt, taking up farming like he had in Texas. Jerome never obtained Canadian citizenship; I don’t know if Emelia ever did.

Jerome and Emelia married in Rastadt on August 3, 1920. Jerome continued to farm land south of Rastadt throughout the marriage. They had six children together over their 17 year marriage.

This map shows where Jerome and Emelia lived while they were together. Fox Valley is in the circle on the left. Michael and Barbara Lerner (née Schmidt) were Jerome’s parents; Jacob and Margaret Anton (née Heck) were Emelia’s parents.

Unfortunately, Jerome developed a mental health condition*, which contributed to the breakdown of his marriage with Emelia. Their daughter, my Aunt Adeline (“Addie”), told me that she believed her father had schizophrenia, although I doubt there was ever any formal diagnosis.

Jerome Lerner and Emelia Anton. The photo of Jerome is from his application for an American passport in 1917, when he was 22. My guess is that the photo of Emelia was taken when she was in her mid-teens.

My great grandparents separated sometime between 1937, when their youngest son Herb was born. My guess is that when the 1931 census is released in 2033, it will show them as having been separated. Jerome and Emilia most likely did not file for divorce. They do not come up on the Library and Archives Canada divorce database. Being Catholic, they might have simply separated without divorcing. However, my Aunt Addie told me it had nothing to do with being Catholic, it was because it was so difficult to get a divorce at the time they separated. (It was not until 1968 that the divorce laws in Canada were liberalized to make it easier to obtain a divorce.)

My mother once told me that a rift developed between the Lerners and my great grandmother over her separation from Jerome. It seems there was some sort of expectation that my great grandmother should have remained with Jerome despite his troubles.

After they separated, Jerome continued farming in the Rastadt area. Aunt Addie told me that after her parents separated, her father lived with his father, Michael Lerner. Michael had become a widower not long before Jerome and Emelia separated. Aunt Addie told me that her father was still able to care for himself, such as dressing himself and cooking, but he needed some guidance.

When her parents separated, Aunt Addie went with her mother, but when she was about 13 years old (around 1944), she moved in with her father and grandfather for about a year. Aunt Addie described her father as quiet and intelligent, and was able to reason through things quite well. He did not talk much, but would “explain stuff” to Addie from time to time. Addie remembers that he read the newspaper a lot. Aunt Addie added that he could become upset very quickly, which she attributed to his mental condition. Addie said that her Grandfather took care not to upset Jerome or “push his buttons.”

When I asked Aunt Addie whether her father was still working at the time, she told me that he didn’t really work and that work would upset him. He would help with the harvest, but he would “moan and groan all night.” Aunt Addie believed he wasn’t used to that kind of regular work and it really wore out his muscles. To whatever degree Jerome was still able to work, I note that the registration of his death stated that he was a farmer at the time.

This is me on the land my Great Grandfather Jerome farmed. This was taken in April 1997, only a few months after my Great Grandmother Emelia passed away. The house they lived in – where my grandma Helen Lerner was born – stood around here. At the time, the house still existed, but had been moved elsewhere.

Aunt Addie said that her father spoke both English and German. Her grandfather mostly spoke German, but could understand English. So both languages were used at home. Aunt Addie said that her Addie said that this meant she grew up speaking both languages, although she had lost her ability to speak German later in life. mother mostly spoke to her in German, because it was better than her English. She added that her mother also spoke some Russian, which my mother had told me as well. As my mother described it, when her grandmother was still living in Russia, she’d speak German with her family and Russian with people working the farm.

When I told Aunt Addie that I was 13 before I learned her mother could speak German (which caught me quite by surprise!), she commented on how her mother spoke with an accent that wasn’t quite German and not quite Russian. She concluded it was its own thing. I concurred, because I could never tell what kind of accent my great grandmother had before I learned she was multilingual. In fact, I don’t recall thinking she had an accent; I think I thought she sounded the way she did because of her age.

According to Aunt Adeline, it sounds like her mother remained at the home she had shared with Jerome after their separation. Addie said that her mother leased out the farm land. How long my great grandmother remained there, I do not know. However, Emelia was still there when Aunt Addie moved in with her father in 1944. Sometime afterwards, Emelia moved to Alberta, likely first to Medicine Hat, and then on to Lethbridge.

Jerome passed away in hospital in Maple Creek on December 6, 1854, due to kidney disease. He was buried at the Fox Valley Community Cemetery. Meanwhile, by the mid-1950s Emelia was working as a chambermaid at the Alexander Hotel in Lethbridge. By 1958 Emelia had largely retired. She was collecting a pension and was living off an inheritance she had received from her father. She bought a house on 19th Street in Lethbridge.

Sometime in 1958 or 1959, Emelia married Walter Henry Wright. He died on December 4, 1978. While I saw him every time we visited my great grandmother, I don’t really know much about him. Most of what I learned about him is from his obituary, from when he died in December 1978. Other than the fact Walter served in World War II, I have no idea about his life before marrying my great grandmother or what he did for a living.

Me and two of my siblings with Emelia and Walter.

Emelia survived Jerome by fifty years and Walter by twenty years. She even outlived my grandmother, Helen Lerner, by more than ten years. Emelia continued to live on her own at home for many years after Walter’s death, but ultimately moved into a nursing home. I honestly cannot remember when she moved. She was there at least by her late 80s – I know she was there before she turned 90. I messaged my mother to ask if she could recall when, but couldn’t. I thought one of my sisters had a reason to remember, but she couldn’t recall it either.

In the last years of her life, Emelia’s activities included bridge and bingo. She was proud of her mental acuity and ability to play the game, but was always unhappy that her peers did not. My grandfather, Leo Burgess, often took Emelia to bingo. I remember my grandfather “complaining” that he was in his mid-70s and still had mother-in-law problems.

Emelia died on January 19, 1997 in Lethbridge. The memorial mass was held at St. Basil’s Catholic Church in Lethbridge and my mother gave the eulogy. Emelia was cremated and buried at Mountain View Cemetery, alongside her son Jim, who died in 1983.

Jerome’s grave at the Fox Valley Community Cemetery

Emelia’s grave at the Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge, alongside her son Jim.

* There are resources available if you need help with your mental health. In British Columbia, where I live, this includes:

→ Calling 2-1-1 will connect you with community and social services.

→ 9-8-8 is the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

→ https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/mental-health-substance-use

→ https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/mental-health-services/mental-health-get-help.html

52 Weeks Mark III – Week 8: Heirlooms

I’m one of five siblings. My sisters and I live in British Columbia, both of my brothers live in Alberta. Until a few years ago, both my brothers lived in the same town as my parents. During the first summer of the pandemic, the elder of my two brothers moved to another town, about 90 minutes away from my folks. As a result, it was a couple years until I saw his new home.

In October 2022, my father’s younger brother passed away. That same week, my father ended up in hospital with a broken hip. I flew out to Alberta for the memorial service and to see our dad. On my return trip home, I spent a night at my brother’s new place.

I was completely flabbergasted to discover that in his living room, under two upholstery covers (they have a lot of pets!), was the armchair that belonged to my great grandmother, Emelia Anton. I have no idea how old it actually is.

I know my grandmother acquired it from her mother sometime in the late 70s or early 80s and had it reupholstered. I thought it was disposed of after my grandfather passed away. I never realized that it ended up with my brother someway, somehow. It was really cool to see something that had once belonged to my great grandmother, which I remember well from our visits with her when I was a kid.

Update: Talking to my mother in August 2025, it turns out that this chair belonged to her other grandmother, her father’s mother, Hazel Nelson.

52 Weeks Mark III – Week 7: Immigration

My mother’s maternal line are all Germans from Russia. The Russian Empire expanded significantly during the 18ths century. When Catherine the Great came to power in 1763, she encourage immigration, partly to re-establish farming in regions that had laid fallow during periods of warfare, modernize the country, and to populate regions the Empire had absorbed.

Catherine’s manifesto inviting settlers bears some resemblance the homestead schemes introduced in the United States and Canada over a century later.

Among other things, she promised land, free transportation to Russia, and economic incentives (including freedom from taxes for a period of time and interest-free loans for the purchase of equipment). As well, settlers were promised that they could freely practice their religion, retain their language, and be free from military service. The settlers were also promised a degree of self-government.

While settlers came from several places in Europe, a majority were Germans. At the time, there was no “Germany”. Rather, the region was primarily composed of a multitude of principalities, dutchies, and other small states. While Catherine’s promises provided a significant pull, economic and political conditions in the German states provided a significant push.

The first wave of settlers formed colonies in the Volga region (“Volga Germans”). The next wave occurred after Catherine’s grandson, Alexander I, issued a similar manifesto with many of the same promises. My ancestors were part of this wave of settlers, who formed colonies in what is now southern Ukraine, particularly in the area north of Odessa (“Black Sea Germans”).

The German colonies in the Beresan district in 1890, as seen in relation to Odessa. All four of my maternal grandmother’s grandparents came from Rastadt and Karlsruhe, located in the upper right-hand corner.

The German colonies were usually composed of members of the same religion. The main colonies were Catholic, Lutheran, and Mennonite. These colonies thrived for decades. However, in 1871, Czar Alexander II repealed the manifestos of Catherine and Alexander I. The German colonists lost many of their privileges. Shortly afterwards, they lost their exemption from military service. The next Czar, Alexander III, took further steps to incorporate the German population into general Russian society, which included discouraging the German language and encroaching on the school system established by the colonists.

Needless to say, this immediately sparked waves of emigration of the German colonists, many of whose families had been in Imperial Russia for decades. Many of these Germans left for the United States and Canada, relocating to the plains stretching from Texas to Saskatchewan. Other colonists left for Argentina and Brazil.

My grandmother’s paternal line originally settled in Texas, starting with my great great grandparents, Michael Lerner and Barbara Schmidt and their six children. They came over in 1893 on the S.S. Lahn, which landed at Ellis Island – less than 18 months after it had opened. Michael and Barbara had six more children after settling in Texas, the first of whom was my great grandfather, Heronimus “Jerome” Lerner. Over time, many of their children relocated to Saskatchewan, including Jerome. Michael and Barbara ultimately made the same move themselves, leaving behind several of their adult children.

My grandmother’s maternal grandparents, Jacob Anton and Margaretha “Margaret” Heck, came directly to Canada in 1912 with all their children and settled in Saskatchewan. This included my great grandmother, Emelia Anton, who was nine years old at the time. She lived to be 94 and I knew her well.

^{The Anton family, circa 1910. Likely taken in Selo Suchoi, Veronesch, Russia. My great grandmother, Emelia, is the little girl standing at the edge of the right side of the photo.}

Emelia had not had much schooling before coming to North America, but was very religious. She said that she was frightened and nervous during the journey, as she did not know anything about where she was going and did not fully understand what was going on. However, on reaching New York, she said her fears subsided when she saw “the Madonna”. When she saw that, she knew she would be safe and all would be well. Of course, the “Madonna” was the Statue of Liberty. As she had never heard of it before, she thought it was a statue of the Virgin Mary.

There are many well-known descendants of the Germans from Russia. They include Lawrence Welk, who married my grandmother’s fourth cousin. While I am generally disinterested in celebrity, I was excited to learn that Hayley Wickenheiser is a descendant of Germans from Russia. Her great grandparents lived in Rastadt, where Mike and Barbara had lived before emigrating. However, her family was there decades after mine left, as the did not leave until they fled Stalin’s regime.

52W Mark II – Week 26: Slow

Talk about “slow”, this week’s theme for the 52 Ancestors Challenge. It has taken me forever to think of anything that suits, no matter how broadly I interpreted the word. After alternatively wracking my brains and sleeping on it, I was reminded of something my great grandmother, Emelia Anton, once said.

My great grandmother lived to be 94. While she experienced some dementia in her last year or so, she remained active. She regularly participated in bingo outings with my grandfather (her son-in-law), playing multiple cards at once, keeping pace better than I could (or still can).

Great grandma’s favourite game was bridge, a game I’ve struggled to grasp despite being an avid and seasoned card player. She took great pride in the fact she still had the mental acuity for the game, even into her 90s. However, but complained that her peers were getting too slow for her.

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