Katerina, known as 'Katie'

My mother-in-law turned 81 years old on Feb.17th. She is a special lady. I got lucky when I married and she became my mother-in-law in 1974. Over her lifetime she has witnessed and experienced so many changes that it boggles the mind at times! When we visited her to take her out for her birthday lunch, she told us that she had been writing down some of her memories and is recording them onto a tape for to give to her two young Grandsons. We have been trying to encourage her to do something like this for the past few years, and would like to become involved in some way either by video taping her, like an interview style with photos etc, or just have her ramble on and tell us her story in her own way. Well she finally decided it was a good idea, but got to writing it down first. She let me read what she has written so far and it helped to stimulate other memories. Her writing is very hard to read as her written English is not as good as her spoken, and so everything is spelled phonetically....English spelling is atrocious, but when you read it out loud, it begins to make sense! She is a self taught English speaker! She came to Canada in the early 1950's and had never spoken a word of English up till that point. Her first language is a German dialect mixed in with Hungarian as she was born and raised in the Transylvania area of Romania which borders Hungary, but her family were all of German-Hungarian blood....no Romanian at all! So their language and dialect was preserved within their Ethnic group living in a small village just within the Romanian border. She has experienced a hard working life. Raised on a farm, living in a very small cottage and eventually having to leave that life as a young girl when, near the end of World War Two, they had to pick up and leave everything they had known behind and travel by horse and cart across Hungary fleeing from the advancing Russian armies into the relative safety of Austria where they lived as refugees in a huge refugee camp. There she eventually married and gave birth to her first born son, who was to become my husband, and when he was just a few months old..moved to France for more hard work on a farm. Eventually they were to emigrate to Canada and a whole new life stretched ahead. Through more hardships and personal sadness, a divorce, and training to be a nursing aide, she has weathered the ups and downs of a long life and today lives in peace and contentment surrounded by her many treasures, friends, and a family who love her. One day I would love to write her story. Happy Birthday Katie!