Finding family an ocean and 78 years away

It was the first time 78-year-old Josef Roesch had left Europe. He came to visit the family he never knew he had.

The honking of the geese and v-shaped patterns often taken for granted by locals was a thing of wonder for Josef.

“He literally sat in awe in the back seat of the car looking at the wide spans of land. He said ‘I look outside and what do I see? All I see is mountains,’” laughed Katy Reimer one of Josef’s four newly found sisters who now lives in Steinbach.

But it was meeting his new family that most affected Josef.

“It was like he was a little boy finding his puppy. It was just amazing really,” said Reimer.

The email

Josef came from Germany with his daughter Karin, who had sent the original email that to Josef’s newly found brother David Unruh.

“I believe your father is my father’s father,” recounted Reimer.

The siblings discussed what to do with the email. Was it malware waiting to infect their computer? Junk mail? Or was there something to it?

Reimer said her dad Peter Unruh left behind memoirs after he passed away in 2015. They were in German and hard to decipher, but using the German she learned as a child, Reimer went through it and places and dates lined up.

Peter Unruh had escaped the Soviet Union in 1945 after the end of the Second World War, spending time in the Bavarian town of Regensburg where he was told to help police the area. That is where he met Josef’s mother Rosina.

In his memoirs, Reimer said her dad Peter wrote that he met her mother shortly after and reunited with family in Hamburg, Germany before eventually shipping out to Canada.

“My grandma — my dad’s mom — had asked him if he got married because they had been separated now for about a year-and-a-half… He said no, but I did get a girl pregnant,” said Reimer.

But he was talking about Reimer’s mother, who was pregnant with her and would come to Manitoba in 1949 to continue growing their family.

Peter did say he had met another woman earlier, but ended the relationship. Reimer does not think her dad had any idea this short Bavarian romance had produced Josef.

“I don’t think he would have kept it from my mom, and if he didn’t keep it from my mom, my mom would have told us after my dad passed. It’s brand new information to us, but it’s a lifelong search for Karin,” said Reimer.

The search

Back in Germany, Karin was always curious about her lineage. Like many grandchildren of the Second World War, she did not know her grandfathers on either side of her family.

As recounted to Reimer, Karin started her search at 16 years old.

“Both her mother and father grew up without knowing their own fathers. They were both children of soldiers that had come into Germany after the war. Her mother’s (who was a twin) father was a married U.S. soldier who never had anything to do with her, again whether he knew or not was up to him to deal with. Her mother and twin sister were adopted by the grandparents and raised as sisters to their mother. Only did the twins find out that their ‘sister’ was their mother when they turned 18. Karin at 16, driven by curiosity, asked her grandmother what the name of her mother and twin sister’s father was. Her grandmother gave her the name and Karin cherished this information, not sure how and when she would be able to use it. She was always vigilant and kept her search going,” explained Reimer.

“She then approached her father’s mother (her grandmother) what the name of her ‘soldier’ was. Hence, Peter Unruh. Karin’s fire was lit. She works in the judicial system in Germany so she did have detective-like skills.

“When DNA testing through Ancestry became available the DNA test was done by herself, her mother and her father. The results showed that she indeed had family in Winnipeg, Canada. She researched further and found that there was a good possibility that Peter Unruh was of the Mennonite faith. She joined the search under Mennonites that immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada and found an abundance of information,” said Reimer, adding that several people on Facebook also pointed Karin towards Peter.

“Karin followed the obituaries on a regular basis looking to see if Peter Unruh had died. On March 3, 2015 dad passed away. The obituary showed up in Winnipeg. Karin was able to Google the information: all of the dates lined up with information she had. She noticed that my father was survived by his wife — my mother — so she waited to contact us. She told me her intention was never to bring pain to any family, if my mother did not know she did not want to cause her that pain. Her compassion ruled her desire to move forward at that time,” said Reimer.

Karin did track down her American family in Tennessee, meanwhile.

In fact, as soon as she was done visiting with her father in Manitoba in early October, she was flying to Toronto to see him off, then bringing her mother to the southern US to meet her newfound family for the first time.

Arrivals

But as for her Canadian family, Karin and Josef finally arrived at the Winnipeg airport on Sept. 23. The family connection was obvious immediately for Reimer.

“He came into view, and I had just an almost overwhelming of emotion of ‘there he is!’”

The physical resemblance was uncanny as well.

“Josef sent a picture of himself at 26 and I put it side by side with a picture of my dad at 26, and they look the same,” she said.

After supper and getting settled in at the Roadhouse 52 Inn in Steinbach, the sightseeing and family bonding began. There were plenty of stops in Winnipeg. A visit to Lake Winnipeg had Josef comparing it to the ocean and Mediterranean Sea. There was an early Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

Josef has five close family members back home, but added 49 Canadian siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews and their children.

And a trip to Steinbach’s Mennonite Heritage Village made a culinary impression on Karin and Josef that they are bringing back to Germany with them, along with all the photos old and new put together in several scrapbooks by Reimer.

A tour of the museum was given in German, an extra bit of helpfulness since the touring season is over.

“And then we went there for lunch and had our Mennonite meal… He never had perogies, and was pretty pleased with what they were.

“And Karin also, she’s a vegetarian, so she was very pleased as a variety to her vegetarian palate,” said Reimer.

Reimer and her Canadian brother David are probably going to Germany next year to visit their new German brother and niece.

There was one more thing for David to give his big brother Josef before he left.

“He gave him my dad’s ring. My mom bought my dad a ring when they were married 25 years, so it had nine diamonds in it… and he gave him that ring and said ‘I think this ring should have gone to the oldest son,’” described Reimer.

“He just started to cry… He was so overwhelmed with joy.”