Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections: Olga

When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].

Muench Ancestry ~ Leeson Ancestry ~ Vanek Ancestry ~ Gremaux Ancestry .

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the Muench family photographs in the archives at the right. Some of the photos were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

OLGA LYDIA was born June 27, 1920 at the Muench homestead near Bigford, Saskatchewan, about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in the Bigford District, eastward a few miles on the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11.

 

In 1928 she moved with her parents to Chester, Washington, near Spokane. In 1931 her parents traded their farm there for a farm at Trochu, Alberta, about 100 miles northeast of Calgary and Olga moved there with them and her brother, Reinhold and sister, Emma. She missed her mother dreadfully, when her parents retired and moved, in 1944 to Abbotsford, B.C., and later to Chilliwack, B.C.

 

Olga married Max Reichel and they farmed near Trochu on land including the quarter section of her parents farm deeded to her by Emil Muench. Their children, Gail, Maxine, Byron, Shelby and Angela were all born there. Olga was always active in her church and community, raised huge gardens, and was close with her children, no matter how far away they moved. She loved to collect bells and family pictures, carefully compiling the photographs into many albums.

 

She and Max enjoyed traveling after their family were raised, and went to several countries besides the United States. In 2001, just before a planned cruise, Olga suffered an apparent slight stroke while planting her garden, so she was unable to accompany Max on the vacation they'd dreamed of. As small strokes affected her balance, making it necessary for assistance Olga moved into assisted living wing of the hospital in Trochu, where she died.

 

Olga Muench ca 1940s

 

Olga (L) with her eldest sister, Martha, and six of Martha's

ten children.

Olga and Max Reichel's wedding party with bridesmaid, Emma

Muench, and uknown groomsman

Max Reichel, Rosalie Muench, Olga holding baby, Gail, and

Emil Muench, 1948

Proud Papa, Max Reichel balancing daughter Gail on prize cow, 1949

HOME

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections: Reinhold

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the Muench family photographs in the archives at the right. Some of the photos were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

REINHOLD AUGUST MUENCH was born on August 5, 1917 at the Muench homestead (Section 34, Township 13, Range 11) about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in the Bigford District. He moved with his parents to Spokane, Washington in 1928, and then moved back to Canada in 1931 with them when they settled near Trochu, Alberta, Canada.

Reinhold's wife, Bernice, wrote: I am Bernice (nee Bernice Evelyn Schinkel) Muench, married to Reinhold Muench, son of Emil and Rosalie (nee Herr) Muench. We met in 1948, just before Reinhold’s mother’s funeral, and were married February 17, 1949 at the German Baptist church in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

 

We then moved to our farm at Trochu Alberta in the month of March 1949. We were blessed with a son Garth, and a daughter Carolyn. It was there, over the next 47 years that we did our own fruit as well as vegetable canning, and also learned and collected some new recipes in cooking. The canning was all done on the old coal fired cook stove, since we didn’t get electricity until the winter of 1952. Having retired on the farm in 1984.

After another ten more years, we finally decided to relocate to the nice small town of Oliver, in the province of British Columbia, in the late fall of 1995. Since it was late in the fall, and out of season, we brought all our canned and frozen fruits and some fresh vegetables with us.

 

In the summer here, it really seems like the valley of heaven in the Okanagan. Especially in the spring when many different shrubs, trees, and flowers are in bloom, and the beautiful blossoming orchards, later producing so many verities of delicious fresh fruits and also vegetables, to enjoy in their seasons. Now in 2002, with the nice warm sunshine we still love our retirement and are enjoying it very much, here in the beautiful sunny Valley Of Heaven In The Okanagan."

 

We enjoy our town, new friends and activities here in Oliver. And also the people we fellowship with at the Osoyoos Baptist church we attend, in Osoyoos, BC. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in 1999.

 

Reinhold Muench, WWII
 

 

Reinhold, dressed up as a Lady for a party he was attending. 

 

Reinhold Muench 

 

Reinhold Muench and his father's sister, Julia Kuhn 1938

Muench and Herr cousins visiting  ~
Olga and Emma Muench are 2nd and 3rd from the left.

 

Reinhold's obituary: Reinhold August Muench was born August 5, 1917 in Braddock, Saskatchewan to Emil Muench and Rosalia Herr Muench. 

The family relocated to Washington State briefly before settling west of Trochu, Alberta where eventually Reinhold took over the family farm. 

He was honorably discharged from the Army due to his dad’s declining ability to farm. As any farmer, he really was a jack of all trades and inventor, a trait that never left him. 

He was a confirmed bachelor until he met Bernice Evelyn Schinkel and settled into marriage February 17, 1949. 

After retiring, Reinhold and Bernice traveled by motor home to many provinces and states, making sure to connect with relatives and friends along the way. Soon the oceans were crossed and many countries abroad were visited, something Reinhold never regretted. Reinhold and Bernice located to Oliver in 1995, connecting with the local church and relatives and settled into “town” life. In 2014 they joined the Mariposa residents in Osoyoos and still continued attending the church that was like family to them.

Reinhold was the last survivor of nine children and their spouses and pondered why God had blessed him with health and many years. He is survived by his loving wife, Bernice, of 67 years, son Garth (Eva), daughter Carolyn (Rudy) Bauder, granddaughters Natasha (Paul) Golomco and Sarah and their mother, Debbie; grandsons Javan (Kelsey) Bauder, Jared (Erin) Bauder, and Jesse Bauder, and 2 great granddaughters, Mila Golomco and Adalyn Bauder; brother-in-law Jack (Lillian) Schinkel; numerous nieces and nephews as well as many friends.

We couldn’t keep him alive long enough to meet his 3rd great grandchild as his desire to be with his Lord and Savior was met February 26, 2016.

Funeral services were held Friday, March 4, 2016 at Osoyoos Baptist Church, 6210 – 97th Street, Osoyoos, BC. 11:00 a.m., with Pastor Phil Johnson presiding. A graveside service was held in Chilliwack the following day at 1:30 p.m. at 10010 Hillcrest Dr., Chilliwack, BC.

 

 

 

 

HOME

 

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections: Emma

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs on them were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

EMMA was born on March 19, 1915 at the Muench homestead near Bigford, Saskatchewan, about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in the Bigford District, eastward a few miles on the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11. She grew up there until she was 13 years old.

In 1928 the family sold the homestead and moved to Chester, Washington, near Spokane. In 1931 her parents traded their farm there for a farm at Trochu, Alberta, about 100 miles north-east of Calgary. There she helped at home, and with the farm work. She also hired out to other families when she had time. When her mother suffered a stroke she went home to care for her.

In 1944 her parents were again on the move, this time to Abbotsford, B.C. When they sold that place and moved to Chilliwack, Emma decided to go and join them. She got a job at a restaurant there. But she came back to the Muench farm near Trochu to help with the harvest. In 1948 while she was on her way back to Trochu, her mother passed away.

Her brother, Reinhold met her at the bus in Calgary, and they flew back to the coast. She stayed there to be near her father until he remarried. She moved back to Alberta, and there she met her future husband, Paul Sterling.

When she went to help Olga, Paul Sterling began to court Emma in earnest. They were married on June 11, 1952. They moved to Lousana, about 30 miles north, where they farmed and during this time their 2 children, Terrill and Karl were born. In 1958 they moved to a farm near Three Hills. In 1970 they moved to the Kelowna area' and in 1974 bought an orchard at Oliver, B.C. about 80 miles south of Kelowna. Emma really enjoyed their life there. She passed away after a long fight with cancer on April 25, 1986.




Emma, kneeling with her big doll, and younger

sister, Olga, on their parents farm near Chester,

Washington

Emma Muench on parents farm near Trochu, Alberta, Canada

Emma on the front porch of her parent's house

Reinhold Muench was in the armed services when this picture

taken with his sister, Emma

 



Emma in 1947 at her parent's home in Chilliwack, British

Columbia, Canada



Sisters Emma (L) and Olga (R) with their brother Bob's wife,

Leola (middle) in Canada 1948



Emma (nee Muench) and Paul Sterling's weddinig party

June 11 1952



Sister.Tillie, Vanda, Emma and Olga in Canada, 1966

HOME

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections:Edward

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs on them were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

I have very little information about Edward Muench, the sixth of the Muench siblings, outside of the details in Reinhold Muench's book, "A Love That Endured". [ISBN 0-9681701-5-3, published in 1999 by Jacquie Bicknell, JCPS Publications, Oliver, BC VOH ITO].

EDWARD FREDERICK, born February 24, 1913, at home on the homestead, about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11.

Edward 'Ed', Reinhold, and Robert 'Bob' used this horse

trough in the spring of 1927 to go 'boating' on the coulee

on the homestead that drifted full of snow during the

winter. When January chinook winds melted the surface,

only to have it freeze over, the coulee became a skating

rink, until the next snowfall or blizzard arrived.

 

1931 portrait of 18-year-old Edward 'Ed' Muench

Ed was on his way home from work in May, 1933 when he died of massive injuries suffered when a pickup ran a red light at the junction of Francis and Freya, in north Spokane, Washington, and slammed into Ed’s motorcycle. Ed is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Spokane, Washington.

HOME

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections:Robert

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs on them were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

Robert 'Bob' inherited his father's violin and always yearned to play it. In the 1980s he and Lee were welcomed into a large group of musicians and friends who, for thirty years, spent as many e-day holiday weekends as possible together. All had motorhomes or campers, and would rally wherever they could rent a hall or spaces in a campground, or just find a place in Idaho, Montana or British Columbia, Canada to get together. During those precious years Bob taught himself to play his father's violin, and became a musician welcomed to play with those of "Our Group", as we called ourselves. Several musicians were professionals, so Bob took great pride in playing with them. "Our Group" consisted of anywhere from two to four or five dozen fun-loving friends who lived in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and British Columbia.

Cakes baked by Jean Monigold for one of the end

of the weekend potluck always held by "Our Group"

get togethers, in a members shop/garage.

Our Group played for our dances. This one in a shop

belonging to one of those we considered 'family.'

Bob is the fiddler on the right, fiddling with Roy Bredy,

and accompanied by Delbert Nieman on the accordian,

and Don Bonar playing banjo.Labor Day, September 5,
1982

 

ROBERT CHARLES "BOB" MUENCH was born in Swift Current while the family was moving from Winnipeg to settle on their newly acquired homestead. He was delivered by a doctor in the house they rented while they stayed in Swift Current for a month while enroute. When Bob was about a week and a half old, the family continued by oxen-drawn wagon, with a cow tied on behind it, traveling the last 28 miles. They went about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, in the Bigford District before turning eastward to the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11.

Life on the farm was harsh and challenging. Bob recalled one storm so intense that the rain drowned the gophers from their holes; the hail then killed them. After the hail melted, the area that was struck looked as if it was freshly plowed. 1915 was a bumper crop year, Bob said, with the largest yield ever for them while farming in Canada. However it was not to be their year. A fierce windstorm came with a prairie fire and burned most of the grain already harvested. The prairie fire caused much damage and burned cattle, horses and grain. 1916 through 1921, it was either too wet or too dry, or dust storms, or rust, reducing the crop to 10 bushels to the acre, or no crop at all.
 

English language was taught at school, German was spoken at home. The children, who went barefoot until the start of school, had to walk three and a half miles to school.

About the only contact the Muench children had with other children was at school or Sunday school or church picnics, or things like that. The family attended Interdenominational church at the schoolhouse in the summertime when they could get an itinerant teacher or student preacher. In the wintertime the children sometimes gathered at the school to have Sunday School.

Their father read the bible at home often with his children, and tried to explain the best he could. Bob's sister,Tillie said,

"But of course we couldn't understand and the older we got the more we drifted away from it."

When the weather was bad, all gathered around the table Sunday mornings and had a sing song, Bible reading and prayer. Emil played the violin and used to sit quite often, especially in the winter, and play it to entertain the family and for his own pleasure. Emil had a very fine voice and sang at church all of his life.

Bob moved with his parents to a farm at Chester, Washington, just south of Spokane, Washington in 1928. He never returned to Canada, except to visit his parents when he could after he married Leola Coultas They had a daughter, Lauralie “Laurie”, and a son, Stephen “Steve”.


Ed, Reinhold and Robert 'Bob' using a horse-trough to boat

on a water-filled coulee ~ called a slough ~ during 1927

 

Robert 'Bob' Muench

Bob and Leola 'Lee' Coultas

Robert 'Bob' and Leola are on the left of this photograph

when four of the Muench siblings were together at Tillie

and Al's home on Morgan Acres. Tillie holding Carol, Chester

standing in front of them, Emma behind, and Dick with

baby Larry, his wife Marion, with Mona standing in front.

 

 

HOME

 

 

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections:Wanda 'Vanda'

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs on them were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

Wanda 'Vanda', born October 11, 1909, was the third daughter. After her older sister, Tillie, joined the Muench family when they'd moved to Chester, Washington, the sister's rented a house where they lived together.Vanda married SLAGLE, had one son, Jim, then divorced. She later wed JOE FOX, who had two sons, Charlie and Bob. Joe and Vanda had three more sons, Walter, George and Paul. Wanda died 1984 of heart failure.



Wanda 'Vanda' Muench ca 1929

Vanda - Joe Fox ca 1930s at their home near

Tonasket, Washington

Joe andVanda Fox family 1940. Front: Paul, Walter, Jim, George.

Back: Vanda, Joe and Bobby.

The Fox's pet deer, pictured with Paul, George,

Walter ~ feeding the deer, and Jim, Vanda and Joe

standing behind them.

 



A visit from their Leeson cousins at the Fox's home at

Waconda, Washington in 1940. Front: Paul, Walter,

George Fox, and Mona and Carol Leeson. Back: Chester

Leeson, Jim Slagle,and Bobby Fox

 

Joe and Vanda  Fox, July 1953
 



1953 George-Walter-Paul Fox

HOME

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections: Richard

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs on them were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

Unfortunately, I have no photographs of Richard "Dick" Muench. However, below is a sketch of Dick's life.

RICHARD "Dick" was born April 18, 1908 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Emil and Rosalie Marion (ne: Herr) Muench.  Dick was two years old when the family moved onto a homestead about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11, in the Bigford District.

During the 1918 flu epidemic, when Dick was about ten years old, his teacher, Miss Sloan, got it first. Dick got so delirious he thought the house was tipping over because his sister, Wanda, swept all the dirt by the stove.

Like all of the children, Dick worked hard on his parents prairie farm, helping to clear the land of rocks, plant shelterbelt trees, milk cows, feed pigs, raise chickens and in their grain harvest. After completing eight grades of school at the local school, his father and mother allowed him to attend higher education in normal school in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

 

Family legend has it that Dick got more pleasure from music and card games than he did from studying, so his father promptly removed him from school and brought him back to the farm to work – and declared that he wasn't supporting any more such foolishness. Henceforth, none of his children would attend school beyond the eight grades available in the one-room school three miles from the homestead.

Dick remained in Canada until after the harvest before joining his parents, who in 1928 had moved to Chester, Washington. He never returned to Canada. Dick found work in Spokane and married Marion Heath (born in 1916.) They had three sons, Larry (ca. 1936), Alan (ca. 1938) and Kenneth (ca. 1940.)

 

Robert 'Bob', Richard 'Dick', and Rienhold Muench

Dick worked for Inland Empire Freight, a transport company in Spokane. He was intensely interested in his job and very patriotic. Every July 4^th, which is America's Independence Day, Dick always brought flares from the company and set them off in place of fireworks. Dick loved children and gardening. He and Marion kept a succession of foster children for many years.

Dick was a great handy man, a good mechanic, and a wonderful husband and father, too. He died of a heart attack January 16, 1954, after shoveling snow when he came home from work. In 1966, Marion also died of a heart attack at their home on 24^th Avenue in Spokane.

Larry was killed in a motorcycle accident near Seattle, Washington. He left a wife and one son. Kenny and Alan continued to live in Spokane and work there. As of 2002. Kenny worked at Spauldings Wrecking yard.

HOME

Emil and Rosalia Muench's Photograph Collections: Ottillie

You'll find pages 1, 2 , 3 and 4 in the archives at the right. Some of the photographs shown below were in Ottillie "Tillie" Leeson's estate, and others were copied from collections shared by her siblings and nieces and nephews who lived in Canada.

 

Ottillie 'Tillie' Muench, born May 24, 1906 in Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada, was the second child of Emil Muench and Rosalie Marion (Herr) Muench. She moved with parents to Bigford, Saskatchewan, Canada when four years old (1910)

 

Their children:

• Martha, October 11, 1904
• Ottillie, May 24, 1906
• Richard, April 18, 1908
• Wanda, October 10, 1909
• Robert Charlie, April 19, 1911
• Edward Fredrick, February 24, 1913
• Emma, March 19, 1915
• Reinhold, August 5, 1917
• Olga, June 27, 1920

Moved with parents to Bigford, Saskatchewan, Canada when four years old (1910)

 

In 1928 moved with parents to the United States of America, to a ranch at Chester, Washington (just south of Spokane.)
 

Ottillie Muench Leeson

Ottillie had a home wedding in Emil & Rosalie's house at Chester, Washington on November 23, 1929 when she married Albert Edward Leeson. Tillie descended the stairs dressed in oyster-white calf-length dress beaded with tiny pearls and rhinestone scrolls around skirt, white floor length veil crowned with wax-petaled orange blossoms headband.

See: ALBERT and OTTILLIE LEESON

"Tillie" and Al had three children:

Chester Floyd, October 19, 1931

Mona Inez, November 26, 1932

Carol Elizabeth, February 11, 1936.

1910 ~ 4-year-old Otillie Muench



1927 Muench homestead near Bigford,

Saskatchewan, Canada

Fourteen year old Tillie Muench skating
in 1920 on the slough that was between
their house and the schoolhouse
where the children attended grades 1-8

When Tillie first left home, in her teens, she was employed as a housekeeper, which included board and room. It was there she saw her first bathtub. While working as a housekeeper for a doctor, Tillie acquired a good bit of medical knowledge which helped her all through her life.



1926 Tillie Muench ice skating

on a slough on her parent's Canadian

homestead.

 

Tillie Muench,October 12, 1926, on her

parent's homestead on Canadian prairie 

 

Tillie in her fashionable swimming suit. Ca. 1927



1927 ~ Tillie Muench on Canadian prairie 

 

1927~ Tillie Muench at railroad station in

Coderr, Saskatchewan.

 

Tillie holding her sister, Olga's doll.

ca. 1928-1929



 

1929 Albert Leeson courting Ottillie 'Tillie'

19

1930 Tillie Muench Leeson at Chester



Tillie in Canada with a close friend,

before she joined her parents in the United

States; his name is lost to history

 

Tillie's 75th birthday surprise party. at a park near
her home in Spokane, Washington. L-R: Paul and Emma

Sterling, Olga and Max Reichel (behind Tillie) Lee and Bob

Muench, and Reinhold and Bernice Muench. 1981



1986, Ottillie 'Tillie' Leeson, 80 years old





Tilllie, Vanda, Emma, and Olga ca. 1966

Also see OTTILLE

When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].

Muench Ancestry ~ Leeson Ancestry ~ Vanek Ancestry ~ Gremaux Ancestry .

HOME