Foremost Estonian Establishment
Otto Laaman
Forty miles south of Lethbridge is the village of Warner, just a few tens of miles from the US border. The Warner and Foremost Estonian settlers arrived from the other side of that border, specifically from the Koidu Estonian settlement of South Dakota. Even though they were formerly from Crimean settlements and accustomed to heat, and although South Dakota lands were good for raising cattle, there was such a shortage of water here, that in the summer they had to drive their herds 8 miles to the shores of the Missouri river.
One of the first to cross the border was Hans Meer (Määr) who was the first Crimean Estonian settler to travel overseas. He arrived in South Dakota as a bachelor in 1892 and moved to Alberta in the spring of 1906. He and his family stayed in Lethbridge until August 31, 1907 when he moved with his family to an area about 35 miles north of Warner where he purchased 160 acres of land and immediately proceeded to establish a farmstead. A month later his father, brothers, sister and brother-in-law joined him. The brothers also quickly purchased land and built homes, waiting for homestead allotments which were established May 10, 1910 when each person requesting it obtained a quarter- section which was 160 acres. By 1910 this settlement, which was located close to the present-day Foremost, had seven Estonian families and two bachelors. But even in the Foremost area they had to contend with a water shortage. In this region farmers raised field crops, mostly wheat, meaning they endured hardships due to the dry climate and rocky soil.
The life of the poor, cashless pioneers was no better even 10 years after the first Estonians came to Alberta. To them were left comforting words of a Canadian poet (Isabella V. Crawford “Malcom’s Katie: A Love Story” 1884): “My axe and I - we do immortal tasks - ”, at a time when the rich in Alberta were already speeding around in their cars (at 25 miles an hour), living comfortably with central heating and had electric lights in their houses, chattered on the telephone, attended movies, theatre and balls. The rich were constantly in touch with their own kind, while the settler and his family were separated even from their neighbours by long walking distances.
Mihkel and Helena Krasman together with their three children came to Alberta in 1909 and their homestead was granted according to their application sequence 45 miles from Warner on unsettled land where the nearest neighbor was 35 miles away. Krasman’s daughter Leena wrote about their new life and incredible hardships in her memoirs:
“In the fall, father bought 2 horses, a wagon and a load of lumber from Warner and built a hut the size of a garage, whose walls were covered on the outside by tar pitch. The only furniture on dirt floors was a home-made bed for my parents and a bench which was also used as a table. Three children slept on the floor.
Before winter, as much hay as possible was cut and carefully stored in such a way that wild horses would not eat it during the winter. When we got new closer neighbors, this English family slept in our haystack until they could build themselves a shelter. Wherever you looked was empty land, rocks jutting up through the grass and these all had to be pried up before you could till the land. We gathered cow and buffalo manure for heat in the bitter winter. We didn’t have milk or eggs, we ate gruel, beans, salt herring and bread. We rode to town maybe once a month and this took two days and nights.
Our sister Linda was born in the spring. When she was a few months old, she was accidentally burned with boiling water over half her body. Father was on a trip to town at that time. We had no medicine and only thing that mother could do was to carry the crying baby around all night. In the early morning she sent my brother and me to the neighbor (2 miles) so that he could fetch the doctor (9 miles). Fortunately the neighbor’s boy had a bicycle. The doctor arrived in the evening and mother was still pacing the floor from one corner to the other. The baby was only whimpering now and - miraculously - she survived!
In the spring father broke more land. The new grain was thrashed under horses’ hooves and then father threw the straw in the wind to remove the chaff. Our greatest worry was water; we dug many wells but got no water and in the summer we had to haul water 5 miles. Of course, in the winter we melted snow.
After the first harvest we barely survived another prairie disaster. Fortunately father had plowed two well-spaced furrows around our house and this spared our home and haystack from the sea of prairie fire which raged around us. Not all our neighbors were so fortunate.
Father built a barn from field rocks, filling the spaces with mud. With our help he finally got the roof boards on. Some time later a whirlwind carried the roof a quarter mile away in shreds. At the time, father was in Barons visiting his uncle who had promised us a cow, chickens, and food to ease our hardship. This trip lasted 2 weeks and we often wondered whether we would see him again. But he finally arrived with the cow, chickens and food. The milk and eggs tasted out of this world. But the barn roof was gone and in the late fall with no money it was impossible to replace it. The cow had to exist in the roofless building all winter and became ill. We wrapped her in blankets but even this did not help. We all cried when she died. In the same winter mother contracted pneumonia and the baby became ill. Father tended to them both and didn’t dare leave them long enough to get a doctor. But we children played with old arrowheads around abandoned Indian fire pits. The first school house was 5 miles away. My brother and I together with another 5 children all attended but not regularly because of distance. We learned to read and write Estonian at home. When a new school was built 3 miles away we started taking two grades a year but we needed to stay home to help during sowing and harvest times.
Years passed. Our family grew with three more boys. Things improved for father when he drilled a well deep enough to get water. The older children went to work and sent their monies home. This went toward the purchase of machinery and seed. Life also improved with the extension of the rail line to Foremost and two good crop years (1915 & 1916). We were all optimistic especially when a new house and barn were built, but then came dry years—soil blew in the wind and the crops failed. Bills were left unpaid and there was no cash to be had. Father decided to abandon the farm and we moved to Barons. From there we moved on to Innisfail near Red Deer. Both dad and mother are buried there.
At Foremost’s 50 th anniversary my two brothers and I went to see the old farm but all we found were some ruined stone walls in the middle of a grain field.”
Krasman’s experience was typical of all the Foremost Estonians. For the same reasons as they had, over the years almost all the families left and by the 1960s there was only one farm left that was still operated by a descendant of the original family but none of these people spoke any Estonian.
Translation by Evelyn Erdman
