A very brief update today! I don’t believe I have ever come across this record for my grandparents before. This marriage record for my grandparents, Robert Kelm and Lyla Krause, is from Ancestry.com’s “Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1942” collection and the end date makes me think this particular record from 1941 was digitized and made public very recently.
My grandparents married June 23, 1941, in Pembroke, Ontario. According to family, my grandfather, a nickel miner living in Levack, worked with my grandmother’s brother, Lorne Krause, and met her when he visited the house.
I initially set out to write a longer and more informative post about the Kelm family in Sudbury and Hanmer, Ontario, but wondered if a shorter post stemming from a phone conversation I had with my dad earlier this year might spark some reminiscing (which would then provide more motivation to continue working on the longer article). If you have anything to add from your knowledge or memories of this time, please leave a comment or email me at sarika.rainey@gmail.com. Thank you.
The Queen Visits Sudbury, 1959
My grandfather, Robert Kelm, worked as a nickel miner in Sudbury from around 1937 to his retirement in 1972. I know that his brother, Daniel Kelm (see reference in his 2004 obituary), also worked in the nickel mines, but I otherwise have no information or stories about how they were recruited from Winnipeg to work there.
My grandparents moved the family to an 80-acre farm in Hanmer, Ontario, in 1955. My dad, John Kelm, doesn’t remember the exact location of the family farm, but recalls that you could see the “Falcon Radar Station buildings.”[1] According to RCAF.info, the former RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) Falconbridge Radar Station, which opened in 1952, was located between Hanmer and the Greater Sudbury Airport (see map below).[2]
Falconbridge Radar Station operations building looking south, date unknown; photograph shared by RCAF.info (original possibly from the Department of National Defence photographs sub-sub-series, which is part of the Library and Archives Canada’s Department of National Defence fonds)
Google Map showing locations of Sudbury, Hanmer, Greater Sudbury Airport, and possible location of the former Falconbridge Radar Station; coordinates courtesy of RCAF.info
Queen Elizabeth II and Frood Mine manager, E.N. Gaetz, leaving mine; courtesy of The Canadian Press and CBC News
On July 25, 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Phillip, visited the Frood Mine [Frood-Stobie Mine] in Sudbury as part of their 45-day tour of Canada: “A mining demonstration was staged for their viewing […] Several hundred people reportedly lined the thoroughfare and song “God Save the Queen” as the Royal couple passed through the mine gates following their visit.”[3] My dad, who was sixteen at the time, remembers that his parents took the family to see the queen (possibly at the airport) and my grandmother took a photo of the children waving.[4]
While working on my book, I accidentally found this house listing. For $199,900 CAD, you can buy 261 Dorothy Street (duplex) in Winnipeg, where my great-grandfather, Julius (John) Kelm lived with his first wife, Serafina, and their two children, William and Olga. The house, built in 1905, was mentioned in Serafina’s obituary when she died in 1907 (see Finding Serafina Kelm). When Julius and Martha married in 1910, they moved back to Dorothy Street, though the address is not mentioned (see Stories from the Past: To Marry or Not to Marry) and I could not find them living on Dorothy Street in the 1911 Census of Canada. Dorothy Street is just south of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) yards and, historically, seemed to have been comprised of rooming houses. In the 1911 census, for example, 261 Dorothy Street housed 26 people.
Google Map of Dorothy Street with reference to the CPR railway yards in Winnipeg
In 2011, the City of Winnipeg’s Board of Adjustment reviewed (view PDF here) the proposed “redevelopment of the boarded up, burnt out, former rooming house into a two family dwelling unit.” According to the report, a fire on August 11, 2008, damaged the exterior walls, floors, and roof (you can see footage of the house in this video of fire crews extinguishing a fire at 257 Dorothy Street in 2015) and the building was placed on the Vacant Building Registry. While the interior might look very different than it did 118 years ago (the interior was apparently gutted in 2011), I think the opportunity to glimpse at the inside of the house now can still offer clues as to what it was like when our ancestors lived there (for example, see the little rooms off the hallway in the top right corner of the first image).
This section about William Kelm, my grandfather’s older half-brother, has been in progress for a long time. Like his father, William left his country of birth to pursue new opportunities. With my United States naturalization interview looming, I was excited to find new documents (and a photo!) about William and his intent to become a United States citizen. These new discoveries helped add more information to my very sparse biography.
Please excuse my citations. I am still working on making decisions about standardizing my citations.
[“William Kelm immigration photo, 1933”], Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, United States records, National Archives, accessed 26 Jun 2025 through FamilySearch; William is twenty-six years old
William Kelm was the youngest and only surviving child of Julius Kelm and his first wife, Serafina Albert. He was born in Winnipeg on May 24, 1907, a year after his parents arrived from Volhynia (see this blog post). His birth registration names Josephine Herman as his mother (I had made a note in this 2020 blog entry about checking the original birth registration, and Josephine Herman is recorded as William’s mother and it is not a mistranscription of Serafina. Whether or not this was the mistake of the informant is unknown, but Serafina raised William until her death in 1910).[1]
On September 7, 1925, William, nineteen years old, took the train to St John, North Dakota, his destination, Hansboro, North Dakota.[2] His immigration records describe him as five feet and ten inches tall with dark brown hair and hazel or brown eyes, his “little finger on left hand crooked in second joint.”[3] He arrived in the United States as a farm labourer, but eventually became a landscaper and tree surgeon.[4]
[“William Kelm declaration of intention, 1933”], Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, United States records, National Archives, accessed 26 Jun 2025 through FamilySearch
In 1933, William formally declared his intent to become a citizen of the United States for the second time. On this document, William states that he is married to Leora Anderson, born in Houghton, Michigan, in 1906.[5] William and Leora married in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on August 19, 1933.[6] The newlyweds lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[7] Discovering the identity of this first wife made me wonder if there was another William Kelm, but the date and place of birth matched, and the document also mentions William’s “crooked finger on left hand.”[8] Between 1933 and 1937, William and Leora lived in Minneapolis.[9] In 1938, the Minneapolis city directory lists Leora as working as a clerk and living alone at 2313 Colfax Avenue, and that William had moved to St Paul, Minnesota.[10] Leora died on June 13, 1939, in Washington (county), Minnesota, at the age of thirty-two.[11]
[“William Kelm and Ann Maher marriage record, 1939”], South Dakota, U.S., Marriages, 1905-2017, South Dakota Department of Health, accessed 21 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
When William married his second wife, Ann Maher, in December 22, 1938, the marriage record indicates that William is a bachelor and neither divorced nor widowed.[12] William and Ann lived in St Paul and had three daughters: Janet Lee (born 1939), Judith Ann (born 1945), and Joette Marie (born 1951). William and Ann divorced in 1978.[13]
William became a United States citizen on April 24, 1940.[14] He died February 15, 1991, in Ramsey, Minnesota.[15] He is buried in Sunset Memorial Park Cemetery in Minneapolis.[16]
William Kelm (b. 24 May 1907 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; d. 15 Feb 1991 in Ramsey, Minnesota, USA)
m. (19 Aug 1933 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) Leora Marie Anderson (b. 28 Oct 1906 in Houghton, Michigan, USA; d. 13 Jun 1939 in Minnesota, USA)
m. (22 Dec 1938 in Grant, South Dakota, USA) Ann Mary Maher (b. 14 Jan 1917 in Osakis, Minnesota, USA; d. 20 Apr 2000 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA)
Janet Lee Kelm (b. 06 Oct 1939 in Ramsey, Minnesota, USA)
Judith Ann Kelm (b. 13 Jul 1945 in Ramsey, Minnesota, USA) m. (11 Jun 1966 in Ramsey, Minnesota, USA) Richard Wilton Lofstrand (b. 06 Jan 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; d. 14 Jan 2012 in Bartlett, Illinois, USA)
Joette Marie Kelm (b. 08 Jul 1951 in Ramsey, Minnesota, USA)
[2] [“William Kalm, 1925”], U.S., Records of Aliens Pre-Examined in Canada, 1904-1954, National Archives, accessed 21 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
[3] [“William Kelm declaration of intention, 1926”], North Dakota, U.S., Naturalizations, 1873-1952, State Historical Society of North Dakota, accessed 21 Dec 2021 through Ancestry; “William Kalm, 1925”
[4] [“William Kelm declaration of intention, 1926”]
[5] [“William Kelm declaration of intention, 1933”], Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri, United States records, National Archives, accessed 26 Jun 2025 through FamilySearch
[6] [“William Kelm and Leora Anderson marriage record, 1933”], index only, Minnesota, U.S., Marriages from the Minnesota Official Marriage System, 1850-2022, Minnesota Association of County Officers, accessed 26 Jun 2025 through Ancestry
[7] [“William Kelm declaration of intention, 1933”]
[9] [“Leora M. Kelm and William Kelm city directory listing, various years”], Minneapolis, Minnesota, City Directory, U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, accessed 27 Jun 2025 through Ancestry
[10] [“Leora M. Kelm city directory listening, 1938], Minneapolis, Minnesota, City Directory, 1938, U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, accessed 27 Jun 2025 through Ancestry
[11] [“Mrs Leora Marie Kelm death record, 1939”], index only, Minnesota, Death Index, 1908-2002, Minnesota Department of Health, accessed 27 Jun 2025 through Ancestry
[12] [“William Kelm and Ann Maher marriage record, 1939”], South Dakota, U.S., Marriages, 1905-2017, South Dakota Department of Health, accessed 21 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
[13] “Divorce Index 1976 Thru 1979,” Vital Record Information System, Minnesota Department of Health, accessed 22 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
[14] “No. 4650067,” Minnesota, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1896-1989, accessed 21 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
[15] [“William Kelm death record, 1991”], index only, Minnesota, Death Index, 1908-2002, accessed 22 Dec 2021 through Ancestry
A link to my own direct ancestors along two lines (Kelm and Kirsch) is linked in the navigation bar (or click here). To ease myself back into my History of Martha book project, which includes much re-orienting myself and reviewing what I have already researched and written (easy to forget if you leave it for several months or even years!), I decided to make a user-friendly chart of Martha Kirsch’s direct ancestors for reference and to help me organize information in a more linear fashion. For those new to the blog, Martha Kirsch is my great-grandmother and focal point of my Kirsch family research. The book’s scope will be the Kirsch family tree, as well as a few of their connected families (Wurfel, Kubsch, Hancsh) and, of course, some Kelm family history. The time period spans 1781-2025, though, as you can discern from the chart below, I have recorded ancestors from before this time but whose exact birthdates are unknown. Click the image for the full version.
Happy New Year. Thank you to everybody who took the time to leave a comment or connected with me through email last year. My sincerest apologies if I have forgotten to respond. I blame the two small children in my house for my forgetfulness. If it was a inquiry about whether your Kelm family is related to mine, I likely set the email aside to investigate and then did not have the time to actually do that. You are welcome to remind me.
Return to Winnipeg
The story of how my great-grandparents, Julius (John) and Martha Kelm moved from Winnipeg to their homestead near Camper can be found here: Homesteading Near Camper, Manitoba, 1911-1921. This blog entry speculates about their return to Winnipeg after a decade homesteading on the prairie. I do not know their personal account except that they “had the worse land, unsuitable for farming” (see Stories From the Past). Their story follows the trajectory of many other homesteaders around Camper, so I thought I would explore other accounts.
Searching digitized book for instances of “Camper”
Julius and Martha returned to Winnipeg between 1921, when the 1921 Census of Canada recorded them living near Camper, to 1924, when the obituary for Martha’s brother, Christian Kirsch, references her living in Winnipeg.[1] Between 1920 and 1923, bad harvests and falling wheat prices caused economic hardship for many Manitoba farmers and there was an exodus.[2] According to a Maclean’s article published February 1, 1922, “The high cost of producing and marketing the crop, with the heavy drop in prices, […] was responsible for the depression not only felt in Western Canada but reflected in every trade and industry in the Dominion.”[3]
Homesteaders often faced the devastation of fire, but, according to Borghil Olson, whose family homesteaded near Camper, one particular fire that “raged for weeks” caused many to grow restless and leave.[4] In August of 1920, a massive brush fire engulfed the Interlake region. Although the fire caused the most damage around where it originated near Mulville, about fourteen kilometers south of Camper, it had burned north through Camper and Ashern, driven by the season’s lack of rain. Newspapers described the fire’s arrival in Camper: “At Camper a stable and boarding house had been burnt down. The post office caught fire three times but was saved.”[5] In nearby Ashern, “chickens and calves had been roasted alive in the farmyards, and practically all crops destroyed.”[6]
“In 1920 the area was pretty well wiped out by bush fires, which raged for weeks. It was a very dry year, farmers lost most if not all the hay they had for winter as well as the spruce trees that could have been used for lumber. A terrifying experience. I recall we took all the children to Martin Johnson’s place where we figured they were safe from the fire. Mrs. Ben Kristianson and Mrs. Stein looked after the children, did the cooking, etc., while Mrs. Martin and I were out helping the men folk to save our homes and grain fields. Ben Kristianson’s home was a mile away from ours, and he made an agreement with the rest of the men, that if the fire did reach the spruce bluff near his home he would fire a rifle, and this would be a signal for the others to come to help fight fire. This particular day we were having lunch when a gun shot was heard, one of the women said “Ben must have shot a deer.” The men knew better, one by one they took off, to find Ben throwing water from a barrel alongside his house, onto the roof to put out the sparks flying from the spruce bluff close by, this way they did manage to save the home.”[7] – Borghild Olson, from Taming a Wilderness
In the 1926 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the Kelm family except for the oldest son, William, were enumerated at 557 Armetta Avenue in the municipality of West Kildonan. In December of 1929, the “two blocks [of Armetta Avenue] west of McGregor Street, which included the Kelm home, prepared a petition to join the city of Winnipeg in order to obtain sewer service.[8] Armetta Street would later be renamed Matheson Avenue.[9] Julius and Martha would live at 557 Matheson Avenue for the rest of their lives.
Julius died February 27, 1959, at the Concordia Hospital, and is buried in Glen Eden Memorial Gardens in West Saint Paul, north of Winnipeg.[10] He was eighty years old. Martha became a member of the Mountain and Andrews Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She died at the St Boniface Hospital on July 20, 1965, at the age of eighty-four.[11] She is buried with her husband.
Courtesy of Find a Grave; photographed by Holly, 10 Oct 2021
Courtesy of Find a Grave; photographed by Holly, 10 Oct 2021
[1] “Christian Kirsch obituary,” 1924, newspaper source unknown, emailed 04 Oct 2024 by J. Hill
[2] Gerhard P. Bassler, The German Canadians, 1750-1937: Immigration, Settlement and Culture (St. John’s, NL: Jesperson Press, 1986), p99
[3] Jenkins, Charles Christopher, “The West Won’t Stay Down!,” 01 Feb 1922, from Maclean’s [magazine], accessed 21 Dec 2021 through https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1922/2/1/the-west-wont-stay-down [note: URL does not seem to be working any longer; access only through paywall (10 Jan 2024)]
[4] Borghild Olson, “Homestead Days,” from Taming a Wilderness: A History of Ashern and District Canadians (Ashern, MB: Ashern Historical Society, 1976), p84. Retrieved 09 Jan 2024 through University of Manitoba Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/2276635
[5] Free Press Prairie Farmer, 25 Jul 1920, accessed 22 Oct 24 through Newspapers.com
[10] “KELM,” Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 28 Feb 1959, accessed 18 Apr 2019 through University of Manitoba Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/1934469
[11] “MARTHA KELM,” Winnipeg Evening Tribune, 21 Jul 1965. Retrieved 18 Apr 2019 from University of Manitoba Digital Collections, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/2042634/
Emails from distant cousins are very exciting–and they seem to come when I declare I am taking a break to bolster the research and polish the writing I already have. I am not complaining, though. I want to thank Janet Hill for taking the time to send documents and photographs to do with her great-grandfather (my great-grandmother’s brother), Christian Kirsch, who was tragically killed at his work at the Winnipeg CPR railway yards in 1924. Her emails have encouraged me to come back to my History of Martha book project. My son was born five months ago and I have missed sneaking away to write.
Rozyszcze Baptist church, date unknown. Courtesy of In the Midst of Wolves. Here is a news article about the state of it in 2017, including a recent photo.
Among the documents emailed to me was a clipping of an obituary in German, possibly from the German Baptist newspaper, Der Sendbote. I was surprised to find small details that give insight about the Kirsch family’s conversion from Lutherans to Baptists in Volhynia. According to the obituary, Christian was baptized in 1882, at the age of twenty-two, by Brother Friedrich Albrecht and was a member of the Rozyszcze (also Rozhyshche) congregation. Donald Miller, in his “Volhynian Baptist Churches and Pastors, 1864-1940,” lists Johann Albrecht as being the first pastor for Rozyszcze from 1882 (he was not yet the pastor when Christian was baptized) to his expulsion from Volhynia in 1889. I am not certain Friedrich Albrecht and Johann Albrecht are the same man, but perhaps his name was Johann Friedrich or the name was remembered incorrectly. In any case, Johann Albrecht was the pastor in Rozyszcze at the time of Christian’s baptism. His expulsion marked a turning point for many Baptist families in the area, including Christian’s sister, Julia Rempel, whose family immigrated to Winnipeg first, in 1890.
“With the expulsion of [Pastor Johann Albrecht], the [Rozyszcze] church also lost the right to gather for worship in its prayer chapel. When the church was locked, a second chapel was built in another village, but the authorities again denied its use of the building. The desire for religious freedom in part prompted some of the colonists to immigrate to the United States, Canada, and Brazil.” – In the Midst of Wolves by Donald Miller[1]
Courtesy of Janet Hill. Newspaper source unknown.
Obituary – Mr. Christian Kirsch died
Mr. Christian Kirsch, as previously reported, died in an accident on Friday, August 8. He was born December 21, 1860, in Florentynow, Poland. He grew up in Volhynia, Russia. He was baptized by Brother Friedrich Albrecht in 1882 and was a member of the Baptist congregation in Rozyszcze. In Russia, he was married by Pastor F. A. Mueller [Friedrich A. Mueller[2]], who lives in Alberta, to Justina Holland. In 1893, they moved to Winnipeg. Their children are Martha Kirsch, Mina [Minnie] Weiss, Ida Zink, and Gustav Kirsch, all living in Portland, Oregon. His first wife died before him. He married Mrs. Emilie Beetz (born Reichert), who had three children with her first husband. Her daughter, Anna, died four years ago. Mrs. Claude Fluent [Julia] lives in the United States and John Adolph lives in Edmonton.
Christian was a faithful member of the local German Baptist church for over thirty years. He was a deacon from March 30, 1894, and church treasurer from January 5, 1900.
The deceased leaves behind his grieving wife, four children, two stepchildren, eleven grandchildren, and four step-grandchildren.
Other family members include Mrs. Julia Rempel, Mrs. Martha Kelm in Winnipeg, two brothers Daniel and Karl Kirsch in Ebenezer, Saskatchewan, and two half-sisters in Poland.
Courtesy of Janet Hill. Newspaper source unknown.
At the funeral service held on Wednesday, August 13, at the German Baptist Church [McDermot Avenue Baptist Church], at which Pastor J. L. Lehpoldt [John Leypoldt[3]] officiated, many relatives were present in addition to his grieving wife and her two children, Gustav and Martha Kirsch from Portland, his brother Daniel from Ebenezer, and his stepson [John] Adolph Beetz and his wife from Edmonton.
Pastor Lehpoldt spoke of Christian: “He was a burning, shining light.” He described the faithful man as quiet, earnest, dutiful, and pious. He bore his name Christian with full right, for he was truly a Christian.
The funeral was very well attended. Many of Christian’s colleagues were present, and Pastor Lehpoldt addressed them in English.
Below are links to previous blog posts about Christian Kirsch, as well as posts that discuss Baptists in Volhynia and the migration to North America. For more detailed research about Baptists in Volhynia, I recommend In the Midst of Wolves (website as well as book, both by Donald Miller).
Hello all. I just wanted to check in and hope you all had a wonderful 2023. I am very thankful for all the messages from readers and hope to find time to work on my Kirsch family history book in the new year. When I started researching genealogy (around 2009) and this blog (can you believe it’s been almost five years?), I did not have my own family. Now that I do, I feel more motivated to find time to research and write and record so that I may leave something behind for them. So, from my family to yours, Happy New Year!
Like many other genealogists, I have been waiting and waiting for the 1931 Census of Canada to be released to the public (a census is released 92 years after being taken) by Library and Archives Canada. The digitized images have yet to be indexed for searching, but I am impatient and thought I would peruse. You can read “Preparing the 1931 Census” to learn more about the process of digitizing and making the census public. Click the screenshot below to browse the 1931 census:
I know from the 1921 Census of Canada and 1926 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta that my great-grandparents, Julius and Martha (Kirsch) Kelm, moved from their homestead in Camper to Winnipeg between 1921 and 1925. Forgetting that, in 1926, they technically lived in West Kildonan (according to the Winnipeg Tribune (17 Dec 1929), their part of Matheson Avenue joined Winnipeg after 1929 in order to obtain better sewer service), I browsed enumerated families in Winnipeg North. After revisiting the 1926 census, I realized my mistake and browsed Selkirk (district) > West Kildonan. I used Google Maps to look up random streets on various pages to pinpoint if I was close to where I knew the family was living at 557 Matheson Avenue (557 Armetta Avenue in 1926). I finally found them.
According to the census, Julius (who goes by John) and Martha, and their children, Edward, Robert, Hilda (Hulda), and Daniel are living at 557 Matheson Avenue. Two children are missing from the household: William, who immigrated to the United States in 1925, and Hannah, who is newly married to Paul Lucyk in 1931. As occupation was missing from the 1926 census, it is interesting to see it here. According to the 1931 census, Julius has resumed his work before moving to his homestead in 1911–”sewers”–and his son, Edward (age 20), works alongside him.
Martha (Kirsch) Kelm and children, Edward, Robert, Daniel, and Hilda Kelm; date unknown
While I will probably always be poking and prodding at what family history research I have, I must hit pause on the more time consuming research. I am working on a rough draft for my Kirsch family history book and find I can’t focus on this main project because I get too caught up in trying to find more information (the beauty of family history is that it is forever unraveling). I have made a very difficult decision to stop trying to go beyond the eighteenth century for now, as well as give up on names and dates I have tried again and again to find (again, for now). Maybe my research skills will one day improve enough that I can more efficiently look and actually find new information. Maybe the information I am looking for has yet to become available.
I am, however, a completionist and am trying my best to polish what I have recorded. Right now I am trying to gather what information I can about living relatives–descendants of the Kirsch family as listed here. I am specifically looking for lists of descendants of my great-grandparents, Julius Kelm and Martha Kirsch: William Kelm (son of Julius and first wife, Serafina Albert/Herman), Edward Kelm, Hannah Kelm, Robert Kelm (my grandfather–I have this genealogy recorded), Hilda Kelm, Daniel Kelm. I think I have recorded most information, but would appreciate the opportunity to corroborate or add missing people and dates!
Finally, a long shot: I am looking for photos of my great-grandmother, Martha Kirsch, and her family. I have a few of Martha as an older woman, but none from her younger years. Please email me at sarika.rainey[remove]@gmail.com if you are willing to contribute anything to my personal project–genealogies, photos, even family stories! I am also happy to share what I know or can find. Thank you.
Kelm History Blog 