Obituary of Hedwig Martha Tesche

While it is sad she is gone we can take comfort knowing she is in the middle of one big celebration of her own up there with her 14 brothers and sisters, her mom and dad, and her husband of 24 years. She was a remarkable woman and lived a long life. Most of us here know her as a loving Omma or Grandma during her time in the Dawson Creek area, an older lady, somewhat frail in her later years. But in her time on a Peace River area farm Hedwig was a homemaker and mother not only to her own daughter but also to 5 stepchildren, and during the first part of her life in Germany, she was a single working mother with a career and a service woman during the war. Hedwig Kilgus was born in June of 1923 in a small town called Balingen in southern Germany near the Stuttgart area. She was the youngest of 15 children and told of playing with little boys on her street and of her "Zusel", german for doll. She grew up in a country that was experiencing hyper-inflation where she said a loaf of bread cost 1 million reich marks. The ensuing political instability led to the Second World War in 1939. Hedwig was 16 years old. During the war she became a telegraph operator for the Luftwaffe and she was stationed in France for a time. As sometimes happens, a wartime romance led to Doris being born in December of 1945. Unfortunately Doris never had a chance to know her father as he was listed as MIA during the Battle of Berlin. Here was Hedwig in postwar Germany with a young baby to support, so off to work she went. She worked in a shoe store in sales for a couple years. She had a sharp mind and a knack for numbers and landed a job in a garment factory as the payroll clerk for 400 hundred employees. Remember this was before computers and quick books. Everything was pencil and paper. She told Billy that some nights her head would be swimming with numbers and she would need a couple of hours just to clear her head. Hedwig was loved by her fellow workers. When she left for Canada, her boss told her that he would keep her job open for a year in case things didn't work out and she kept in touch with old factory friends until the last of them passed away a couple years ago. Hedwig started corresponding with a German widower farming in Canada. The smooth talking farmer promised her muddy and dusty roads in the middle of nowhere, mosquitoes in the summer, forty below in the winter and five kids to raise ages 2 to 17 years. Hedwig and Doris jumped on a plane and in October of 1960 Hedwig married Walter Tesche and moved to the farm in the Judah district near Peace River. She had an instant large family again and became step mom to Eugene, Marion, Richard, John and Joe. Her new world could not be any more opposite to her life in Germany. Just imagine having to learn a new language, learning to milk cows and pluck chickens, plant gardens and harvest sacks and sacks of potatoes, make 15 gallons of sauerkraut, a hundred quarts of fruit preserves, two hundred quarts of cranberry, raspberry and Saskatoon jam preserves and quarts and quarts of peas, carrots and beans. She learned to bake in a wood fired oven and made delicious plum kuchens and homemade bread. At Christmas she would bake cookies and two dozen fruit cake loaves every Christmas which Walter and the boys would have gobbled up by New Years. Hedwig also had to soften up Walter who was a hardnosed pioneer homesteader. She tells of the time Marion needed a new coat but Walter thought the old one would do. She put her foot down and told him that "if you can spend thousands of dollars on your fancy green John Deere farm equipment, the kids can get some new clothes." Marion got a brand new $150 coat and the boys all got new shirts. In 1984, Walter passed away, leaving Hedwig a widow one year short of what would have been her silver wedding anniversary. In the fall of that year, she sold the farm to John and moved to her quarter section near Progress. Hedwig was completely happy in her farmhouse. She loved being in the country and going for walks in the fresh air. She loved it when the neighbors would come over and they could visit over coffee and sweets. She loved the wildlife and the birds. She had a feeder at her window so she could watch the hummingbirds during the summer. Hedwig loved her flowers. Roses were her favourites but she loved them all; geraniums, daises, pansies, lilacs. She always had a "roundel", a round flower garden, in Peace River and in Progress. She loved animals especially her dogs. Besides a healthy diet of potatoes with gravy, her dogs always got treats like marshmallow puffs and cookies. Even back in her Peace River days she had a special connection with animals. She made pets of the cows that she learned to milk, singing to them while she worked. Walter wasn't quite as loving with the cows and on more than one occasion she told him "You get out of my barn, now. You are upsetting the cows!" Hedwig loved to read; German books, German magazines, English books, English magazines, books about bear attacks, books about ghosts. In Peace River on cold winter nights she would move her favourite rocker into the kitchen, open the oven door of the wood stove and prop her feet on the door to keep her feet toasty warm. Hopefully there is a Bill's news in heaven so she can get the latest copy of "Der Spiegel" or the National Enquirer. Most of all she loved being able to spend lots of time with Doris and Bill and being gramma and omma. She would bounce the great grand kids on her knee reciting German nursery rhymes. Every fall fair, each grandchild and great grandchild would get a $20 bill to go to the fair. Dinner at her table was great because the kids didn't have to finish their dinner, to ensure they would have room for ice cream. Of course, there was always some kind of sweets or snacks for the kids to eat. She would encourage Sarah's boyfriend Owen in his German studies. She would tell the kids stories from Germany. Jennifer remembers being a toddler and while Doris and the boys were on a trip to Germany, gramma bought her a brand new dress, and then cried because she got it dirty. Robbie remembers gramma buying him a new bike because grampa had bought Jennifer a new bike. Billy remembers gramma as always being fair and kind hearted to everyone. Hedwig lived in times the rest of us only read about in history books or watch on TV documentaries. She always faced life's challenges with courage, raising a daughter as a single working mother and then starting a new life in a new country. She loved life and enjoyed life's simple pleasures right to the end. Some of her last words before she died were asking Doris if she "went to the casino". Most of all, Hedwig was a kind and caring woman who loved and treated ALL her children and grandchildren equally. She will be deeply missed but will live on forever in our hearts and memories. Service 11:00 am Saturday, September 13, 2014 Bergeron Funeral Services & Crematorium Ltd. 10200 - 17th street DAWSON CREEK, British Columbia, Canada V1G4C2 Interment Brookside Cemetery 108 ave DAWSON CREEK, British Columbia, Canada