Joseph Stahl was born in 1887 in a town in Russia, however, that part is now Ukraine. He was my Great Great grandad on my mom's side.

His parents' names were Andreas Stahl and Katherine Wollman. Andreas had 16 brothers and sisters; only 12 made it to adulthood. All children became part of a very religious Christian group called the Hutterites. The Hutterites were pacifists, which means a people that thinks war and violence are unjustifiable.

When Joseph was younger, he was homeschooled and when he was not at school he was farming with his 15 brothers and sisters. His mum and dad from farming had enough money for the family but were not considered wealthy.

Joseph grew up farming, when he was older he was a farmer until the war in Russia started. To avoid fighting in the war they bought sailing ships and sailed all 2000 Hutterites to America. They bought land in America and all 2000 people lived there until world war 1 started in 1914. They did not want to fight so they moved to Canada and some of them died for not wanting to fight in the war.

Joseph married Lydia Regier and she was also born in Russia they lived in America and had 10 children one of Their children was Gordon who was my mum’s grandad he met my mum’s grandma and had 4 children and then left them and moved to Canada and he died in 1978 in Canada. Most of that side of the family lives in South Dakota in Canada.

Joseph died in a car crash in 1936 and his wife Lydia lived to be 98 and died in north Battleford in Canada in 1991.