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Remembering Our Ancestors in Song

(Written by Alphonse Gerwing for the 2003 Gerwing  Reunion.
The event celebrated 100 years since the Gerwings arrived in Canada in 1903)

Refrain: There’s free land in Saskatchewan boys, with loam a mile deep! The deer bound out of ev’ry wood and fish in ev’ry creek. 

2.    So, Benny, Henry, George and John the striplings Joe & Tony too, Went roaring off to Saskatchewan, where each of them a homestead drew.    Refrain  

3.    “Pa you were right,” they wrote back home, “wild strawberries mark our ev’ry step. And mallards swim on ev’ry lake, so sell your land right quick and come.”     Refrain 

4.    So grandpa came and grandma came. Willie, Albert, Christ, Herman, Gerhard, too. They settled on the shore of Lake Lenore, and began the wilderness to tame.  Refrain 

5.    It was all a-many years ago, one hundred years to be exact! Now grandpa’s progeny people the globe: one thousand nine hundred at last  count.  Refrain  

6.    Wild Strawberries no longer mark our steps, but the loam is still amile deep. And the Gerwings farm even now the land, round the holy acre where grandpa sleeps.  Refrain 

Part B
Refrain: Annie Willie, Annie Jack, Annie Joe, Annie George! This litany of Annies graced our youth!
Aunt Marie, Tant Sus’, Mary Matt, Agnes Alice, Aunt Emma, Molly too, the list is long in truth! 

1.    Pioneering women of the soil, they wove the fabric of our lives – creating homes and gardens & hearths, and all things else we needed to thrive.  Refrain 

2.    They were always fun to visit. “How’s the sauerkraut, the wurst?” they would say. They’d sent some yesterday from their larder – it was back then the neighbor way.  Refrain 

3.    Dear Aunties, Mothers, Grandmothers all, so many gracious gifts you showered on us! You thought them humble but we still recall, the warmth that they called forth for us.  Refrain(Sorry, Aunts Julie and Angeline – but you lived so far away)