Yesterday was Dad's birthday and he would have been 112.
Dad was born in a clay house 7 years after the family came to Saskatchewan to homestead. They had dirt floors. He liked the little clay house that was warm in winter and cool in summer. These were the same clay houses which were built in Russia and the Ukraine.
Of course, what better name to give a little baby born in August but August. So Dad was Emil August. The e in German was pronounced as long a. His mother in law who was English tormented him that it should pronounced with a long e.
Birth registrations in Saskatchewan from 1910 to 1912 were some how lost. When Dad applied for a passport in the 1960's the reply was, Mr Kline, we have never heard of you. That meant that he had to go through a procedure to prove has age. Dad was a little miffed as he had been paying income tax for close to 30 years.
He had never received a call to join the forces in the Second world war. So this explained why the army didn't find him.
