TRANSCRIPT

Interview with F. Schaeffer by S. Speisman July 11, 1980

F. Schaeffer: I have often wondered how Jews got into the Krugderdorf, Englehart area and had actually settled that there, but, it was sort of taken for granted until, you and I talked to Edith Atkinson out at the cemetery; and she told us at that time that her father was a Russian Jew, who had some where along the line had moved to Scotland; and she told us that she was born in Edinburgh.

Mr. Atkins, Etkins, Atkinson by virtue of his birth, spoke Russian. He was employed by the, it was the, at that time forerunner of the Ontario Northland Railroad - the Temagami and Northern Ontario Railroad[sic]. He was hired to bring in Russian, Polish people to work on the railroad. And apparently he found several of these Jewish families in Montreal presumably who spoke Yiddish also of course and Russian; and certain families got land patents almost at the beginning, of the opening of the north in that particular area . . . in around really a whistle stop called Krugerdorf which is just north of a town called Englehart which incidentally had Jews also right at the beginning, the Kurts family. . .had a hotel very early. They were probably there before.

S. Speisman: They were probably there about 1908...

F. Schaeffer: 1908 as a matter of fact, some of these people settled as early as 1904.