Mendel's Children: A Family Chronicle

Michael Payne is head of the research and publications program, Historic
Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and the
co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

In this book, the author traces the experiences of members of both her
mother’s and her father’s families in Russia and in Canada. On both
sides, she is descended from or related to Russian Jews who emigrated to
Canada between the 1880s and the 1890s. In some respects the story of
Mendel Steiman and his wives (Dova Steiman and Hannah Friedman) and
their children, and that of David Finn and his wife (Sheindel Shane) and
their children, seems very familiar. Both families settled first in
Winnipeg and retained strong connections to the city and its
cosmopolitan North End. As time passed, however, family members moved to
Saskatchewan, particularly the Kamsack area, and to other communities
across the west. Some farmed, others began businesses, and a few found
work in professions such as medicine. Some prospered; others did not.
Some adjusted happily to their new circumstances; others struggled to
find their feet.

The appeal of Mendel’s Children lies in two areas. First, it has
value as social history—the lives of ordinary people are not
uninteresting simply for being ordinary. Second, it provides a clear and
unsentimental account of the history of a Jewish family whose emigration
and settlement reflect significant aspects of the history of Western
Canada in the 20th century.