A Neighbor's Birthday

January 16, 1933  5° warm [43° F.] this morning, but the wind turned north, and it got colder.  In the evening Mama and I went to Mrs. K. B. Reimer for a birthday celebration.

The C. K. Siemens family lived on a farm four miles east and one mile south from Meade.  Mrs. K. B. Reimer was a widow who lived about half a mile southwest from the Siemens, and she was Cornelius’ wife’s second cousin.  Her husband, Klaas B. Reimer, had died less than two years before.  The Siemens and the Reimers could see each other’s farms, although the Reimers had big trees that blocked the view of their farm.  There was a small playa lake between the farmsteads, and the Reimers said that they could hear the Siemens talking when there was water in the lake.

 

Mrs. K. B. Reimer (1874-1951) was celebrating her 59^th birthday that day.  Since she was a married woman, it would have been unthinkably rude to call Mrs. K. B. Reimer by her given name, which was Aganetha.  For the genealogists, her maiden name was Aganetha J. Friesen.  A few years later, the Siemens’ son Cornelius would marry the Reimers’ daughter Margaret.