Jake Goes to Manitoba

May 16, 1933  Early this morning we went to Peter Kroeker with Jacob.  They left at 7:15 a.m. to go to Manitoba.  Mama and I went to Meade to take care of miscellaneous things.  Mama sewed.

Apparently Jake rode along to Manitoba with the Peter A. L. Kroekers because he is not mentioned again in the diary until he returned from Manitoba on October 26, so he was gone for over five months.  Each of the four older siblings took an extended trip to Canada during the mid-1930s.  Jake had lived in Manitoba from ages 5 to 17, so he must have had lots of cousins and friends whom he enjoyed there.  He had not been back since they had moved to Kansas two and a half years earlier.

The trip would have taken three days, and they probably stayed in private homes or auto camps along the way.  The Kroekers already had four children with a fifth one well on the way, so there would have been three adults and four little children in the car.  Either Cornelius would have paid the Kroekers for taking Jake along, or he would have worked some for them before they left. 

What is surprising is that Jake did not find a girlfriend there but came back to Kansas instead.  Maybe he already had his eye on Anna R. Friesen, even though they did not marry for three years; or maybe he had decided that he liked Kansas better.