Moshe and Sarah Freedman Family
Shortly after their marriage in 1924, Jacob Moshe Freedman (1894-1966) and Sarah Brandl Karp (1900-1949) emigrated to Canada from the Galicia district of Poland. Moshe had received a Yeshiva education and had also studied forestry. He was an Austrian army officer during World War I; Sarah and her family had been refugees.
Moshe and Sarah Freedman came to Calgary in 1925, settling in the Victoria Park area where many Jewish families then lived. For many years they shared their home with roomers and boarders, and each Stampede Week they rented out their own rooms. Sarah had family in Calgary and in Rumsey, where her brother Melech was an early Yiddish teacher. However, all her family moved east in the 1920’s.
Moshe soon became a Hebrew teacher at the Talmud Torah. He had been active with the Jewish National Fund in Europe and took charge of JNF collection in Calgary. Sarah served on the executive of the Pioneer Women’s Organization. They had two children: Miriam (b.1926) and William Alexander (b.1932).
In 1940, after 15 years as a Hebrew teacher, Moshe left the Talmud Torah and he and Sarah purchased the Shamrock Grocery, 25th Avenue and Macleod Trail S.E. The store prospered until Sarah’s untimely death in 1949. Moshe, Miriam and Bill moved to Winnipeg, but returned to Calgary after a few years.
Moshe Freedman became a grocer again, and upon his retirement published People and Things, a Calgary-based quarterly magazine of Jewish interest. Throughout his life he wrote for Yiddish, Hebrew and English-language publications, and was occasionally published in the Calgary Herald.
Miriam Freedman became a stenographer and in 1959 married Morris Sanders, a Rumsey merchant and area pioneer. They lived in Drumheller for many years, where Morris and his brother Ralph Sanders ran the Whitehouse Hotel. Miriam has been a longtime active member of Hadassah. Miriam and Morris Sanders’ three children are Barry (b.1961), Alias (b.1962) and Harry (b.1966).
Bill Freedman became a Chartered Accountant and land developer, and sat on the boards of the Talmud Torah and Chevra Kadisha. In 1961 Bill married Mimi Nagler of Calgary. Their children are Lisa (b.1964) and Stephen (b.1969).