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).

      As related by Sara Drabinsky:

      "My widowed great-great-grandmother, Chaya Sara Gelfond, her sons Nathan and son John, and her three daughters, Bessie, Layah and Libby of Shedrin, Byelorussia, took advantage of Baron de Hirsch's offer to relocate Jews from Eastern Europe to Western Canadian homesteads.

      "The Gelfonds did not all travel together, but all arrived in Calgary between 1905 and 1908 from Minsk, Russia. Reunited, they settled on a homestead near Rumsey to try farming. Nathan and Annie Gelfond were married in Drumheller on June 5, 1911. Annie, Nathan's childhood sweetheart, had come over earlier in 1911.

      "Chaya Sarah was a midwife, and upon arriving in Alberta, assisted in the birthing of many children of pioneers, including all five of her grandchildren. She died at the age of 96 in 1941.

      "Nathan Gelfond, the man of the family, was not at all knowledgeable about the skills of farming. His father had been a teacher, and Nathan's strengths lay in reading and writing Hebrew. Nonetheless, after two years of cultivating his 160 acres, he received his title to the land, built a solid one-storey wooden house, and began to raise his family.

      "Nathan was probably best remembered in the Rumsey area for building with his brother John, the Rumsey synagogue. Nathan and Annie continued to farm and lived in their original home until1947, when they moved to Calgary.

      "Nathan was a proud, independent man, who felt he was still young, healthy and strong, even refusing to wear glasses despite poor eyesight. Tragically, he was struck down and killed by a truck in December 1948. After his death Annie moved from their northwest home to a house on 15th Avenue W. She passed away in 1954.

      "Nathan and Annie Gelfond had five children: Blanche (1912-1978), Samuel (1913-1936), Sadie (b.1916), Maxim (1922-1946), and Benard (b.1919). the oldest child, Blanche, my grandmother, had a hard workload on the farm.

      "Blanche had come to Calgary at the age of fourteen to complete her schooling, as there was no high school at Rumsey. In Calgary she boarded with the Sam and Lena Hanen family and attended Crescent Heights High School.

      "During her grade twelve year she was hospitalized with rheumatic fever, but was "saved" by her math teacher and principal, William Aberhart who came to her hospital room every day after school to tutor her and help with other teachers' assignments. Blanche never forgot the kindness of William Aberhart, and not only graduated but became a staunch supporter of his later political career as Premier of Alberta.

      "After high school, my grandmother Blanche went to Winnipeg, took nursing training and worked at the Winnipeg Jewish Orphanage. She returned to Calgary to marry Sam Mozeson in 1938.

      "Blanche and Sam Mozeson had three children: Barbara Neville, Zena Drabinsky, and Charles Mozeson. Barbara and Charles live in Edmonton, Zena in Calgary. Blanche Mozeson died of cancer in 1978. Sam Mozeson died in 1992.

      "Sam Gelfond, very ill as a child, suffered from heart illness and stayed on the farm. Later, in his twenties, he completed his education and was to begin training as a barber in Calgary. He died, however, in Drumheller in 1936 at the age of 23.

      "Sadie Gelfond left the farm to go to school in Big Valley, and later completed high school in Calgary, returning to the farm during the war years. In 1943 she met and married Albert Swanson. They had three children: Betty Helen la France, Donna Smalley and Robert Swanson. Sadie was widowed in 1993 and lives in White rock, B.C.

      "Max completed high school in Big Valley, joined the RCAF in 1942 and served as a wireless operator in Labrador. After his discharge, he entered Brandon College to study dentistry. Only a few months after beginning his studies Max Gelfond was killed in a motorcycle accident on May 30, 1946.

      "The youngest, Bernard (Ben) Gelfond, left the Rumsey farm to join the Canadian Army in 1940, and worked as an X-ray technician. After being discharged, he returned to Calgary. Ben married Thelma Nadler in 1953. They have one daughter, Nadine Drexler, of Regina.

      "The descendants of the pioneering Gelfond family are proud of their family's deep roots in this province and their dedicated contribution to Western Canadian society."

      Henry Goldberg was born in Russia in 1880 but was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1907 he went to Edmonton where, in 1910, he and John Sternberg formed the Northern Grain Company. In 1912 he married Marcia Calmenson, also of St. Paul.

      In 1921, with daughters Mozah (Zemans) and Muriel (Ginsberg), he and his wife moved to Calgary where he continued in the grain trade.