Waterman Family
Charles Waterman (b.1879) arrived in Canada in 1901, having escaped the pogroms in Jassy, Romania. He homesteaded in Trochu from 1904 – 1921.
In 1912 he married Ethel Guttman, the daughter of a neighbouring Jewish homestead family.
He drove his children to Cloverleaf School in a horse and buggy. He eventually decided to move to Calgary so that his children could have a better education.
During the First World War, Charles Waterman sent financial aid to a Friedman family in Germany. In gratitude, they later send him a gift of high-quality scissors and knives – which sparked a business idea. Mr. Waterman took these to Birks and Ashdowns to see if they had an interest — and they did. Thus the Waterman importing business began.
Max Katzin joined Charles in 1926, and eventually they opened a ware- house at 1st Street S.E. and 10th Avenue. Out of this grew Western Canada Importers. When Charles’ son David Waterman returned from the service after WW II, he took over his father’s route -selling “on the road.”
Charles Waterman was always an ardent Zionist. In the late 1920’s, for example, he attended a Zionist Conference in Switzerland. But his primary interest was Jewish education. He was instrumental in fund-raising for the Calgary Hebrew School and for decades was intimately involved in all its facets. At Chanukah, each pupil would receive a gift of “gelt” from him.
To honour him, the school was renamed the Charles Waterman Talmud Torah.
He also worked with Ted Riback and others for the development and completion of the Jewish Community Centre on 18th Avenue and Centre Street S.
At the age of 80, Mr. Waterman began an “ulpan”(Hebrew lessons) at the Talmud Torah. Wherever he went, he took his “dikdook”(grammar book) and studied. He learned the language when he was over 80. He visited Israel almost annually in his senior years.
Charles and Ethel Waterman had four children – Freda (Levy), Lillian (Fishman), David Waterman and Phyllis (Rubin).
Ethel Waterman (b.1886) passed away in 1959. Charles Waterman died in 1970. Her gravestone reads “A beautiful woman and dedicated to her children. His states, in Hebrew: “A kind-hearted man of dear spirit.”