Mennonite
Historical
Society

of Alberta

Frieda Toews fonds

Accession 2016.023

Title and Physical Description

Frieda Toews fonds, ca. 1888-1952, ca. 187 photographs

Administrative and Biographical History

Frieda Toews was born in Altona, Manitoba on 14 December 1947, the daughter of Jacob R. and Helena (Hiebert) Toews.  Both the Toews and Hiebert families migrated from Russia to Manitoba in the 1870s.  Both the Toews and Hiebert families were large and some family members, including Frieda, later moved to Alberta.  Frieda created, or inherited from her mother, four family photograph albums.  In 2016 she donated the photographs in these four albume to the archives of the Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta.  The stories of the extended John R. Toews and Helena (Hiebert) Toews family are told in greater detail in a privately printed book entitled Jacob R. and Helena (Hiebert) Toews.  A Pictorial Famly History.  The book was compiled and published by Frieda Toews’s sister, Mary (Toews) Unger.

Scope and Content

The photographs were placed in numbered envelopes or archival sleeves in no immediately discernable order.  Some numbered items are missing, but here are also 18 photographs for which no asigned number is now available.  Frieda Toews and Mary (Toews) Unger have provided idenification of persons on the first 50 of these photographs and may be able to continue that work.

Source of Acquisition

Donated by Frieda Toews

Finding Aids

The smaller photographs are stored, in numerical order, in MHSA Images.  Larger photographs, together with the list indentifying the first 50 photographs are stored in MHSA Images, Oversize “A” Box 1