Schlachter Family History: Schlachter

Tony driving in God's Country

My dad, Tony Schlachter, takes a familiar drive in the area where he grew up and lived for most of his life.

If you have travelled south of the Crowsnest Highway on the #885 past St. Anthony’s church, you have been to “God’s Country”, as many people refer to it. More than five generations of Schlachters have lived in or near this area, including mine.

This wide-open space is about 25 miles southeast of Bow Island, Alberta and was called Windy Ridge, Pleasant View, Granlea or Nine-Nine (after the land description). St. Anthony’s church is located at NE 2-9-9-4. Anton and Margaret Schlachter lived across the road at NW 1-9-9-4. Anton’s parents, Martin and Justina, lived in a tiny house in the yard as well as one on their homestead land at NW 5-8-8-4. Martin and Justina are buried in the cemetery at St. Anthony’s among other relatives such as Margaret's sister Rosa and her husband Kasimir Heitrich (watch a video at the bottom of this post about Kasimir's funeral).

Justina and Martin Schlachter's graves at St. Anthony's Cemetery.

Anton and Margaret had a large sitting room in their home and often hosted prayers and funeral receptions, as they were very near to the church and there was room for both casket and guests. In winter, the casket would be moved outside on the porch (a relative remained with it at all times). Dad remembers that when his infant cousin Frank Schlachter died, his body lay in a small coffin in the bedroom. Among the graves in the St. Anthony’s Cemetery is a separate section for the babies, somewhat uncommon in other local cemeteries. Joseph Schlachter, Dad’s older brother is in this section.

Anton would often lead the rosary for the evening prayers that are part of Catholic funeral rites. A very large wooden cross was kept in their home, perhaps used as part of these events. The cross was later donated to St. Joseph’s Home in Medicine Hat and you can see it there in the chapel (it was still there in 2019).

Anton’s son Joseph Schlachter married Catherine Schile in 1932 at St. Anthony’s. They lived in a relatively large house next to the church at S 2-9-9-4 and that is where my dad and his siblings grew up.

A clipping from the 40-Mile County Commentator features St. Anthony's Church and the Schlachter home as they were in the 1990s.

Living in such close proximity to the church, my dad recalls that his first job as a kid was lighting the fire to warm the church before mass. Being an altar boy was not something he was interested in, however. You can hear his amusing story in a video linked at the bottom of this post.

My dad and his siblings received the sacraments of baptism, first communion and confirmation at St. Anthony’s.

The number of community members in Windy Ridge declined in the 1930s, when the economic depression forced some families to leave the land in this area and make their living another way. The area rebounded but, over time, smaller farms were consolidated into larger ones and more of the younger generations went to the city for education and jobs. Church-goers began to worship at the larger Catholic churches in Bow Island and Foremost. Our family and our Doran cousins, part of the fifth generation of Schlachters in the area, still occasionally came to St. Anthony’s church in the country for mass into the 1970s and ‘80s. The pews were filled with second cousins! My dad had bought and was farming Joseph and Catherine’s land by then and we continued to visit the cemetery to pay our respects to the ancestors who brought us here.

By 1991, St. Anthony’s Church at Granlea was closed and the building purchased by a local woman. My dad was able to buy the iron church bell and, in 2014, he worked with his sister Jacqueline and her husband Terry Doran to get permission to relocate the bell to the cemetery. Dad hired a mason to create a cairn from local field stone and placed a plaque on it with a dedication to the pioneers. The plaque was designed by Tony’s grandson Jordan Schlachter. A great-grandson, two-year-old Maxwell Schlachter, was the first person to ring the bell at an official ceremony to unveil the cairn.

If you have an opportunity to visit the cemetery and ring this bell, know that you are one of many who have done so over the 100 years in the history of St. Anthony’s church.

Three generations gather at the cairn in 2015 - note the cane and stick for scattering rattlesnakes.

Videos from the Tony Schlachter Oral History Project 2020

Watch a video of Tony ringing the bell!

Tony escapes being an altar boy

The Heitrich funeral at St. Anthony's

More Photos

Interior of the church after 1951 renovation from collection of Jacquie Doran

St. Anthony’s in 1984 by Steve Schlachter

The church and cemetery from Judy and Tony’s Magical Family History Tour 2020

Timelapse photography of the church by Alan Dyer, 2015

Find a Grave - St. Anthony’s Cemetery

Acknowledgements

As always, I am building on the hard work of others who have gone before me. Thank you to Tony Schlachter, Jacquie and Terry Doran, David Schlachter and many others for the research, photos and family history they have shared. Thanks to Richard Schlachter for his help with the oral history project videos! Below are some of the references I used for this blog post.

References

Conquerville: A Growing Community- published by the Conquerville Women's Institute, 1963

History of St. Anthony’s Church - compiled by Anthony Stappler with Elizabeth Hammel

From the Buffalo to the Cross - M. B. Benini Byrne

Winds of Change: A History of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary since 1968 - Norman Knowles

40-Mile County Commentator newspaper

St. Anthony's Church at Granlea, Alberta, is pictured here in 2020. (Photo: J. Chrystal)

The German Catholic families who settled in the Windy Ridge area of southeast Alberta beginning in 1908 had already faced many challenges establishing homesteads. By 1911 they needed to address another. One of their number had died and they needed a sacred place to bury him. Among the approximately 45 families of this community at the time were Anton and Margaret Schlachter, my 2x grandparents. Religious faith was strong among the Germans from Russia. It undoubtedly held the community together and supported individuals through unthinkable hardship. In 1905, Anton and Margaret had arrived at Ellis Island, New York from a German-Russian community in Romania with children Raphael and Anna. They made their way north through the Dakotas (son Joseph, my grandfather, was born there) and Saskatchewan (son Jacob was born there) before settling on a homestead in Windy Ridge in 1909. In the years before a church could be built, the Schlachters and others would open their homes to the Catholics in the area and a priest from Medicine Hat would come to provide services. That was a fine temporary measure for mass and baptisms, but a burial was a different matter. One of the local families donated five acres of land to get started on the immediate need, and planning began for a church. Anton Schlachter was one of three men elected to a board of directors and, by February 13, 1912, ambitious plans were made to construct a building 26’ X 40’ X 12’ with a 42’ tower. Board and community members raised $159 to begin, $98 of which came from Anton and Margaret. The board decided to name the church after the person who raised the most money and so the first phase of the building, completed in 1912, was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua.

The church building was completed in 1912 with sacristy, vestibule, and steeple added in 1916. (Photo: Conquerville A Growing Community 1963)

Information about the planning, fundraising and naming of the church is passed down as oral history and documented in a letter from one of the parishioners to the larger Germans-from-Russia community in the U.S. and even Russia, via a widely-read North Dakota German-language newspaper.

In addition to being written in the German language, the font commonly used was Fractur and it can be tricky to decipher some of the letters. There is a link to the English translation of the full clipping at the bottom of this post.

And then there is the time capsule...

A large crucifix was erected on a concrete base on the east side of the churchyard. My dad, Tony Schlachter, says that his father Joseph had told him the story about a note encased in the base, naming the people involved in erecting it.

Anton Schlachter was a founding member of the church board in 1912 although, because he is not pictured here, may have no longer been a member by 1914. In this picture, the church building did not have the vestibule or steeple yet and a post with the bell stands in the background. Notice the crucifix mounted on a large base directly behind the men. (Photo: Conquerville A Growing Community 1963).

In the 1990s, after the church was no longer in use, the large crucifix was taken down and the concrete base smashed open - to reveal a container with a piece of paper in it! The note was written in German and confirms that Anton Schlachter donated the cross erected in the churchyard in 1915 (there is a discrepancy in the date in the above photo and when the note says the crucifix was erected - perhaps the photo of the board was taken in 1915 or later).