Immigrant Pioneers in Enilda, Alberta

By Martha A. (Matula) Blanchard

My grandparents, John and Anna (Drozdik) Matula were born and married in Slovakia and had six children. After W.W.I ended, my Grandpa learned it was possible to get a homestead in Alberta, 160 acres of land for $10.00. In 1926, he left his young family behind to set sail for Canada. He landed at Halifax and boarded the train there to cross Canada. Grandpa couldn’t believe his eyes, “Could there possibly be so much uninhabited land and could a country could be so vast”?

When he reached southern Alberta, Grandpa who neither spoke nor understood English, checked out a place called Brooks. He was surprised to find a farm for sale in nearby Tilly. Before he knew it, he was the owner of partially developed land, two horses and most of what was needed to farm – even a model T Ford. That harvest in 1926, the crops turned out badly so Grandpa had to look for some sort of work to cover his expenses.

In Faust, Alberta he got work as a lumberjack. Next spring he returned to Tilly to put the crops in but the drought was worse than the previous year so the land had to be irrigated twice that year. After three years of crop failures, he looked for land elsewhere. Word got around among the immigrants of available homesteads in the High Prairie area. Grandpa purchased land, with a small cabin, in partnership with an acquaintance, northeast of Enilda, a thriving hamlet where most of the basic family shopping could be done.

In September 1929, my Grandma with 20 year old Emil, (my father), a teen aged daughter and a four year old son, left Slovakia for Canada. They arrived at Quebec and crossed Canada by train to join my Grandpa in Tilly. They arrived just in time to help take the garden out; the field harvesting was already finished. The family stayed in Tilly that first winter.

By mid March 1930, the snow was gone and the weather was warm, so Grandpa loaded the machinery, livestock and some feed and household goods into a railway boxcar. The family followed by passenger train through Edmonton to Enilda. In Enilda the snow was over three feet deep and the temperature was minus 40’F. After unloading the boxcar onto makeshift sleighs, they still had to travel another five miles to their home.

Around 1930, my Dad took a homestead northwest of Enilda. The whole family helped build the three-room log hewn house that would later be their home for the next twenty years. By 1932, Grandpa lost the land he shared with his friend because he couldn’t make the last payment so my Grandparents moved in with my Dad for about a year. In 1932 Grandpa cleared a trail on the higher ridges across my Dad’s homestead so he could get to his and there built his own home. Now nearly 100 descendants can trace their roots to Slovakia. Grandpa died in 1946 and Grandma in 1970.

In 1931, my Dad, met Anna Geleta, who was visiting her sister in Gilwood. Anna had immigrated to Canada in 1928 and worked as a domestic for a private family in Jasper till they left for a winter holiday. In May 1932, Emil Matula and Anna Geleta were married at the St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Mission Church in Grouard. They were married for almost 55 years and raised five children. Around 1975 Dad sold his homestead to his brother. Dad died suddenly in 1987 in Edmonton at 78 and 23 days later, Mom died in the Nursing Home in High Prairie at 81.

As interesting as the story sounds, they endured great hardships and loneliness for their relatives back in Europe. These wonderful pioneer immigrants will be remembered for they were history in the making.