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Introduction
I never would have thought to write something about old times and long-ago events, if my good friend Arvids Strals had
not said that it would do to tell my children and grandchildren about what I have experienced and endured. One only has to
begin thinking about the past, when so many events and personalities come into sight, that one can't help but slip into dreaming
even in the brightest daytime. My life has been long, and my personal experiences and trials have wound themselves into an
inextricable tangle, so that any chronological or systematic account is out of the question. All-of these personal events
are connected with the general (historical) succession of events, and are best understood by looking at them alongside the
general ones. This does sound like self-justification, or an excuse for neglecting to apply myself to this job and work at
it. I hope that what I accomplish, whether much or little, will attest to the opposite.
Personalia
I was born September 18, 1889, in the Kalnieki [farmstead] house, Klostere parish (pagasts), Aizpute district (aprinkis),
Kurzeme (Courland) province, Baltic region of the Russian empire during the reign of Nicholas II. I was baptized in the Aizpute
Lutheran church, and named Jacob after my godfather Jekabs Bite, my mother's half-brother. The minister who baptized me, Urbans,
later died in Jelgava with delirium tremens. I was confirmed in the same church in 1904 (if memory serves) by Pastor Seilers.
I attended the Klostere parish school, the Kazdanga parish school for one year, and the Aizpute district school; I did
not complete the latter, being forced to leave a few months before graduation because of unrest [i.e. the 1905 revolution].
My father, Adams, was born in Kalnieki in 1856, and died there in 1913. His father, Peteris, also lived and farmed there.
Peter's first wife was from the Martinu Suveni [Suveni family of Martini farmstead or parish?] family, and she died leaving
two children, Adams and Lize. Peter's second wife, from the Zile family, bore three daughters, leva, Kate, and Tija, and
one son, Martin.
My mother, Lize Bruvers, was born in 1863 and died in Kalnieki in 1945. She was born in the Kalnins house by the castle
in the town of Aizpute, near to Misinkalns. Her mother, Anna, was also born in Aizpute, the daughter of Vilmanis, the town
blacksmith, and married the servant of the castle's owner, a furloughed general. Evicted from their home, Bruveris and his
wife moved to the Lipaiki house in Turlava parish, where he died. His widow remarried, to Bite, and they had four children,
Fricis, Jekabs, Bille, and Minna. The two sons died in Latvia, Bille died in Brazil, and Minna in California. Their father
came from the Dreimanis house in Apriki parisb, an o1d forester's house on the Rivupe [small river] across from the Adze tavern.
I was born sixth of ten children. The oldest was Peteris, born in 1880, who died in Chicago in 1957; Fricis Karlis, was
born December 31, 1881, and died in Chicago in 1967; and my sister Kate was born in Kalnieki around 1887 and died in Kuldiga
in the 1950s. Two other children were born before I was, but they died in infancy. After me came a brother, Martins, born
in 1892; a sister, Bille Marija, born in 1894; a sister, Annette, born in 1897; and a brother, Kristaps, born around 1900,
who died in 1920 near Perekop, a scout for the Latvian (red) riflemen in the Russian civil war.
I married Emilija Benefelds on May 14, 1947, and our children are Karlis Kristaps, born in Liepaja in 1928; Maija Elizabete,
born in Liepaja in 1930; and Martins Adams, born in Liepaja as well, in 1933.
Prior to this marriage I have a son, Ilmars, who was born in Riga in 1926; his mother, Milda Lemaik, is a distant relation
to me through the Martin-Suveni family. An ample circle of grandchildren has cropped up, fourteen in all, and if I include
Ausma and Arvids Strals' three children, then I need not worry about the size of my readership, as long as I can get this
written.
Translation by Peter Kalnin
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