Historical Plaque Properties

 

Albert Roeder - Clerk - CNR
188 Cobourg Street
Stratford, ON
1936


Albert Harvey Roeder was born on September 17, 1901 on the family farm in North East Hope, the son of Conrad Roeder Jr. and Mary Ann Ruppert.


Albert was a second generation Canadian, whose grandfather, Conrad Sr., left Germany with his family in 1848 during a time of violent revolution which spread from France across Europe and threatened to topple the monarchy and aristocracy in the German states. Perhaps the Roeder’s were part of the working and liberal revolutionists, called the 48ers, who were forced to flee to the United States and Canada as the royalists reasserted themselves.


Conrad Sr. settled on a farm on Lot 15 Concession 8 in the township and his son Conrad Jr. ultimately farmed the property next door where Albert was born. Albert left the farm when he was about seventeen years of age to join the Canadian National Railway (CNR) where he worked for the next forty-eight years becoming the chief clerk of the CNR freight office. Upon retirement, he subsequently worked as an accountant for Rolly Shore Service Station from 1966 to 1984.


On October 5, 1929, Albert married twenty-three year old Catherine Anna Loth at the Lutheran Church in Stratford. Catherine was born in the Village of Tavistock on September 18, 1906, the daughter of Charles Loth who was a carpenter and Annie Klein. The Loth’s who also emigrated from Germany had generational roots in the village where Catherine’s grandfather, John, was a hotel keeper during the 1880’s. Albert and Catherine had two sons and four grandchildren.


On June 1, 1935 Albert and Catherine bought the property at 188 Cobourg for $955.00, which included a small frame house built in 1909. To accommodate their family they had the house demolished and in 1936 completed construction of the current home from plans for a similar house they saw and liked in Kitchener.
Catherine was an accomplished woman. She was a bookkeeper when she married Albert and was active in her church and community throughout the years. When the Stratford Festival was inaugurated in 1953 she was hired to become the first Accommodation Manager for the theatre, a position she held for twenty years, responsible for finding places to live for members of the acting company, technical staff and the general public during the season.


After sixty years of marriage, Albert died at the age of eighty-eight on March 28, 1989 and is buried in Avondale Cemetery.


Catherine ultimately moved to the senior residence at Greenwood Court and died at the remarkable age of one hundred and one on October 1, 2007. She is buried beside Albert in Avondale Cemetery.