Obituary of Gerhard Reimer

<h1>Gerhard "Hardy" Reimer</h1> 1924 – 2008 Passed away peacefully at Forest Heights Long Term Care Centre, in Kitchener, on Sunday, December 28, 2008, age 84 years. Hardy was born in the Molotschna district of Ukraine, to which his parents Gerhard and Gertrude (Wiebe) Reimer returned in 1921, after having lived for fifteen years – through the period of World War One and the Russian Revolution – in a Mennonite community in the Ufa district in northern Russia. In 1926, the family (including Hardy and his five sisters Lydia (Thielman), Helen (Tiessen), Gertrude, Elsie, and Clara Reimer, and his brother, William Reimer) joined other Mennonites to travel through Moscow, Liverpool, Saint John, and Montreal, to settle in Canada, first in Winnipeg. In 1930 the family settled in Leamington, Ontario, where Hardy’s father, a minister, died a year later. The family moved to Kitchener in 1940. Hardy, who enjoyed sports like baseball, basketball, and swimming, attended Kitchener Collegiate Institute (KCI), but withdrew to enlist in the Canadian forces during World War Two. From the 1940s to the 1980s he worked at a number of jobs in Kitchener-Waterloo, including as a hospital orderly. He lived with his mother (who died in 1988) and sisters on Stirling Avenue, Homewood Avenue, and, from the early 1950s, on Brick Street. Since 1997 he has lived at Forest Heights Long Term Care Centre, where family and friends who visited him frequently will now miss his gentle thoughtfulness and mischievous sense of humour. Hardy will be fondly remembered by nephews and nieces in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia, and his sister-in-law Verna Reimer of Oshawa. Hardy was predeceased by his parents, Gerhard and Gertrude (Wiebe) Reimer; all his siblings, and a nephew and niece. In Hardy’s memory, donations to the Mennonite Central Committee can be arranged through the Erb &amp; Good Family Funeral Home, 171 King Street South, Waterloo, phone 519-745-8445. A private family burial will take place at First Mennonite Cemetery in Kitchener.