Obituary of Berta Marie Scott

My grandmother, Berta Marie Aust, was born on May 11th, 1923 in Spachendorf Czechoslovakia. She and her family were among the three million German-speaking Czechs known as Sudetenlanders. The Sudetenland became fertile soil for a political and military takeover by Hitler and the German Army. Eight days before the German occupation in October of 1938, alongside other families from the area, Berta Aust and her family fled on horse and carriage. They would eventually reach the northern town of Buscovitz on the Baltic Sea before moving further westward to Odeansea, Denmark, where they stayed for five months in a camp for war refugees. My grandmother's family consisted of her father and mother, Richard and Marie, her two sisters Frieda and Adele, and her brother Richard. It was Richard who would later die in the north of Italy fighting for the Canadian Army. Eventually receiving permission to come to Canada, the Aust family sailed across the Atlantic, docked in Montreal, and then boarded a CPR train and traveled to Tupper, British Columbia. For Berta the most persistent image from this time was the mud. In the old antique world of Bohemia everything would have been constructed of centuries-old stone masonry, but here in the new world my grandmother writes "we seemed to be fighting mud all of the time." Grandma's fondest memories were the dances in Tomslake. She writes: "We danced on Sunday in the old country; however, this was not the custom in Canada so after a few weeks the dances were changed to Saturday night. We danced on an outdoor platform that the men had built. Sometimes we walked barefoot through the mud, carrying our shoes to get to the dance. When we got there we would wash our feet and put on our dancing shoes and dance the night away." It would soon come to pass, because of the Father's factory-working experience that the Aust family moved from the Tomslake region to Ontario where Richard senior found work in a textile factory. However, our grandmother stayed behind as by this time she had met her future husband Gregson Scott. In August of 1941 the two were married and they moved to a ninety-acre farm north of Rolla along the Coleman Creek Road, just a stone's throw from the Alberta border. In retrospect the location seems only fitting as Greg Scott was born three miles south of the England/Scotland border, while Berta Aust was born alongside the Czechoslovakia/ Poland border. Through years of arduous toil and hardship Berta and Greg built a thriving and prosperous farm that would eventually be taken over by their son Gary. In 1976 they retired and moved to Dawson Creek. Berta Marie Scott is survived by my mother and father, Dorothy and Leith Pack; Berta's son Gary Scott and wife Judy; grandson Doug Scott and his fiance Suzanne; granddaughter Sue Scott; and my sister and her husband Alana and Paul Connelly. She is also survived by three great grandchildren: Cole, Tess, and Taylor. Our grandmother spent much of her spare time volunteering at the hospital in Dawson Creek, and was also awarded a lifetime membership from the Rolla Women's Institute for her years of service. Goodbye Grandma, Eulogy Presented By; Bradshaw Pack Berta passed away on December 14th, 2007 in Dawson Creek, B.C. at the age of 84 years. A memorial service was held on December 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am from Reynars Funeral Chapel, Rev. Marilyn Carroll officiated. Berta will be laid to rest with her husband Greg and infant son James Scott in the Rolla cemetery at a later date. Very Respectfully Reynars Funeral Home and Crematorium