In the country kitchen of the Hagey neighbourhood of the Village at University Gates, Henry Vogel and his brother, Bruno, share stories and laughter. They talk of music, Henry makes joke after Joke, and they describe the a winding path that brought their family from Poland through Germany to Kitchener-Waterloo, and the link they share with Schlegel name that began more than 75 years before.
When Henry was just a boy, his gift for music emerged while the family lived in the small town of Klein Biewende, Germany. He was a natural on an accordion; Bruno recalls their trumpet-playing father encouraging Henry to practice scales and he would play them perfectly, appearing to be reading music when, in fact, he was reading a comic book tucked within the pages.
Henry smiles coyly at the memory.
He never missed beat when it came to music, and even today, decades later, the notes come to him as clearly as ever, despite the massive hearing loss he’s experienced. If you put an accordion in his hands, it like he’s back on stage, leading his band, The Henry Vogel Trio.
For people of a certain generation in the Kitchener-Waterloo Region, Henry and his band were a staple. Most Friday nights at the German Club in Kitchener were filled with the band’s music, and Henry would play all over North America, wherever classic German-influenced polka music was in demand.
The path that led to those smoky Friday nights in the German club comes up in conversation. Their parents were born in Poland and they had a modest farm there where they began to raise four children. In 1946, after the dark days of the Second World War, they ended up safe and in Germany as the world tried to recover. It was 1949 when their sister Frieda followed in the path laid down by their oldest sister, Alice, who had emigrated to Canada with her husband two years before.
Bruno, Henry and their parents would follow in 1951. Bruno was 18 and Henry was barely a teenager when their family was reunited.
Nearly 75 years later, the connection emerges, for as the story unfolds, the name Schlegel has come full circle. It is Ron Schlegel who founded Schlegel Villages based on the values is father Wilfred passed down, and Ron’s sons Rob, Brad and Jamie are central in the Villages today.
Within the country kitchen of Henry’s home at University Gates, Henry plays the accordion with music therapist Melissa Jessop accompanying on piano. It’s as natural as if he were back in the kitchen of his youth.
They are living within Ron Schlegel’s vision, and between songs and Henry’s jokes, Bruno explains.
When the boys’ sisters Alice and Frieda settled in the Kitchener region, he says, laying the foundation for the rest of the family to follow, they were sponsored by a humble farmer named Roy Schlegel and his wife Ruth – Ron’s uncle and aunt.
Ron was just a boy at this time and he had moved to the Hamlet of Ailsa Craig outside of London where his father was building community and setting the stage for the family’s support for seniors with the family’s first care home. Ron doesn’t remember the Vogel family personally, but he says the story of their arrival and the hand up they received from his uncle and aunt mirrors much of the Schlegel family values he cherishes today.
“You look after your neighbours,” he says, simply, “and you always help others in need of support.”
He recalls countless Sunday meals when he was a boy where his father and mother, Emma, would welcome newly-landed immigrants and his father would pass along advice and point them towards employment opportunities.
To hear of Henry living happily at University Gates and to know his music continues to bring a smile to faces of his neighbours brings a smile to Ron’s face.
A community is simply neighbours supporting neighbours, be they from down the street or from across oceans, and in the Vogel-Schlegel connection at University Gates amid smiles and the lively sound of the accordion, we see that value come to life.
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