Fonds MS-1269 - Anton Ernest Baer

Anton (Tony) Ernest Baer was born in 1920 to Anton Baer and Marianna Zimmer in Forget, Saskatchewan. His father moved the family frequently while Anton was growing up and they would move to Davidson in 1921, then onto Edmonton around 1922. There they would open a butcher shop and moonshine business in the Fraser Flats. They moved again in the late 1920’s to attempt to start a shop in Stony Plain, which failed. Around 1929 the family moved to a quarter section 70 miles south west of Edmonton, an area called Moon Lake. This move would end Tony’s formal education.

Anton Sr died in 1937 and Marianna sold the quarter section and moved back to Riverdale Flats in Edmonton where she bought a house and several of her adult children were able to live with her. Tony also came back to Edmonton, decided not to resume his education and began working whatever odd jobs he could find to earn money, including the dairy industry, servicing gas pumps, the brickyards, lumber mills, and harvesting agriculture. He joined the army on October 1, 1941 and served as a medic, including a tour in the Aleutian Islands. He was discharged in January 1946. He returned to Edmonton where he became a builder specializing in plastering, bricklaying and carpentry. He married Beth Lamoureux on April 27, 1946. They would have 9 children together. A worksite accident in January 1957 would make him blind in one eye and lead to the family moving to Porter, Yukon and join a business partnership with his sister Ann in construction. In 1976 they moved to Winfield BC, where Beth died at the age of 56. In 1991 he moved to Victoria, where he wrote his life story. His health declined in 2002 and he moved to Red Deer.

Anton died 30 August 2003 in Red Deer, Alberta. He was buried beside Beth in Kelowna, BC.