Almi, A Refugee

In this stunning biiography, Almi was a young woman of 19 when she left her parents’ farm on Saaremaa to find work in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. She did not know then that this would set the stage for a lifetime of hardship and struggle. After a year, she meets Aleksander, whom she marriew a year later. Toward the end of WWII, her small family moves from mainland Estonia to Saaremaa, a trip that would normally take one day to complete became a seven-day nightmare, mostly walking, and if they were lucky, getting a ride on a donkey cart or army truck. By 1944, the family expanded to three children and they decide to flee Estonia to Sweden, to avoid the incoming communists. This was just the beginning of a time of travel, hardship, and adventure, ending in a new life in South Africa on the other side of the world, where two more children were added to the family. Almi and Aleksander left behind six children, twelve grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.