Daniel Tohm and Caroline Bittner were Polish born, but emigrated when the Volhynia area was under Russian rule. The Tohm's arrived in Canada in about 1888. The passenger list for the ship "Sarmatian" sailing from Liverpool to Quebec lists Caroline with their 2 daughters, Wilhemena (7) and Tillie (3). Daniel was 27, Caroline 26.
They began life in Canada on a dry strip of land near Medicine Hat but moved to Edmonton after two unsuccessful seasons. Daniel and Caroline, along with Caroline's sister, Wilhomena Stelter are listed as founding members of the Rabbit Hill Baptist Church in South Edmonton in 1892. [They moved many times: Medicine Hat, 1889; Edmonton, 1891; Ridgeville, 1898; Waldheim, 1908; Edmonton, 1913; Young, 1915; Clark's Crossing, 1918; New Westminster, 1921.] Caroline was often sickly and may have suffered several miscarriages. In 1898, during their brief time in Ridgeville, Manitoba, they adopted John and Lena from a Winnipeg orphanage. In the same year, their eldest daughter Minnie married Thomas William Smith in Toronto. Daniel and Caroline were 40.
Daniel and Caroline would be the first of several Tohms and Bittners to immigrate. Adolf Bittner (1889) and his brother Fred are ancestors of many of today's Saskatchewan Bittners. Adolf arrived with four children in 1913 and lived on the Tohm farm in Laird, Saskatchewan. Both families moved to Edmonton that same year but the Tohms returned to Young, Saskatchewan in 1915.
Daniel was one of the earliest immigrants to settle on free prairie land. He helped bring at least two others along to Canada; August Bittner in 1908 and Adolf Bittner in 1913. He had a working knowledge of several languages and may have received a commission for helping immigrants enter Canada. His native tongue was German as was Caroline's. Religion was very important to them. They became 7th Day Adventists about 1900. Adopted son, John, was sent to an Adventist college to become a minister.Caroline and Daniel moved to a farm in Clark's Crossing, Saskatchewan during their retirement years. Their final home was in Newton, a residential area of New Westminster.
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