Walter Emil Steup was born in Braunschweig in 1891, as son of Friedrich Emil Steup and his wife Auguste Agnes, née Lieder. Around 1910 he immigrates to Canada. In the "Census of Canada 1911" he was listed as a servant in the household of William J. Olmsted.
In the same census Violet Low is listed as the adopted daughter of the Olmsteds.
Violet was born in Scotland in 1897 as the daughter of William Low and his wife Clara Agnes Craig, but probably experienced the last part of her youth as an orphan.
Between 1869 and the late 1930s, over 100,000 young children were sent from the British Isles to Australia, Canada1), New Zealand and South Africa. They were sent, often without the knowledge of their biological parents, from the children's homes in the motherland to the overseas Dominions - officially to look forward to a "better life", but actually above all to be used and often abused as cheap labour in their new homeland, and secretly finally to "increase the stock of good white offspring", as was once stated in contemporary documents.2)
The basic aim of education in the homes was to produce a submissive workforce. This was attempted through strict discipline: harsh punishments were common, the boundaries to mistreatment blurred.
It was not until February 2010 that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly apologised to former institutionalised children for the injustice they had suffered, in particular for being sent overseas from Britain - a practice that in some cases lasted until the 1960s. After arriving in Canada by ship, the children were placed in special distribution homes, the Quarrier Homes, e.g. Fairknowe in Brockville3) , and then distributed to farms in the surrounding area.
Violet's journey began on June 25, 1910 she starts from Scotland with the ship "Southwark" and on July 03, 1910 she reaches the port of Quebec with the destination Fairknowe in Brockville in the province of Ontario.
Violet is 13 years old when she is listed in the "Census of Canada 1911" as an adopted daughter on the farm of William J. Olmsted. On the Olmsted farm live beside William J. (44 years) his wife Isabel (36 years) and the children Arnold (4 years) and Hazel (5 years) as well as the adoptive daughter Violet (13 years) and as servant Walter Emil Steup (19 years). The farm is located in Quebec in the District Wright and there in the Subdistrict Hull (Lot 10, Range 6) in the "Municipality of West Hull" today "Municipality Chelsea".
On September 16, 1916 Violet and Walter Emil got together and married, hereby they founded the canadian branch of the family.
Sources:
1) Library and Archives Canada, Item: Violet LOW (72411)
2) FAZ from 16.11.2009 "Vom Waisenhaus in die Zwangsarbeit"
3) Fairknowe Home, Brockville, Ontario, Canada