July 28, 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of what would come to be known as the First World War. Almost 45 million people fought on behalf of the allied forces, 60,000 of them Canadians. No part of the country was left untouched and Kitchener-Waterloo was no exception.
Many of those living in Kitchener at the time were of German descent and their daily diaries reflect how they felt about what was happening overseas, as well as about their own heritage.
For the rest of 2014 Special Collections & Archives will be tweeting entries, as well as posting scans to Facebook from the diaries of three members of the Breithaupt family: Louis Jacob Breithaupt (1855-1939), his brother Albert Liborious Breithaupt (1870-1955), and Louis’ daughter Catherine Olive Breithaupt (1896-1977).
