After the harvest, the oldest four began searching for work, which they found, and it was with their employers that they lived that first winter.  Henry, who was just a young boy, but big and strong, landed a job plowing, as did his brother, Isaac. Henry was paid 50 cents per day, however, Isaac received 53 cents since he had the extra responsibility of harnessing the horses, because he was older and taller. In the years to come, Henry would always jokingly offer Isaac 3 cents if he would harness his horses for him.

     That first winter, my father, Martin, stayed with a couple where the husband was sick in bed.  Martin was hired for $10.00, plus room and board. His job was to milk the three cows and to feed the other young stock, which he regarded as very little work. He recalls that he had quite a time with the horses since he didn’t know any English and the horses didn’t understand any Russian. The evenings in winter were long, and since a radio was not available (certainly no television) on the farm, Martin spent his time learning the English language with the woman of the house, who appeared to be quite knowledgeable and well learned. Martin would point at an object, and she would give him the English word for it. He would then write it down, along with the German and the Russian word. For an 18-year old, it was a long winter.

     Meanwhile, the five youngest were enrolled in Eagle School near Acme. “That was quite an experience, coming to a strange country and not knowing a word of the local language”, writes Daniel Loewen, “but we made faster progress than the older brothers and sisters.” In his memoirs, Henry Loewen describes his first day of school:

“Mary, Tina, Dan, Anna, and I arrived at the school and found that the teacher didn’t know German and couldn’t speak to us. She gave us a seat and after she had given all the rest of the kids their work, she motioned us to come to the front and gave us our first lesson in English. She would point to her nose, eyes, hair, and say the word, and we had to repeat it after her. Then she wrote numbers on a piece of paper from one to ten, and motioned us to continue writing, in order to find out what we knew. By the time she came back to check, I had written to about 200 and she said something like ‘very good’, or something. I couldn’t understand exactly what she said, but it sounded like she was pleased.”

     Their teacher purchased a German-English dictionary for the Loewen children and then their progress in acquiring their new language began to accelerate. According to Henry, most of the English he learned in school occurred at recess.

     Language was not the only challenge faced by the Loewen children. Daniel Loewen recalls that on one occasion in winter, riding to school by horse with one of his siblings, they arrived only to find their clothes had frozen to the saddle. This meant they had to wait in the barn until a thaw allowed them to dismount.

       At age 15, Henry’s formal education was nearing its end. He was expected to provide more labour on the family farm, so his last two years of formal education—grades 7 and 8—occurred between the end of harvest and seeding time in spring.

       Abraham Loewen worked wherever he could find work – sometimes for the railway and other times for farmers as needed. During those early years when he worked on the roads to earn the extra money, he was fortunate to be able to glean coal from the landing where the coal was off-loaded from train cars onto carts. Those who had the job of unloading the coal were somewhat careless, in that some coal landed on the ground. Abraham had made a little sleigh that he pulled behind, and on his return from work, Abraham walked past the landing, pulling the sled as he did each day, and on some days he was able to collect an entire sack of coal, while on other days, somewhat less. In any event, he was able to collect enough coal to heat their home and cook their meals that first winter.