Women in Recent History Part 2: Tina Thiessen

Annette Augustine was very particular about where and how she acquired her clothes for special events. Most of these were custom made by local seamstress Tina Thiessen. Because the Augustine’s were so involved in the community there were quite a few occasions that involved a custom outfit. As such, the Museum has over 15 of these outfits worn by Annette but sewn by Tina in our collection.

While researching Tina, I found a series of correspondence in the museum’s research files between her daughters Reta and Esther discussing their mother’s business. From the correspondence I was able to find out the following.

Katharina (Tina) Vogt was born 6 May 1899 in Ekaterinovka, Charkov, Russia. While in Russia, Tina learned to sew. She moved to Canada - Rush Lake, Saskatchewan to be precise - at the age of 24 in 1923. She soon married Henry Peter Thiessen on 23 May 1926. The pair lived in various cities in Saskatchewan for a while before moving to Fort William in 1941. Once settled into their new home on Amelia Street, Tina took up dressmaking, using skills she had learnt in Russia. Soon however, she began working to aid the war effort as the Second World War raged on and took a position in the fabric department at Canadian Car and Foundry. This was a fascinating time at Can Car as a majority of the employees during the war years were women who produced Hawker Hurricanes and Curtiss Helldivers for the RCAF and other Allied air forces. A fascinating documentary about this period of Can Car’s (now part of Bombardier) history is called “Rosies of the North”. After the war she returned to dressmaking and continued to sew clothes for local citizens into the 1960s.

Tina believed that one of the most important things to know about sewing was how to properly rip a stitch. Considering beginner (and even experienced) sewers often have to rip stitches it is no surprise that she told one of her daughters that she wasn’t allowed to learn to sew until she could unpick a seam properly! From the correspondence between her daughters, it seems that Tina was a very hardworking woman. She would sew all day and often long into the night, especially when she was on tight deadlines. The closet of her sewing room was always chock full of different fabrics and occasionally a needle or piece of thread would follow her out of her sewing room. Once, her daughters said, a needle fell into the bread she was making causing her to prick her finger while she was kneading.

From the correspondence, it seems as though Tina was a very skilled seamstress, able to merely look at a person (and take a few measurements) and then stare at the piece of fabric she was working from until she visualized what she would make out of it. Her cuts were true and she rarely if ever worked from a pattern. From observing the clothing itself, I do believe her skill is not exaggerated. The seams and finishing on the garments are much better than most others I have seen, especially without the use of a serge machine. This skill came in handy on the occasions on which Tina had to work with fabric she did not enjoy. For anyone who has any sewing experience, some fabrics are very easy to work with, there is natural friction, they don’t fray, and they have some structure. Some, on the other hand, are difficult and lacking body. Apparently, on one occasion, a client brought in a hand-dyed green material which had lost all of its structure due to the dying process, Tina apparently hated working with it but of course did it nonetheless.

According to her daughters, Tina did not charge by the hour and instead set a price for each garment based on what she felt might be acceptable to the client and reflective of the amount of work she would have to put in. Her daughters felt that her work was worth more than she charged. It would be interesting to know the cost of some of the garments that Annette Augustine bought from Tina over the years. From the garments in this post, which ones do you think would have been the most work and therefore the most expensive?

Some of the clothes that Tina created saw use at some fairly important events. She was of course often called upon to create wedding and bridesmaid dresses – do you know anyone who had a custom Tina dress for their wedding? As well, the clothes that she made for Annette were often worn at grand openings and galas around the community. This blue dress, for example, was worn by Annette at the opening of the Benjamin Chee Chee Exhibit at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 1983.

These garments in the collection then, represent a few parts of the history of Thunder Bay. On the base level, they of course represent the unique, colourful, and sometimes “psychedelic” styles of 60s and 70s fashion. Next, they represent the life and legacy of one of Thunder Bay’s most prominent women, Mrs. Annette Augustine as each dress represents a moment or event in her life. And finally, the clothes represent the life and experience of the dedicated and hardworking Mrs. Tina Thiessen. Annette may have worn each dress for a few hours, but Tina worked on them for many, many more - the legacies of both women are entwined in the preservation of these garments. These are the types of stories we are working to preserve every day at the Thunder Bay Museum.