Contractor, developer, philanthropist.
Born at Neuendorf, Ukraine on 24 July 1927, son of Martin Bergen and Sara Abrams, his father died when he was three years old and his mother married widower Peter Braun. In October 1943, the family fled advancing Soviet troops but he was conscripted into the Germany army at the age of 15, serving as a medic. He surrendered to American forces in 1945 and spent three years in a French POW camp near Bordeaux. He returned to Germany in 1948 and reestablished contact with his family, who had moved to Canada in the meantime. He was reunited with them in 1953. After working as a labourer at Atikokan, Ontario for two years, he moved to Winnipeg.
In 1955, he married Miriam Ruth Spletzer (1921-2001) and they had a daughter, Miriam Ruth Spletzer Bergen (1956-2022). He worked in Thompson for four years before returning to Winnipeg and founding Viceroy Painting and Decorating. In 1962, he partnered with Jake Letkemann to establish the Marlborough Development Corporation that built 38 multi-unit residential buildings between 1962 and 1988, including Fort Garry Place in downtown Winnipeg that featured the city’s first revolving restaurant known as the Royal Crown. He also established the Edison Rental Agency (later Edison Properties) with his wife to manage his buildings, and it was later operated by his daughter.
Active in national, provincial, and municipal elections as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, he also served on the boards of several charitable organizations. He constructed a building for the Movement Centre of Manitoba, named the Ruth Bergen Memorial Centre in memory of his wife, and he donated the Bergen Cardiac Care Centre to the St. Boniface Hospital.
In 1989, he was inducted into the Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt in recognition of his “significant contribution to cultural education in Manitoba.” He received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.
He died at Winnipeg on 7 March 2017 and was buried in the Glen Eden Memorial Garden.
See also:
Manitoba Business: Marlborough Development Corporation
“The man behind The Castle,” Winnipeg Free Press, 27 September 1985, page 69.
“Boom builder,” Winnipeg Free Press, 14 May 1995, page 27.
Obituary [Ruth Spletzer Bergen], Winnipeg Free Press, 9 June 2001.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 13 March 2017.
“Developer, philanthropist came to Canada with nothing,” Winnipeg Free Press, 14 March 2017, page B6.
Obituary [Miriam Ruth Spletzer Bergen], Winnipeg Free Press, 8 February 2022.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 13 June 2026
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