Mennonites on the Rails ISSUE NUMBER 39, 2019 3 A Forgotten 13 Reorienting 21 The Railroad Encounter the West Passes by The C.N.R.’s Community Reserve Steinbach Progress Competitions Mennonites and the Ralph Friesen James Urry Railway Hans Werner Contents ISSUE NUMBER 39, 2019 1 Notes from the Editor A JOURNAL OF THE D. F. PLETT HISTORICAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC. Features EDITOR Aileen Friesen 3 A Forgotten COPY EDITOR Andrea Dyck Encounter DESIGNER Anikó Szabó James Urry PUBLICATION ADDRESS Plett Foundation 13 Reorienting the University of Winnipeg West Reserve 515 Portage Ave Hans Werner Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 21 The Railroad Passes 3 EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS by Steinbach Aileen Friesen Ralph Friesen +1 (204) 786 9352 [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS AND Research Articles ADDRESS CHANGES Andrea Dyck [email protected] 25 Mennonite Debt in the West Reserve Preservings is published semi-annually. Bruce Wiebe The suggested contribution to assist in covering the considerable costs of preparing this journal is $20.00 per year. 31 The Early Life 31 Cheques should be made out to the of Martin B. Fast D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation. Katherine Peters Yamada MISSION To inform our readers about the history of 37 Klaas W. Brandt the Mennonites who came to Manitoba in the Dan Dyck 1870s and their descendants, and in particular to promote a respectful understanding and appreciation of the contributions made by so-called Low German-speaking conservative Histories & Reflections Mennonite groups of the Americas. Mennonite-Amish- 43 37 PLETT FOUNDATION Hutterite Migrations BOARD OF DIRECTORS John J. Friesen 2019–2020 Royden Loewen, Chair, Winnipeg, MB John J. Friesen, Vice-Chair, Winnipeg, MB 47 The One who Kennert Giesbrecht, Secretary Treasurer Steinbach, MB Remained Behind Leonard Doell, Aberdeen, SK Dave Loewen Abe Rempel, Winkler, MB Kerry Fast, Winnipeg, MB Khortytsia Cemetery Conrad Stoesz, Winnipeg, MB 53 Robyn Sneath, Brandon, MB Gravestone Project Aileen Friesen, Executive Director Werner Toews 47 Andrea Dyck, Executive Assistant News COVER IMAGE Alternative Service workers Book Reviews lifting rails on a railroad track. MENNONITE ARCHIVES OF ONTARIO, MAID: HIST.MSS.22.1.9-69 In the Next Issue notes From the Editor Aileen Friesen here is no need to send us letters of complaint about the and a willingness to develop intermediary routes to reaching the Tshortened length of this issue of Preservings. As an experi- railway in Giroux. Steinbach’s proximity to Winnipeg, however, ment, I have decided to publish two issues a year. This issue will helped to create the possibility for this alternative path, which focus on how Manitoba Mennonites have interacted with the raises questions about the prospect of replicating this particular railway. The following issue, which will explore the theme of model of engaged isolationism. Mennonites and the railway in Mexico, Paraguay, and Russia, will It was not only Mennonite communities that demonstrated be in your mailboxes sometime in April. Two issues a year allows for their ambivalence to the idea of the railway; some Canadian more flexibility with our content and the possibility of lengthening communities also expressed their hesitation with the influx of the journal. And most importantly, for our Mennonite audience, immigrants that seemed to accompany the laying of such tracks. the cost of Preservings will not increase; readers will actually The Community Progress Competitions, run by the Canadian receive more Mennonite history for their $20 contribution. National Railway, reflected the tensions embedded in an econ- Over the course of its twenty-five-year history, Preservings has omy that required a larger population and the cultural clashes explored a variety of topics related to Mennonite history. While that accompanied the integration of these diverse ethnic and individual authors have tackled railroads in their submissions, we linguistic groups into Canadian society. In James Urry’s analysis have never had an issue (in this case two) dedicated to the topic. of these competitions, both the strong vision of progress articu- This is not surprising as traditionally Mennonites have formed lated by the judges and the apparent buy-in from Mennonites an ambiguous relationship with trains. While railroads have been are striking and raise questions about the willingness of rural essential to the development of Mennonite communities, offer- Mennonites to embrace measurements of merit initiated from ing paths to new homelands and connecting the Mennonites outside the community. to agricultural markets, they have also brought the world into While these articles address a number of important themes Mennonite villages and created easy escape routes for those curi- related to railroads, there are still many within the Canadian ous about city life. Some Mennonite communities have sought context yet to be researched. One of those themes is depicted to integrate the railway into their villages in very specific ways, on the cover: Mennonite men in Canada building the railway as hoping to reap the economic benefits and simultaneously limit conscientious objectors during the Second World War. Not only cultural interference. did railroad-building offer Mennonites a somewhat respectable When I put out the request for articles, I wondered about the alternative to military service, but trains would become essential type of responses I would receive. Not surprisingly, the theme in facilitating the travel of religious leaders as they established of markets dominated the materials submitted. Indeed, the eco- regional, national, and international communities. Although the nomic implications of the railway for Mennonite communities railway challenged the values of Mennonite communities in a in western Canada looms large in this conversation. As Hans number of ways, it also created new spaces for the preservation Werner shows, the railway carried benefits into some commun- and promotion of those same values ities while leaving others to witness the billowing smoke of Personal family histories are also closely connected to the progress from afar. Undoubtedly, in the late nineteenth and early experience of the railway. Migration stories from the 1870s twentieth centuries, the railway had the capacity to determine often feature trains, as Mennonites sped through the European economic prosperity for towns and the surrounding commun- countryside, enthralled by the views out the window, but ities more than roads, schools, and co-operatives. also suffocated by the smoke of the steam engine. Within my Although railways reoriented space, the results were not own family, my paternal grandfather, Isaac Dyck, engaged in unfavourable for every community that shunned such direct freighthopping as he rode the train from Manitoba into the access to the city and the progress or worldliness – depending on United States in search of work during the Great Depression. your interpretation – that it promised. Steinbach thrived without While these individualized stories might seem to have little a railway, as Ralph Friesen has shown, through a combination of historical significance, in reality they reveal the ways in which a strong local identity that kept people rooted in the community Mennonite life was shaped by the rails. MENNONITES ON THE RAILS 1 ARCHIVES OF MANITOBA, FOOTE COLLECTION 466, N2066 feature A Forgotten Encounter The C.N.R.’s Community Progress Competitions James Urry nd we still get the train through counter the effects of the Depression, lations “Governing the Competitions” “A Steinbach as an encore” wrote anti-immigration sentiments among were complex with nine detailed points. Arnold Dyck in an editorial in his “Anglo-Saxon” Canadians, and to help The first brochure provided a compli- Steinbach Die Post in 1931.1 But Dyck was develop communities who, it was hoped, cated “Score Card” indicating how the quick to point out that he was just being would later improve the revenue of the judges would assess the communities: A: ironic. No rails had been laid, no trains company.5 Robert England, who was in Education (250 points); B. Agriculture had steamed through the town and they charge of the competition, would later (250), C: Citizenship – Co-operation – never would. Instead he was reporting on write that this initiative was intended to Social Welfare (300 – subdivided into the visit of the judges of the Canadian act as a “lever” to promote agricultural Adults and Boys and Girls); D: Arts and National Railway’s (C.N.R.) Community progress through raising the “group con- Handicrafts (150); E: General, a category Progress Competitions, then in its second sciousness” of ethnic communities in consisting of “constructive” activities year. Steinbach and the surrounding Western Canada.6 The C.N.R. was not the not included in earlier categories (50).11 Mennonite area, designated as “Hanover,” first rail company to promote such com- Each of these sections, however, was had been selected for the competition in petitions and festivals among Canada’s subdivided and then subdivided again. 1930, as had Rhineland. Surprisingly little immigrant groups, especially in the prairie For instance, Education was subdiv- has been said about Mennonite participa- provinces. The Canadian Pacific Railway ided into eight categories (Community, tion in these competitions. For instance, had sponsored “Folk Festivals” although Teachers, Pupils, School Grounds, School E. K. Francis’ book does not mention the Mennonites, lacking