Trajectories of Family Life PreservingsISSUE NUMBER 38, 2018 2 The Suderman 11 The Vanderhoof 19 Family Stories Expedition From the lives of Johan Family and Maria (Neufeld) Tracing Successive In Search of Freedom Harms Generations Harold Suderman Leonard Doell Hans Werner Contents ISSUE NUMBER 38, 2018 1 Notes from the Editor A JOURNAL OF THE D. F. PLETT HISTORICAL Features RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC. 2 The Suderman 23 Ida’s Memories of EDITOR Aileen Friesen Family Teaching COPY EDITOR Andrea Dyck Hans Werner Shirley Penner Bergen DESIGNER Anikó Szabó PUBLICATION ADDRESS 11 The Vanderhoof 27 Perseverance and Plett Foundation Expedition Family University of Winnipeg Harold Suderman Helga E. Kroeger 515 Portage Ave Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 19 Family Stories 29 Not a Kroeger Leonard Doell Ernest Braun EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS Aileen Friesen +1 (204) 786 9352 Research Articles [email protected] 31 Bridging Cultures 37 Family Myths and SUBSCRIPTIONS AND Abigail Carl-Klassen Glenn H. Penner ADDRESS CHANGES Legends Andrea Dyck [email protected] Histories & Reflections Preservings is published annually. The suggested contribution to assist in 43 Chasing our Heritage 57 Memories from covering the considerable costs of preparing in Borozenko Altbergthal this journal is $20.00 per issue. Grace Dueck Lawrence Klippenstein Cheques should be made out to the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation. 47 ‘Revive Us Again’ 59 The Dycks of MISSION Ralph Friesen Waldheim To inform our readers about the history of Julie McNeice the Mennonites who came to Manitoba in the Canadian Citizenship 1870s and their descendants, and in particular 53 to promote a respectful understanding and Numbers 63 Metaphors of Life appreciation of the contributions made by Bill Janzen Aileen Friesen so-called Low German-speaking conservative Mennonite groups of the Americas. From the Archives PLETT FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS 65 Reminiscences of 79 My Life Story 2018–2019 the Past Abraham P. Isaak Heinrich H. Penner Royden Loewen, Chair, Winnipeg, MB John J. Friesen, Vice-Chair, Winnipeg, MB Kennert Giesbrecht, Secretary Treasurer 73 Johann Wall 87 A Five Dollar Steinbach, MB Conrad Stoesz “Modus Vivendi” Leonard Doell, Aberdeen, SK Bruce Wiebe Abe Rempel, Winkler, MB Kerry Fast, Toronto, ON 75 Anadol Forestry Unit Conrad Stoesz, Winnipeg, MB David Rempel Smucker Robyn Sneath, Brandon, MB Aileen Friesen, Executive Director Andrea Dyck, Executive Assistant News COVER IMAGE Book Reviews “Arrival” by Gail Sawatzky. Sawatzky, an acrylic landscape painter, currently resides Letters to the Editor in southern Manitoba. Her paintings can be viewed at www.gailsawatzky.com In the Next Issue notes From the Editor Aileen Friesen ith great excitement, I start my tenure as editor of WPreservings and as the Executive Director of the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation. Hans Werner, who pre- viously held both positions, retired after serving the foundation for over ten years. As the first Executive Director, Hans helped to give shape to the foundation’s daily activities and breathe life into its mandate. Through his leadership and scholarship, he has contributed a unique perspective to the study of Mennonite history. As the editor of Preservings, he helped to set the agenda for future study, moving the journal in new directions by explor- BRAUN ERNEST ing themes such as the interaction between Mennonites and Indigenous peoples. I am grateful to Hans’ for his mentorship and thankful that his insights will still continue to shape the Aileen Friesen and Andrea Dyck (L–R), on a tour of the former East Reserve. historical conversation. Since its beginnings in 1993, Preservings has played a vital role first three articles in this issue show how the willingness of fam- in promoting the study of the 1870s Mennonite community and ilies to abandon familiar landscapes in order to protect their faith, their descendants, encouraging researchers, both amateur and to show solidarity with their community, and to follow God’s professional, to seek out new sources, ask thought-provoking calling, strained resources, changed lifespans, altered the marriage questions, and write about the people, places, and practices that pool, redefined economic opportunities, and separated family have shaped Mennonite religious and cultural life. It has been members. The frequency by which families subjected themselves a treasure trove of ideas, forging new paths for discovery and to this upheaval had significant repercussions. enquiry. It has been an open space for debate and discussion It was not only migration, but also education that gave rise within the community on the importance of history in defining to new trajectories for both individuals and for families. Shirley the contours of Mennonite life. Despite changes to its design, Penner Bergen’s article about her mother, Ida Hiebert, shows this will continue to be the essence of the journal. how a simple move from the farm into Winkler by Ida’s family Family histories have a place of prominence within Preservings. created the opportunity for furthering her education, which in It is often through the writing of the intimate and the personal turn opened doors to new experiences for this young Mennonite that Mennonites have addressed broader themes within their woman. While marriage, children, and home still arguably history. Therefore, it is fitting that the theme of this issue is the defined much of her life, the example of Ida illustrates how trends trajectories of family life. Why use the term trajectory? To draw like urbanization encouraged the embracing of professional roles, our attention to the ways in which our individual lives are influ- which offered new opportunities and paths for Mennonites. enced by the decisions and events that shift the fortunes of our Material culture often followed or memorialized these trajec- families; to find the moments and decisions that reverberated tories, as Mennonites carried objects with special meaning (or through our community and, in some cases, transformed the material value) to new lands. In this issue, two articles illustrate outlook of subsequent generations. While the term trajectory how often clocks served these dual purposes, witnessing the ardu- might seem to some as too restrictive and narrow to describe the ous journeys of their owners and standing as concrete reminders complexities of family life, the sense of momentum conveyed in of past lives purposely or tragically left behind. The intimate the word is helpful for highlighting the force by which decisions memories of Liza Kroeger and the fact-finding mission of Ernest and events, both large and seemingly small, shaped the paths Braun also illustrate how the meaning attached to material objects open to individual families. hinges on who tells the story. In fact, all of the articles addressing In Mennonite life, migration has been one of the factors that this issue’s theme show how deeply we as individuals look for altered, in fundamental ways, the prospects of the family. The ourselves within the trajectories our family stories. TRAJECTORIES OF FAMILY LIFE 1 HARVARD ART MUSEUMS/BUSCH-REISINGER MUSEUM, GIFT OF MISS LOUISA DRESEL IN MEMORY OF HER BROTHER, ELLIS LORING DRESEL. feature The Suderman Family Tracing Successive Generations Hans Werner n the book, The Fehrs: Four Centuries northern Poland, but judging from one Sudermans remains obscure, we can trace Iof Mennonite Migration, Arlette of Menno Simons’ letters he had visited the family line of Diana’s Suderman family Kouwenhoven uses the Fehr family as a Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) congregation as they migrated from Danzig to the rural an organizing principle to tell the story in 1548.3 Dirk Philips, the first Ältester areas of the Vistula (Wisła) delta, and of four hundred years of Mennonite (Elder) of the Danzig Mennonite Church on to Russia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, history.1 Stimulated by Kouwenhoven’s arrived in the 1560s before the Flemish- and Mexico. book and the idea that we can learn Frisian schism made it to Danzig.4 It is much about the bigger questions of his- also not known when the first Sudermans danzig tory by focusing closely on the details of arrived in the area, or when and where Johanna Suderman (who was born in a single family, I will follow the trajec- they became Anabaptists. For centuries, 1657 in Rotterdam) and an Abraham tory of the Suderman family. The story the Suderman name was associated with Suderman (whose wife died in 1667 and of the Sudermans addresses not only the the history of the Hanseatic League. As he died in 1679) are the oldest Suderman theme of migration, but also the vagaries a confederation of cities in northern entries in the Danzig Flemish Church of infant mortality and death of women Europe that formed a commercial net- records;6 however, these Sudermans in childbirth, the influence of decisions work, the Hanseatic League provided cannot be connected directly to the made by individuals and family units markets for the guilds and merchants of line of Sudermans that we are follow- that had consequences not only for them, their respective regions. Various Suderman ing here. The marriage of Abraham (I) but also for their descendants, and how families centred in Dortmund, Cologne Suderman and Catharina Dunckel in a family adapts to the larger scale events and Rotterdam were prominent in the the Flemish Mennonite Church in the that enveloped their lives. Hanseatic trade network going back to city of Danzig, on 13 November 1701 is Since