~ A Journal of the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation Inc. Preservings $20 Issue No. 27, 2007 “A people who have not the pride to record their own history will not long have the virtues to make their history worth recording; and no people who are indifferent to their past need hope to make their future great.” — Jan Gleysteen The Lehrerseminar in the Chortitza Colony was built in 1912 and included a model school for practice teaching. Photo Credit: George Dyck, Beamsville, Ontario. Table Of Contents .......................................... 2 Feature Articles .............................................. 4 Book Reviews .............................................. 96 Editorial .......................................................... 3 Articles ......................................................... 34 Letters to the Editor ................................... 104 News............................................................... 3 Biographies .................................................. 80 Preservings 27.indd 1 2/15/2008 2:16:09 PM In this Issue Preservings 2007 In this issue we are taken the length and breadth Table of Contents of the Dutch-North German-Russian Mennonite scattering across the world and over time. Sjouke Voolstra’s article about early Dutch conservatives RUSSIAN MENNONITES IN THE DIASPORA offers rare and interesting insights that point to some conservative ways still practiced that have their Editorial .............................................................................................................3 origins in the 17th and 18th centuries. Voolstra died News............................................................................................................3, 42 in a sailing accident in 2004 and we are indebted to Lydia Penner of the Netherlands for translating this FEATURE ARTICLES article. The difficult times during the Soviet period were the subject of Nataly Venger’s presentation ’Unholy Holiness’: The Teachings and the Life of the Danzig Old Flemish or at the Mennonite Heritage Centre in the spring of House-buyers -Sjouke Voolstra,… translated by Lydia Penner ........................4 2007. Venger offers an interesting perspective on the period, suggesting that if examined in the con- The Mennonite Challenge to the Soviets -Ostasheva (Nataly) Venger ...........14 text of the Soviet regime and its time, Mennonites were remarkably successful achieving things for Ältester Martin C. Friesen (1889-1968): A Man of Vision for Paraguay’s themselves that others could not. To be sure that Mennogemeinde -Titus Guenther ...................................................................23 ultimately also ended, but hers is an interesting and refreshing perspective. Titus Guenther’s article not ARTICLES only helps us know Ältester Martin C. Friesen but also the history of the migration to Paraguay. Henry On The Origins of the Mennonite Estates in Russia -Henry Schapansky ......35 Schapansky sheds light on how estates in Russia came to be and how familial connections sustained Spanish Lookout Colony, 1958-1960: Three Years of Change in the Jungles of and expanded them. Ralph Friesen’s article explores British Honduras –Royden Loewen ................................................................38 a difficult aspect of the human condition, ‘sexual sin’ and how the Kleine Gemeinde dealt with specific cases. Bruce Wiebe’s article brings to light new Sexual “Sin” and its Consequences among the Kleine Gemeinde in 19th Cen- research about the securing of timber for the early tury Imperial Russia –Ralph Friesen ...............................................................43 settlers on the West Reserve across the border in North Dakota, while Lawrence Klippenstein adds The Timberlots of the Manitoba Mennonites in St. Joseph Township, Pembina another biographical piece to the rich contribution County, Dakota Territory -Bruce Wiebe .........................................................47 made by the Wiebes, in this case Heinrich Wiebe, to both East and West Reserve life. Royden Loe- Heinrich Wiebe 1839-1897: Bergthal Minister and Land Scout –Lawrence wen’s article acknowledges the 50th anniversary Klippenstein ....................................................................................................53 of Mennonite presence in Belize. Roy shows us how Spanish Lookout settlers maintained earlier Manitoba Mennonites Attending Post-Secondary Schools 1890-1924 –Adolf traditions and developed news ways of expressing Ens ..................................................................................................................61 their conservative orientation in a tropical environ- ment. Change is always part of history and Adolf Rediscovering a Tradition & Vision for Hutterite Mission –Jesse Hofer .......71 Ens uses John Dyck’s earlier research to give us a picture of early Mennonites who pursued higher BIOGRAPHIES education, while Jesse Hofer challenges the idea that Hutterites do not have a mission orientation. Peter A. Elias, Henry Unger Memoirs -trans. By A. Ens ................................79 As always, the personal writings of our people tell their own stories. The memoirs of P.A. Elias offer The Last Days of Ältester Peter R. Dueck –Glen Klassen and Kimberly an interesting window into early Bergthaler-Old Penner .............................................................................................................86 Colony relations while the everyday life of a farm woman highlight the journal of Maria Voth. Altester Glimpses into the Life of a Farm Woman during the War Years -Jack Klassen ... 87 Peter R. Dueck and the 1918 flu epidemic offer our first hint at Glen Klassen and Kimberly Penner’s research on how that epidemic affected Mennonite Book Reviews .................................................................................................98 churches. Finally, a number of new books have been reviewed by generous contributors. It is indeed a Letters ...........................................................................................................105 rich potpourri. Preservings, a journal of the D.F. Plett Historical Research Foundation, Inc., is published annually. Co-editors are Hans Werner 1.204.786.9352 [email protected] and John J. Friesen, 1.204.487.3300, [email protected]. The annual subscription fee is $20.00, and should be made out to the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation, and mailed to Hans Werner, D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation, Inc., University of Winnipeg, 515 Portage Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9. Reader responses are welcome. Please send manuscripts, articles, and/or photographs to the above address at the University of Winnipeg. Our mission is to inform our readers about Mennonite history, and in particular to promote a respectful understanding and appreciation of the contribution made by the so-called conservatives. 2 - Preservings No. 27, 2007 Preservings 27.indd 2 2/15/2008 2:16:09 PM Alive is sweeping, Old Colony leaders have robbed their people of “the joy and freedom Editorial by Hans Werner found in Christ.” (p 8) While there may be much that our Old In its Summer 2006 issue, Word Alive, the author is careful not to directly challenge Colony brothers and sisters could learn from the newsletter of Wycliffe Bible Translators the Old Colony Church’s claim to also be- the more ‘modern’ Mennonite church, I carried feature articles about Mennonites ing a Christian community, the implication would submit the reverse is also true. Their in Bolivia, in Germany and in Canada. The is clear. Leaving the Old Colony Church approach to the ‘speck’ in their neighbour’s focus of the issue was on Low German contributes to a “spiritual awakening’; those eye is, however different than those who feel speakers in these three diverse areas, and who stay “don’t get the spiritual help” they they need to be evangelized. They quietly more particularly on the translation of the need. (p 5) try to model for us a simpler lifestyle, one Bible into Low German. Wycliffe Bible To be sure, there is always a place to that respects the connection of family and Translators were instrumental in creating gather the flock that has become disen- church; one that recognizes that submitting Daut Niehe Testament, and then later trans- chanted with the existing order among other to the Gemeinde is also a true dimension of lating the complete Bible into Low German. Mennonite groups. Mennonite history, how- the Christian community. They recognize The articles in the newsletter also included a ever, forces us to acknowledge how diffi cult much more clearly than some of their core- comprehensive timeline along the bottom of it is for Mennonite groups, be they EMMC, ligionists the dangers of spiritual pride and its pages that outlined the course of Anabap- Bergthaler, Mennonite Brethren, Mennonite the arrogance that too often accompany new tist history over the centuries. The timeline Church, or Old Colony to speak to those who approaches to the Christian life, approaches of Mennonite history is conveyed simply, but have become disenchanted with their way so often borrowed from North American thoroughly and notes the migrations to Rus- of doing church. It is, however, lamentable evangelical movements and blind to how sia and then to Canada and the persistence that there is a desire to ‘evangelize’ our deeply they have drunk at the wells of of Low German in the varied environments own brothers and sisters in the Old Colony American