Building and Leaving Borosenko: the Diary of Abraham F
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Building and Leaving Borosenko: The Diary of Abraham F. Reimer 1 January 1870 – 10 April 1874 Translated by Steve Fast Revised 12 November 2018 i Introduction As the new year of 1870 dawned across southern Russia, Borosenko Colony was a bustling collection of Mennonite villages that were springing up from the broad steppe. Families were improving their homes and planting gardens, and farmers were building new barns and breaking farmland. Borosenko had only existed for about five years, but it held great promise for its settlers. Nearly all of the settlers in Borosenko Colony came from Molotschna Colony, where two thirds of the families had no farm but instead worked as impoverished laborers for fellow Mennonites. The Mennonite church leaders colluded with the colony administrators to keep young families off of new farms and to rent the resulting vacant land to themselves. However, the Kleine Gemeinde (KG), a breakaway group of Mennonites in Molotschna Colony was different. Its leaders had initially Figure 1 Europe in 1870, showing the location of loaned money to young families to buy farms; but Mennonite settlements in Russia. by 1860, the available land in the Molotschna Colony was running out. The KG tried to solve the problem by renting land and forming the Markusland Colony 70 miles (110km) north of Molotschna in 1863.1 For various reasons, the KG abandoned Markusland in about 1865, and acquired 16,500 acres (6500 ha) of land from a nobleman named Borosenko.2 The new Borosenko Colony was located 90 miles (150 km) northwest of Molotschna. New KG families from Molotschna continued joining the colony until late 1872 and buying and renting more land. The colony grew and became the center of KG life. The second motivation for forming Borosenko was to develop an independent base for KG life. The Kleine Gemeinde had been derisively nicknamed the “Small Congregation” by the majority Mennonite church when they separated from it in 1812. Although they were eventually accepted on more or less equal terms, the Grosse Gemeinde controlled the colony administration. The KG attended different worship services and held more strictly to original Anabaptist beliefs, so there was ongoing tension between the two groups. Forming a new settlement at Borosenko enabled them to bring their mass of members together in one area, although a KG congregation also continued in Molotschna. The Kleine Gemeinde had separated from the main Mennonite church in Russia in 1812 over a number of issues but most importantly whether Mennonites should participate in enforcing civil and criminal punishments against fellow Mennonites. Abraham’s father, Klaas E. Reimer, had been a leader of the breakaway group and was its elder until he died in 1837, when Abraham was 29 years Front cover: Market square in Nikopol’ at the beginning of the 20th century, where Abraham Reimer sold grain and bought many curiosities. Source: ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Никополь_(Днепропетровская_область). 1 D. Plett, “Markuslandt, Andreasfeld,” Preservings (Steinbach, Manitoba) 17 (December 2000): 91. 2 Rudy P. Friesen, Building on the Past: Mennonite Architecture, Landscape, and Settlements in Russia/Ukraine (Winnipeg: Raduga, 2004): 441. ii old. At first the KG was ostracized from general Mennonite life, but gradually and with Johann Cornies’ (1789-1848) help, it gained recognition from fellow Mennonites and the Russian government. Several traits set the KG apart from the rest of the Mennonites in south Russia: they refused to detain or criminally punish fellow Mennonites who had broken the law, they strictly excommunicated fellow believers (and often family members) who had sinned but refused to repent, their ministers did not take advantage of their exemption from road and other work details, they valued the early Dutch Anabaptist leaders and writings, and they made sure that their young families had farm land. The KG also had an unfortunate tendency to split. In the 1860s, there had been a severe split over church discipline issues. Even though these issues were healed, two congregations of KG developed in Borosenko, one based at Heubuden and the other called the Blumenhof congregation (later meeting in a new school/church building at Grünfeld).3 The Abraham Reimers were members of the Figure 2 Map of modern-day southern Ukraine (then southern Russia) showing the key places mentioned in the diary. Source: Google Maps with author’s modifications. 3 Harold S. Bender, “Kleine Gemeinde,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, accessed 14 October 2018, online at https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Kleine_gemeinde, although written from a perspective hostile to the KG. iii latter. There were also KG in Crimea, led by Elder Jacob Wiebe (1836-1921). Probably due to distance, the Crimea group gradually separated and in 1869 organized the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren. But the KMB and the KG kept close relations at least until 1874, when the KG emigrated to Manitoba and Nebraska. The KMB emigrated separately to Marion County, Kansas, in 1874. The Diarist As Abraham F. Reimer (1808-1892) sat down to record his thoughts on that first, cold and cloudy Thursday of 1870, he noted things that would become themes throughout his diary – the worship service in Rosenfeld to dedicate the new year to God, the weather, a cow calving on his farm, and his daughter preparing to give birth to a child. He was 61 years old and about to retire from his farming and turn it over to his sons. He had been born in 1808 in the village of Tiege, Molotschna, to Klaas E. Reimer (1770-1837) and Helena von Riesen (1787-1846). His father Klaas had been one of the founders of the KG in 1812, and was its leading elder until he died in 1837.4 Abraham married Elisabeth Rempel (1814-1893) in 1835 in the village of Lichtfelde at her parents’ home, when he was 27 and she was 20.5 Although they then lived in the village of Rosenort, he Figure 3 First page of the Abraham F. Reimer diary. probably did not own a farm there as he is not on the voters lists compiled between 1847 and 1862.6 He was supported financially by the KG congregation from 1847-1858.7 So he was surely glad for the chance to move to Borosenko in the mid-1860s to buy a farm. 4 Entries for Abraham Reimer #3945, Klaas E. Reimer #3944, Helena von Riesen #3596, Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry, CD-ROM version 6 (Fresno: California Mennonite Historical Society). 5 Entry for Elisabeth Rempel #3955, GRanDMA. 6 Glenn H. Penner, “Molotschna Colony Voter Lists: 1847, 1850, 1857 and 1862,” Russian Mennonite Genealogical Resources, accessed 14 October 2018, online at http://mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Molotschna_1847_to_1862_Voters.pdf. 7 Delbert F. Plett, Saints and Sinners: The Kleine Gemeinde in Imperial Russia, 1812 to 1875 (Steinbach: Crossway Publications, 1999) 248. iv Figure 4 Ancestry chart of Abraham Reimer. The Jacob Wiebe and Elisabeth Walde lines extend back for generations that are not shown. Family By 1870, Abraham and Elisabeth Reimer had been married for 34 years and had eight children, all of whom had survived to adulthood. And those children had blessed them with eighteen grandchildren. Sixteen grandchildren were added during the period of the diary. His sister Helena, a daughter-in-law Elisabeth (Friesen) Reimer, and three grandchildren died during the period covered by the diary. Seven of his children also lived in Borosenko Colony, so he enjoyed a large and close-knit family. During the period covered by the diary, Abraham and Elisabeth Reimer lived in the village of Steinbach, Borosenko Colony. Their oldest son Klaas (32 years old at the beginning of the diary, 1837-1906) and his wife Katharina Willms lived in the same village with six children ranging in age from 2 to 11 years. Klaas was a blacksmith and would become a business leader of the Steinbach village in Manitoba. Their daughter Helena (31 years old, b. 1839) had married Heinrich Hildebrandt and lived in Molotschna Colony with their one daughter. Son Abraham (28 years old, 1841-1891) was married to his second wife Maria Reimer and lived in the village of Blumenhof, about 7 miles (12km) southeast, with their six children. Daughter Elisabeth (26 years old, 1843-1918) was married to Peter Toews and lived in Rosenfeld, about 6 miles (9km) east, with their four children. Son Peter (24 years old, 1845-1915) had just married Elisabeth Friesen and had no children yet. They also lived in Steinbach. Son Johann (21 years old, 1848-1918) had married Anna Warkentin seven months before and also lived in Rosenfeld and had no children yet. Daughter Katharina (19 years old, 1850-1912) had married Abraham Friesen. They lived in Rosenfeld and had one son, but they would move to Steinbach in 1872. Finally, daughter Margaretha (17 years old, 1852-1920) had married Abraham Penner five months before. They lived in Rosenfeld and had no children yet. v Figure 5 Map of Borosenko Colony. Source: Friesen 440. The translator does not believe that Grünfeld is correctly located. The KG Blumenhof congregation built a school and church building in Grünfeld, so it would have been centrally located and not 15 miles north of the rest of the colony. The Blumenhof’ congregation had met in Rosenfeld and Steinbach before building the new meeting place, so Grünfeld must have been located between the two of them. Abraham was close to his younger brother Klaas F. Reimer (1812-1874). Klaas F. was a successful farmer, in contrast to Abraham, and lived in Tiege, Molotschna, until the spring of 1871, when he moved to Blumenhof, Borosenko, where he established a farm. They visited each other frequently.