~ A Journal of the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation Inc. Preservings $20 Issue No. 37, 2017 “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 In this Issue .................................................... 2 Feature Articles .............................................. 4 Family History ............................................. 57 Table of Contents ........................................... 2 Foodways - A Sustaining Memory............... 38 Book Reviews .............................................. 66 Editorial .......................................................... 3 Articles ......................................................... 45 News............................................................. 67 In this Issue PRESERVINGS 2017 ‘Gardens, kitchens, recipes and remedies’ is the phrase that has guided our collection of articles in this issue. We do not Table of Contents often reflect on the story of the place of food, gardens, flow- In this Issue ............................................................................................ 2 ers, and cures in our past, even have and continue to represent important parts of everyday life. The stories of remedies in this Editorial .................................................................................................. 3 issue begin with the collaboration of Conrad Stoesz, Archivist, and Paul Dyck, English Professor. Their article focusses on a FEATURE ARTICLES: book in the library of the midwife, Katherine Thiessen. We learn KITCHENS, GARDENS, RECIPES A8D REMEDIES about the intricacies of conveying the knowledge of healing In the Garden of the Book: The 1551 Kreuter Buch in Katharina powers possessed by a variety of plants. A short vignette about Thiessen’s Library, by Paul Dyck and Conrad Stoesz ........................... 4 an instrument, the Life Awakener, whose irritations in one part of the body were believed to drive out pain and even illness in The Lebenswecker, by Hans Werner ...................................................... 9 another, and the somewhat comical prescriptions for various Comical Remedies for Stomach and Ear Ailments, by Ralph Friesen ... 11 maladies found by Ralph Friesen in his grandfather’s diaries offer us further windows into a time when medical science did Vegetable Gardens, by Tracy Ruta Fuchs ............................................ 13 not claim dominion over the knowledge of what to do when we The Garden(s) of Riva Palacios: A History, by Kerry Fast .................. 18 did not feel quite right. Our foray into gardens, foods and recipes is rich in its diver- Mennonite Men Consider the Flowers, by Susie Fisher ...................... 23 sity. We have articles about the Mennonite gardens of Manitoba, A Walk through the Gardens in the Archives, by Hans Werner ........... 27 the intersection of gender and flowers and other decorative plants, and a reflective look at the role of gardens in Bolivia. Along with Food and Spirituality, by Daphne Thiessen ......................................... 30 a photo essay on gardens in two very different landscapes, the Immigrant Cooking in Mexico: The Mennonite Kitchens of Russian Empire and Paraguay, these articles suggest the both the Chihuahua, by Karen Hursh Graber ..................................................... 33 emotional and practical dimensions of the Mennonite garden. 'Pig Killing' in Lost in Like the garden, the food we eat has both aesthetic and practi- the Steppe, by Arnold Dyck ................................................................. 37 cal dimensions. Food is something we engage with daily and is an intensely cultural and ethnic experience that is constantly FOODWAYS—A SUSTAINING MEMORY evolving. Karen Hursh Graber’s blog offers a glimpse from an outsider into the cross-cultural movement of ingredients and food Preserving Grandpa, by Robyn Sneath ................................................ 38 in Mexico. An translated excerpt from Arnold Dyck’s writings Ten Epic Mennonite Dishes We Wish Were Real, allows us into the Russian Mennonite ritual of the fall pig killing by Andrew Bergman ............................................................................ 40 bee. Daphne Thiessen’s essay, given as a talk at the EastMenn Mennonite Waffles with White Sauce, by Jody Arsenault ................... 41 lectures in Steinbach, Mb is more reflective, challenging us to think in new ways about the meaning of faith and food. Finally, 31 Days of Cookbooks: The Mennonite Treasury, in a subsection, we have collected a series of short articles and by Valerie Comer.................................................................................. 42 blogs from the internet that in some way remind us of the im- The Manitoba Food History Project: Coming Soon to Steinbach, portance of food in the sustaining of much more than our bodies. by Janis Thiessen ................................................................................. 43 In addition to our feature section we have an explanation by Rebecca Janzen of a complex land conflict in Mexico where ideas ARTICLES and structures (ejidos) meant to redistribute land to peasants in Whose Land? Conflict between Colonies and Ejidos in the Mexican Mexico collides with the Mennonite migration to Mexico and State of Chihuahua, by Rebecca Janzen .............................................. 45 the eventual expansion of Mennonite colonies. Ernie Braun has kindly allowed us to publish his talk from the EastMenn lectures When Parents Leave Children Behind: The Mennonite Waisenamt, on the Waisanamt. Our book review section is somewhat shorter by Ernie Braun ..................................................................................... 51 than usual—it seems that fewer books reached our desks. Please do send us books or information about books that you would FAMILY HISTORY like to see reviewed. Biography: Jacob B. Reimer (1916-1985), ur Cover brings to life the theme of the feature articles in by Maria (Mary) Reimer de Friesen. ................................................... 57 Othis issue. The Mennonite Heritage Village has a wonderful The “3 R’s” in Northern Alberta: A Mennonite Youth’s Start garden, faithfully planted and maintained by volunteers. The great at a New School, by Peter Goertzen .................................................... 62 image of a tomato reminds us of the goodness of the garden. Mennonite Queso, or cheese gives nod to a food that escapes its BOOK REVIEWS ...................................................................66 ethnic origins and boundaries. And a page from a book of remedies — solutions for the body before health became a science. NEWS .......................................................................................67 Preservings, a journal of the D.F. Plett Historical Research Foundation, Inc., is published annually. Preservings is edited by: Hans Werner, 1.204.786.9352, [email protected]. The annual subscription fee is $20.00, and cheques 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. 37, 2017 by Hans Werner Editorial Editor With this issue of Preservings my involvement as editor of telling. It is easy to focus on the weaknesses of the present of the magazine comes to an end. I will be retiring from both and recent pasts; the times and places where their community my roles—that of editor of Preservings and as the Executive structures, rituals and systems fail them. There are notable Director of the D.F. Plett Historical Research Foundation at and difficult stories of failure, the rapes in Bolivia, the recur- the end of June 2018. I will also be retiring from my position ring stories of Low German Mennonites involved in the drug in the History Department at the University of Winnipeg at trade, and the realities of endemic abuse, stand out as tragic the same time. Indeed, it seems all good things must come to and painful stories that the rest of the Mennonite world recoils an end. The arrival at a milestone invariably results in some at in shock and embarrassment. Many, maybe most Menno- reflections on the history project that I have been part of for nites, are content to relegate them to margins and to use their the last ten or eleven years. historical trajectories, their points of divergence from the rest I teach a course in the Fall 2017 semester at the University of Mennonites, as adequate explanation for their failures. They of Winnipeg that is a survey of Mennonite history beginning are, however, on a different path, one that actively seeks to with the Radical Reformation—those reformers in 1525 who remain separate from the world. It forces upon them arbitrary decided that Luther had not gone far enough, that the church choices about what aspects of the modern world they out of should be made up of believers who had come to membership as necessity