I don’t understand the concept of gifts. I love putting up a Christmas tree, essentially just to hold a lot of lights on dark winter nights. But we do not put presents under it. Turns out neither of us cares about presents. More about presence. (Ha, sorry, I know you’re rolling your eyes right now.) This year I had the idea to shop our own libraries. Choose a book for each other that we own but know they haven’t read, wrap it, and put it under the tree. For me, Andrew chose In Search of Utopia: The Mennonites in Manitoba by E.K. Francis, because it’s required reading for someone who professes to be interested in Manitoba Mennonite history. So obviously I should read it.
As you probably are aware, this is an academic book, published in 1955. But I am not an academic, so I’m going to miss telling you essential things about it. I’m just going to tell you my uneducated views and experiences and I’m not going to do it the right way.
To me, it’s like a time capsule. E.K. Francis researched the Manitoba Mennonite people group in the 1940s, just after the second World War. It was a whole other time. Evangelicalism was beginning to strongly influence Mennonites here. The experiences of the Conscientious Objectors was very fresh. The end of village life was still visceral — there were still old timers who could talk about the transition. I loved being able to step back into that world and see how the changes in the world at large was affecting change in Mennonite communities here. It really allowed me to understand what the world was like for my grandparents, and what kind of world my dad was born into, apart from our specific family story.
But of course, I’m only writing that because that was the portion of the book I just finished reading — the end. (Or, the end as far as 1955 goes.) Like seemingly all books about Mennonites, In Search of Utopia begins with the birth of Anabaptism in the 1500s.
I should start even further back, though. I think Andrew found this particular volume at the Steinbach MCC thrift shop. Inside is written in ink, “Harry Neufeld, Steinbach” and above Harry’s name is a quick “2.00” in pencil. Further in, we see that E.K. Francis was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. And the book was published by D.W. Friesen & Sons Ltd. of Altona. This volume itself was sold by Evangel Book Shop in Steinbach. Every bit of this tells me something of the journey of this book, and the community around it. But E.K. Francis? How did a Professor from the University of Notre Dame end up researching Manitoba Mennonites? Well, I’m going to tell you what I think I know. (Because I’m lazy, obviously.)
I forget which public lecture I was attending, and which organization was hosting it (in all likelihood it was the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies out of the University of Winnipeg) and obviously I forget all details, but I remember hearing something to the effect of the government of Manitoba finding the special combination of peculiarity and success of the Mennonites to be a little irritating, so they enlisted the help of E.K. Francis to expose these backward people and take them down a few pegs. (Am I making this up entirely? Could be. I should call this blog fiction, honestly. Just in case.) But all did not go according to plan. Because as Francis learned who and what these strange people were, he came to appreciate them. And that is reflected in this book.
For a while now, I’ve been mystified by why so many Manitoba Mennonites call themselves German. Because from what I can tell, none of the people I myself am descended from have ever lived in Germany. I’m just seeing a lot of Poland and South Russia. And prior to that it gets sketchy but there’s Belgium (Flanders) and The Netherlands and Sweden for some reason. Literally nothing in Germany. But, I’m mostly descended from the 1870s folk, and as I’ve learned from this book, the Mennonites who remained in Europe longer came to deeply appreciate Germany and in a search for a sense of nationalism attach themselves to Germany, for many reasons. Also, I suppose I’m glossing over (typical me) the fact that Germany took over Poland when Mennonites were there (ish) and that’s how they came to have German names for their villages. Or something like that. (I’d fail a test on this for sure. Apologies to everyone I am angering here.)
Okay, moving on!
On page 38, I’m interested in a mention of the delegates who were sent to check out North America in 1873. “The twelfth man, a wealthy Mennonite land owner, travelled as a private individual and at his own expense with the Bergthal delegates.” Yeah, that guy’s my frindschoft. There’s a whole thing there and it’s linked to this. And this. I’ve heard someone (not me) is doing research, possibly writing a book on this. Fingers crossed it ends up being what I hope for. (About money, scandal, betrayal, and Bergthalers. Spoiler alert: no academic research ever quite lives up to what I imagine — because I lean toward the fantastical, not factual. Though I do believe the two can meld. Truth being stranger than fiction, etc. I feel like Mennonites have a way of obscuring facts no one is meant to know.)
I read all the citations and additional notes in small type at the bottom of each page as well, and on page 60 I was fascinated to read this note: “The relative wealth of the Mennonites is constantly mentioned in contemporary sources. For instance, the New York Sun, of August 22, 1873, wrote that ‘they give evidence of being among the most valuable immigrants ever landed at Castle Garden, being among the most intelligent and most moral, and beyond a doubt the wealthiest class who have sought our shores.'” While that is a very nice quote and weirdly flattering to Mennonites, I also took pleasure (and amazement) in it because this past fall Andrew and I visited Castle Garden because one of my ancestors landed there in 1876. This felt like additional proof that yes, this was a fact, this was real.
At the bottom of page 115, I was fascinated to learn that “the Russian thistle seems to have been introduced to the Canadian West with the Mennonite seed grain.” I will probably not look at Russian thistles the same again. I often think the Mennonites planted all these cottonwoods but that is not the only thing they planted.
This has nothing really to do with the larger story Francis was revealing, of course, and was only a little liner note, however it’s these little random additional bits that catch my attention. And, I’m only telling you about what I made a little note of. For the most part I simply read the whole book as if it were a novel, straight through. And thoroughly enjoyed it.
Other notes I made include “148 Lost River” because a large part of my mother’s family story begins there. The mention here is small, just part of a larger story about Saskatchewan being open to settlers and how Mennonites aggressively moved in, with Lost River being settled in 1911. I will have to look and see how this aligns with the Neufeld side of my family story.
And then, one more note: “look for Hochstadt post office” — I didn’t even write a page number for this. I was interested in how Francis talked about the different Manitoba Mennonite villages and what became of them, and Hochstadt in particular because I believe that is where my grandpa Koop came from, and his father (or grandfather?) had been the postmaster for a time. So I need to look more carefully into this and I really wish I had written a page number for this.
Other things that caught my attention include the tables, charts, and maps talking about where Mennonites settled — particularly the villages and what became of them. It was interesting to see how he analyzed the formation of the East Reserve versus the West Reserve, and Scratching River. How the colonies they all came from, and their churches, and the topography, and everything all came together to make the various cities thrive and villages die.
It really made the history of this place come alive for me, but not in a specific way. Just in a foggy, dreamy way, because that is how my brain works. But it’s making me see even Steinbach differently. It’s like I can see the arrival, the building, the tearing down, the rebuilding, all in fast forward. It’s fascinating.
I think my book for February will be one of Ralph Friesen’s books. Now that I have read In Search of Utopia, it is time.