It was July 4, 2024. Andrew and I were in Poland, exploring Mennonite history, together with his parents. This was officially Day One of the Mennonite Tour that Andrew had devised for the four of us. We had just explored the housebarns, gardens, and fields of the Olender Ethnographic Park. But there was another important part of this site…
The cemetery!
My first Mennonite cemetery in Poland! Andrew warned me that we had no ancestors buried here that we knew of. But it was still fascinating. This was my first glimpse of Mennonite grave markers in Poland. I hadn’t really been expecting much, I think because maybe I’d been thinking of how the old wooden grave markers in the Pioneer Cemetery in Steinbach had all disintegrated — and frankly the rest are all crumbling too — so if grave markers from the late 1800s can’t last, how can I expect to find markers from the 1700s?
I mean, I probably didn’t see that many 1700s-era markers on this trip, to be frank. Most were from the 1800s. (Probably? I’m very bad at reading them.) But let me tell you, the ones in Poland were not wooden. They were of stone, and more elaborate than I had expected. I wondered if this was because I was accidentally looking at Lutheran stones? This was, after all, a Mennonite AND Lutheran cemetery. (Maybe some Lutherans came over to join the Mennonites… as I have learned that the “original Koop” – more on this later – had actually been a Lutheran, not a Mennonite. He was perhaps not the only one.) I don’t know. They did have what we consider to be “Mennonite names”. I could not tell which were Lutheran and which were Mennonite. For the most part I could not read the gothic script. (In terms of learning to properly process the information that’s right in front of me, I have a long way to go. It would probably help if I was better prepared and also not in a hurry. I wonder how I would do if left alone for a longer period of time in a cemetery like this… I should practice with cemeteries at home in Manitoba.)
Here I will now include specific pictures that Andrew took of stones, in an effort to read them.
I talked about lapidariums in my previous post but just a bit more for a second. Why have I never heard of these before? I find these so interesting! They are what you call markers or stones that are relocated and repositioned for people to see and learn about.
After this, it was time to go.
However.
As with any trip, you learn things about expectations and how to communicate with your fellow travelers. Especially if you’re with your spouse. We’ve learned a lot about how to communicate with each other over the years, but we certainly haven’t arrived yet. In this case, Andrew did not know how to get me out of the cemetery. I later reminded him that subtlety does not work on me in general, but especially perhaps when I am distracted in a cemetery. He has to be very clear: “We need to go now.” But because this was at the beginning of the trip, he was nicely waiting for me. But I thought he was chatting, reflecting, and learning with his parents. I figured while they did that, I could continue to explore. Anyway, this was fairly minor and we figured it out and Andrew became clearer about the tight timeline we were on, and I understood his clear language. (Also his quiet look of concern as he saw me continuing to wander instead of returning to the vehicle, haha.)
Eventually it occurred to me that they were not “just chatting” – they were waiting. For me.
At 4:02pm, we were back on the road heading for the next stop on Andrew’s whirlwind tour!
