-
Nurse Katherine Dyck, 1956
Mennonite Central Committee nurse Katherine Dyck poses with mothers and twins in Pusan, Korea, in 1956. Born in Russia in 1925, she immigrated to Rosthern, Sask., and worked as a nurse in Saskatchewan and Maryland before beginning service in Korea in 1953. In 1954, she wrote, “As I daily try to help the many sick…
-
Anna Thiessen, Winnipeg missionary
Missionary to the city of Winnipeg, Anna Thiessen, is seated with some girls she worked with in 1919. Rural life has been an important part of Mennonite life and self-understanding. The city was seen as dangerous and unhealthy and therefore shunned. Mennonite Brethren missionary Anna Thiessen was one of the first Canadian Mennonites who chose…
-
Sunday School in 1980
A group of children from Orchard Park Bible Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., carry signs celebrating the 200th birthday of Sunday school as Kathy and Alfred Guenther present keepsakes to the children. In 1780, Robert Raikes started Sunday school in Gloucester, England, as a way to teach lower-class children morals and religion. Although Sunday school is…
-
Lenore Mendes at Mennonite World Conference, 1990
Lenore Mendes of Guatemala addresses Mennonite World Conference 12 in Winnipeg in 1990. She thought she would be speaking to a few hundred people, but was surprised to see thousands. The Winnipeg gathering was the biggest to date with 13,000 registrants. Her sermon in Winnipeg was an important stepping stone to her election to the…
-
On the way to Sängerfest, 1934
A group of 18 young men and women travel in the back of a truck on their way a Sängerfest or song festival in the Didsbury, Alberta, area in 1934. No seatbelts used here! Song festivals were popular in Mennonite circles as a way of gathering to see old friends, enjoy singing four-part harmony music,…
-
Mennonite World Conference, 1962
In 1962, Canada hosted the Mennonite World Conference for the first time. Twelve thousand delegates attended; 6,000 of these were billeted in local homes. Historian T.D. Regehr notes in Mennonites in Canada: A People Transformed, “The Kitchener-Waterloo area, where Old Order Amish lived side by side with successful Mennonite businessmen, professionals, and academics, provided a…
-
We Shall Remain
We Shall Remain is the title of a documentary series by PBS. We watched a few of the episodes while living in Virginia, where we heard very little of indigenous people, culture, or history. Whenever we asked about it, people we talked to said, “oh yeah, there used to be lots of indigenous people in…
-
Stories of Salvation
Blame. Hatred. Lament. Ignorance. Shame. Defense. It might just seem like stories of the past, but the struggle for history brings out deep feelings, as I discovered in our visit last year to Kyoto. I had heard the Korean narratives of suffering under numerous invasions and finally occupation from Japan. The Korean story is our…
-
Never Again
Charlie Clark, who grew up in the United Church tradition, listened carefully to the stories of his beloved Grandpa Ritchie on his fruit orchard in Naramata, B.C. The stories came from a gentle man who had seen war up close and who believed there was a better way to solving problems. Fred Ritchie was a…
-
60 Years from Now…
Two women, working as “maids” in 1960’s segregated southern United States, cross racial lines to take a risk in telling their stories to an eager young writer. Watching “The Help” in Virginia, I couldn’t help but wonder about the impact of such a film in what was the historic “south.” The film showed…
