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…
Longing for peace in Niagara
The historic District of Niagara included what is roughly the whole of the Niagara Peninsula. It began at Hamilton and stretched along Lake Ontario toward the Niagara River, bordering the United States, and it continued southwest from Fort Erie along Lake Erie past the mouth of the Grand River into Haldimand County, although the Mennonite…
On the margins
The previous article, “Landscapes of war, a people of peace,” June 25, page 12, noted the challenge of identifying “the Mennonite experience” in the War of 1812, and the fact that the war was significant as the first testing of conscientious objection in Canada. But how diverse were those experiences, and did Mennonites in 1812…
Landscapes of war, a people of peace
The War of 1812 is important to commemorate for many reasons. As the only defensive war fought on Canadian soil in the last two centuries, it was also the first testing of the historic peace churches’ position of conscientious objection in Canadian history. Arguably, it led to the birth of Canadian nationhood, and at the…
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…
When you come . . .
In addition to the usual Assembly 2011 activities, local organizers have planned a number of tours of Waterloo Region, including: Historic Ebytown. Engage the historical Mennonite presence in downtown Kitchener over the past two centuries. Tour the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum, whose theme for the week of July 4 to 8 is “Mennonite foodways” (food…
Meet me at the Grand!
It is 1786. The first Swiss Mennonites have just arrived in Ontario, having travelled from Pennsylvania in Conestoga wagons. They crossed the mighty Niagara River by taking the wheels off their wagons, sealing the wagon boxes to make boats, and then floating across. Cattle and horses swam. These immigrants initially settled along the north shore…
