Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring listeners the story of Manitoba born and raised nurse and midwife, Anna Thiessen. For years, she was the only trained medical practitioner in Colonia Sommerfeld, Paraguay. Anna helped an estimated 1,000 mothers deliver their babies. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Men...

Send us Fan Mail In this REWIND episode, host Dan Dyck explores the Mennonite holiday tradition called brommtopp, named for the strange musical instrument used, which can be translated as "rumbling top". This tradition was brought to Imperial Russia from Prussia, and continued in Manitoba into the 1950's.   Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift he...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we have a nostalgic retelling in English of the story Christmas 1926 by beloved Low German story teller Gerhard Ens. Told through the eyes of 10-year-old Hauns, Gerhard imagines a fictional account of what it might have been like for Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union to celebrate their first Christmas in Canada. We are grateful for the extra time Golden West has gran...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we bring you an episode with the excessively alliterative of Festive Foods and Folkways from the Mennonite Traditio n. This instalment is based on a two-volume book series by Norma Jost Voth. She interviewed about 60 elder women who brought their Christmas traditions and celebrations from Russia to North America. Tune in to hear about Norma’s work, and listen to s...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we’re delighted to bring you an interview with Patrick Friesen, a third generation Mennonite from Paraguay. His great-grandfather, C.F. Friesen, was one of the early leaders and teachers in Paraguay. Patrick shares about the historical migration from Manitoba, paints a picture of the Menno Colony today — and issues an invitation in English and Low German to visit...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you a story that’s about as close to a Whodunnit Mystery as Mennonite history gets. It’s a story about a baby, a pig pen, and ongoing attempts to get rid of the child — even as he grows up. To learn more, tune in to Episode 53 of Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.56...

Send us Fan Mail After a few consecutive episodes that leaned into some darker stories in Mennonite history, we’re pleased to bring you something on the lighter side. To air on Sunday, Nov. 30 we bring you… (drumroll )… A Short History of House Barns! Join me and Roland Sawatsky, curator at the Manitoba Museum and past curator at the Mennonite Village Museum in Steinbach, as we reveal that a house...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you Part 3, the final instalment of our series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary leader during the civil uprisings of the late 1910s. In Part 3, Sean Patterson brings us insights into the role that wealth and ethnicity played in the movement named for Makhno, and draw some conclusions about what Mennonites today can and should take away from thi...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you Part 2 of a 3-part series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary during the civil uprisings of the late 1910s. Part 2 focuses on the terrible Eichenfeld Massacre on Nov. 8, 1919, when well over 100 Mennonites were executed by Nestor Makhno's men. More Mennonites were murdered in surrounding villages. Did Nestor Makhno attend these events? Wh...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we start a three part series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary during the Ukrainian Revolution in the late 1910s. Makhno was reviled by some, and praised by others. He commanded 100,000 troupes, bands of whom pillaged Mennonite villages, executed Mennonite landowners, and raped and killed Mennonite women. The Makhno name still strikes horror in some Menn...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we we present you with the story of Smallpox and the Mennonite Experience. According to historians, the smallpox virus has been circulating among humans for about 3,000 years. In this episode, we unpack the involvement of Russian Empress Catherine the Great and her vaccine cause, and share Mennonite encounters with smallpox and vaccinations as they lived and travelled acros...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we deliver Part 2 of our conversation with Mennonite author and satirist Andrew Unger, in which we ask how the Low German language influences satire, what makes satire funny – or not, and whether popular media has changed what Mennonite people find funny. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by vi...

Send us Fan Mail Today we bring you Part 1 of a two-part chat with Andrew Unger. He is the author and creator of The Unger Review , a satirical web site that gently and humorously skewers Mennonite faith and culture. Andrew tells me how his sense of humour developed, the little known influence of satire on early Anabaptists, the benefits of laughing about Mennonite Tupperware, and how his humour i...

Send us Fan Mail Today we bring you a special feature for Thanksgiving weekend! Mennonite history enthusiast Gerhard Ens first recorded this fictional account of the first harvest by Mennonites in Canada (1876) on audio tape in the Low German language. The story, told through the eyes of an impatient 10-year-old Henry, has now been translated into English and adapted for radio by the Tales team. ...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we present the life story of the inspiring and resilient Susana Miller. Despite multiple family tragedies and hard times, Susana managed to rise above it all, and find joy in her 101 years of living. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https:/...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you a 100-year-old story about a government tactic that was used as recently 2010. During World War I, the federal government ordered all Canadian citizens to register. They needed to know how many recruits they could rely on should the war drag on. Based on their principles and values, some Mennonites in southern Manitoba refused to register. Even threats of fines...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we bring you an interview with Ben Nobbs-Thiessen. He studies the history of Mennonite migration at the University of Winnipeg. We talk about his visits and research among Mennonites in Bolivia, what change looks like in that context, and what we in Canada can learn from Mennonite migrations to Latin America. Your donations help preserve and share stories like thi...

Send us Fan Mail You’ll want to tune in to this delightful conversation with Erin Koop Unger, who writes for the Mennotoba blog about local Mennonite and Manitoba history. We learn about a discovery she made while researching her own family background, and we find out how many wood ticks she gets while out exploring abandoned cemeteries. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one...

Send us Fan Mail Peter J. Klassen (1889-1953) was one of many educated Mennonites who migrated to Canada and took up farming out of necessity. After fleeing from the Soviet Union in 1925, him and his wife Elisabet (Liese), built a life on the prairies of Saskatchewan near the community of Herschel. They eventually retired to Yarrow, British Columbia. Throughout his life, he read and wrote extensiv...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dan Dyck sits down to discuss the research of PhD student Jonathan Hildebrand. Jonathan is exploring Indigenous-Mennonite relations through his research of land and waterways on the historical West Reserve in southern Manitoba. He is based at the University of Manitoba and is originally from Altona, Manitoba. Previously he worked for nearly a decade as an urban planner in the...

Send us Fan Mail In our second part on Steinbach engineer Klaas W. Brandt, we learn about how he helped two budding entrepreneurs and pilots build Steinbach’s first airplane in the early 1930s.  Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow th...

Send us Fan Mail Many small communities have a person that everyone knows, who doesn't quite fit the standard mold, but has become a part of the fabric of the place. In this episode, host Dan Dyck explores the story of 'Flower Annie' of Winkler, Manitoba. 'Flower Annie' was born Anna Neufeld in 1909 and earned her nickname and living by selling paper flowers around town. D...

Send us Fan Mail Summer Rewind - Author Ralph Friesen sits down with Dan Dyck to discuss his recently published book Prosperity Ever – Depression Never: Steinbach in the 1930s . Published by the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, this book looks at the history of this community, primarily Mennonite, and how it weathered the Great Depression better than other communities in Manitoba at the time...

Send us Fan Mail Summer Rewind - In today's episode, host Dan Dyck sits down with archivist of the Mennonite Heritage Archives Conrad Stoesz to discuss their mutual love of Mennonite history, where the Mennonite Heritage Archives originated, and what archives can offer us today. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dan Dyck presents the life story of Anna Thiessen (1892-1977). While Anna had dreamt of working in India, her life would lead her to Winnipeg. Here she provided support to young women entering the workforce as matron of Mary Martha Home. This was a place for Mennonite girls to live and build community while they supported their far-flung families through work as domestic help...