Preface


My grandparents, Jacob & Lena (Zimmerman) Willems, were step-brother and step-sister in a marriage my family says was arranged by the Mennonite Brethren Church. Grandma's father, Heinrich H. Zimmermann (1866-1934), was a widower with 5 children, whose wife, Maria Dyck Zimmermann (1861-1905), died soon after the family arrived in Canada (1903) from a Mennonite colony in what is now Ukraine. Grandpa's mother, Elisabeth Bolt Willems (1858-1943), was a widow with 9 children whose husband, Cornelius Willems (1885-1902), died two years after the family arrived in Saskatchewan in 1900 from Mountain Lake, Minnesota, the place where the family settled after emigrating from a Mennonite settlement in Crimea in 1875. Jacob & Lena were married in 1909. They moved to Reedley, California in 1919.

There is an even earlier couple important to this history, Gerhard Willems (1820-1900) and Katharina Rempel Willems (1823-1875), Cornelius' parents. Their story reaches back to the early years of Mennonite sesttlement in the land they knew as South Russia, a story of migration from the North Sea to the Black Sea, from Eastern Europe to North America.

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The H.H. Zimmermann Pulpit




            One of the delightful surprises of writing this blog is being found by other Willems and Zimmermann descendants.  The photos of the pulpit below were sent to me by Dennis Zimmerman who lives in Winkler, Manitoba.  He is another great-grandchild of Heinrich H. Zimmermann.  HHZ’s son Henry (1895-1977) was Dennis’ beloved grandfather.

            The pulpit is in a scale model replica of the Brotherfield Mennonite Brethren Church near Waldheim, Saskatchewan.  I’d heard that my great-grandfather Zimmermann made the pulpit for the Brotherfield MB Church, but gave it little thought.  The snapshot my dad had was dark.  I couldn’t see any details, just saw the usual pulpit shape.  I had no idea how beautiful it was until I saw these photos Dennis sent.  



            My aunts Mary Davis and Rosella Noble said that their Grandpa Zimmermann was a carpenter and made beautiful cupboards in people’s houses when he lived in Reedley.  They also said he painted flowers on them.  Those flowers can be seen on the top of the pulpit.    

            Heinrich Zimmermann was not just a carpenter.  This pulpit is a beautiful piece of furniture, and I’m wondering if the factory where he worked in Sergejevka might not have been a furniture factory.  The Mennonites in Russia did build furniture, and this pulpit looks very much like some of the painted furniture in the book, Mennonite Furniture: A Migrant Tradition (1766-1910).[i]  I’ve not yet found mention of a furniture factory in Sergejevka, but that does not mean there wasn’t one there.   I will see if I can find out more information.


[i] Reinhild Kauenhoven Janzen & John M. Janzen, Good Books, 1991.