The Zimmermanns

“Mrs. Lena Zimmerman Willems was born in South Russia in the Firstenland in Syejowka on February 6, 1893, to Rev. and Mrs. H. H. Zimmerman, and departed this life at the age of 70 years, 5 months and 24 days in a Tulare, California hospital. … She came to Winkler, Manitoba, Canada, with her parents in 1903.”[1]                                                                                                                                                                    

            My grandmother, Helena (Lena) Zimmerman Willems, was born in a Mennonite village on the south/east bank of the Dneiper River in what is now Ukraine, a land she knew as South Russia.  The year was 1893; the name of the village was Sergeyevka, which was one of the villages in the Fürstenland, a daughter colony of Chortitza, the first colony established by the Mennonites in the steppe land bordering the Black Sea.  Grandma spent the first ten years of her life in that village, and she remembered it after she left.  She remembered seeing people bathing naked in the river; she remembered being very sick—rheumatic fever, and being buried in the river sand to bring down her temperature.  When her daughters asked Grandma what this place looked like, she said it was beautiful.  Her parents didn’t want to leave south Russia, but they “smelled trouble,” and decided it was necessary.

            Grandma’s father was Heinrich H. Zimmerman, a Mennonite Brethren preacher.  Her mother was Maria Dyck Zimmerman, who died when my grandmother was a young girl.  I have known that basic information since what feels like forever, but exactly when and where Grandma’s mother died was hazy.  My dad told me that his mom’s mother was sick when the time came for the family to leave South Russia—so sick she knew she was going to die, and she told her family they must go without her.  They didn’t want to, but she insisted.  Reluctantly, they obeyed her wish.  She died shortly after they left.  Dad told me this story in the early 1990s.  He was almost eighty years old, crippled from a stroke, and the thought of that his Grandmother Maria Dyck Zimmerman being left behind to die haunted him. 

Maria Dyck Zimmermann (1861-1905)

            My dad’s dramatic story is not supported by family records:  1) The obituary written for Grandma’s funeral says that she arrived in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada in 1903 “with her parents.” 2)  The record of Zimmerman family births, deaths and emigration dates received from my dad’s sister Mary gives April 6, 1905 as Maria Dyck Zimmermann’s death date.

            Grandma’s mother, Maria Dyck Zimmermann, died almost two years after the family arrived in Canada.  She was not left behind in Russia.  She did not die alone.  She died surrounded by her family.  That story of her death is described in a letter written by her husband, H.H. Zimmermann, which I found in the archives of the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas.  It was written just a month after Maria Dyck Zimmermann’s death, and it is no less dramatic and compelling than the one that gripped my father’s imagination.  The letter was addressed to the readers of the Zionsbote, the Mennonite Brethren newspaper that circulated throughout the MB world—Canada, the United States, South Russia.  It was printed in the May 7, 1905 issue, written while H.H. Zimmerman’s grief was fresh, an out-pouring of his heart.  It is a long letter (1500 words), and in it HHZ tells about more than Maria’s death.  He tells the story of his life up through Maria’s last days and final release from suffering.  I shall begin that story next week.

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[1] Obituary written by the family and read at my grandmother’s funeral 1963 (my aunt Helen, the oldest daughter, is the likely author).

Notice: No Post March 15

I will be out of town this coming week and will not be able to post on the blog March 15.  I shall resume March 22.

The Death of Cornelius Willems (1855-1902)

Rosthern, Saskatchewan:

            “…August 12^th.  Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord!  I greet you with peace.  This time it is a message of sadness which I have to share with the dear readers: it has pleased the dear heavenly Father to call our dear Brother Cornelius Willems out of this life into the beyond.  He was buried today in our new cemetery near the meetinghouse with great funeral participation.  The dear brother brought his age to 47 years, 5 months and 21 day.  He lived in marriage 21 years, 4 months and 14 days.  His dear wife and nine children mourn his death.  His sickness was liver disease and dropsy [edema, fluid retention].  He had already been suffering for a long time, but at the last he was critically ill for five weeks, and he often had great pain.  He lived in faith [as a believer] for 13 years.  He was a faithful member of our church till his death and we feel the loss with pain.”                                                                  J.F. Strausz  Zionsbote, 3 Sep 1902.[1] 

“Cornelius was the first person to be buried at the Brotherfield Church which he had helped to organize.”                                                                                   Willems Gen. I. II. III.

                                                      

                                                                                                     

              Cornelius and Elisabeth Willems moved with their family to Saskatchewan in 1900, the same year old Gerhard Willems died.  Cornelius was likely one of the sons who viewed the old man’s body before it was buried.  Two years later, Cornelius, too, would be buried.  He was only 47 years old when he died—of “liver disease and dropsy.”  He had been sick for a long time, and “had a longing to be released and rejoiced to see the Lord.”[2]   

There is no obituary for Cornelius written by the family in the Zionsbote archives.  His children did not forget the sorrow and desperation of that time, though.  When it came time for them to write an obituary for their mother, Elisabeth, they spoke of the pain and desperation she felt when Cornelius, her husband died:

           “In the year 1900 they settled in Saskatchewan, Canada, where they made their home at Brotherfield, in the hope of making their life work on the farm easier.  Man thinks, but God arranges.  God’s ways were appointed differently.  In the year 1902 her husband, our father, became ill and was taken from her side through death on August 8^th.  Alone with nine children, of whom 8 children were born in Mountain Lake and one in Canada, she looked into the dark future, and in looking to the Lord, who is the Lord over widows and orphans, she overcame this pain….  Happy was marriage, difficult was the pain of parting.”                                                                             

                                                                                                EBWZ Obituary Zionsbote 5 January 1944[3]

            Elisabeth Boldt Willems was 43 years old when her husband died.  She was a widow with nine children living on a new homestead on the Canadian prairie, a daunting situation.  However, she was not, strictly speaking, alone.   She had two, unmarried, fully grown sons—Cornelius, named for his father who was twenty years old, and my grandfather, Jacob, who turned nineteen the day before his father died.  Those two sons had likely already taken over the work of the homesteading during their father’s illness.  Elisabeth also had teen-aged daughters to help her in the house—Elisabeth, who turned seventeen on September 12, and Anna, who turned fifteen on September 14.  The two middle sons, Gerhard and Heinrich, who were ten and almost twelve, were old enough to help their big brothers.  Even little Maria, who turned eight on October 22, would have had chores.   She could have been a big help looking after the two littlest ones, Margareta, who was two, and Katherina, who was four.

            However, children, even full-grown sons, are not the same as a husband.  They are not life partners, intimate companions.  In that sense, Elisabeth was truly alone.  Children grow up and leave home.  They need to live their own lives, start their own families.  How long would her two oldest sons be willing to stay at home and work her homestead?  How long could she count on their help?  The future must indeed have looked dark, frightening.

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[1] Extracted and translated by Peggy Goertzen on behalf of Loretta Willems, December 2008.

[2] Jacob Buhlers, also wrote about Cornelius death in 3 September 1902 edition of Zionsbote.

[3] Translated by Peggy Goertzen on behalf of Loretta Willems, 4 June, 2006.

Saskatchewan

“Three landscapes confront the visitor to the western interior of Canada:  The prairies, which roll seemingly without end west and north from the Red River toward the Rockies and the Arctic: the parkland, where a profusion of birds and lakes, gentle hills and valleys, and fertile soil suggest a crescent-shaped oasis at the northern edge of the prairies; and the boreal forest, with rock outcroppings, cold lakes, and miles of spruce and pine as little traveled today as they were 400 years ago.”

                                                            Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History[1]

 Gerhard Willems, my great-great grandfather, died in the community of Rosthern, Saskatchewan in1900, a year after his immigration from Minnesota.  The town of Rosthern and the farms around it lie on a peninsula of land formed by the converging of the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers.  The land north of the North Saskatchewan River is boreal forest, a region of ice-scoured rock, myriad lakes, poplar, spruce and pine trees that covers the northern two-thirds of the province.  Just below the boreal forest is the narrow strip of fertile soil classified as parkland, a land of rich black soils with high organic content.   This parkland, the best farmland in the whole province of Saskatchewan, is the land five of Gerhard’s children chose as their new home.  As someone has said, Mennonites have a nose for good soil.

This good land is the reason why so many Mennonites decided to pick up and move hundreds of miles north, move from one place with extreme weather to another that was even colder.  And much of this land was almost free.  Canada had Homesteading policies similar to those in the U.S.  All that was needed to acquire a quarter section of land—160 acres—was a ten dollar registration fee, construction of a home and the clearing of at least ten acres within three years.  And people could file on another quarter section after these conditions were met.  Of course, this “free” land required a lot of work, but Mennonites were used to that.  And it required money to develop, but all farming involved financial investment.  Here at least, the Mennonites from Mountain Lake were getting in just as this region was opening for settlement, before all the good land was taken.  And they were not going into a completely unknown land.  Mennonites from Russia were quite well settled into the place by the time Gerhard Willems’ children began arriving in 1899. 

             Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan: “Rosthern Mennonite Settlement”

“A compact reserve consisting of as many as twenty villages was established south of Rosthern …by Old Colony Mennonites from Manitoba in 1895-1905.  The social organization of the conservative colonies in south Russia was systematically duplicated in North-central Saskatchewan: Wide streets (a custom developed in Russia due to the possibility of thatched roofs catching fire), a Schult (village overseer), and German language schools and churches.  These adjoining Mennonite settlements then expanded into a single vast settlement with the establishment of additional communities and congregations by Mennonite Brethren from the American Midwest (particularly Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma), directly from Russia, or via Manitoba, in 1898-1918.”                                                                                                            

Eleven miles west of Rosthern is the town of Waldheim, another Mennonite enclave.  In the fields near that town is where the Mennonite Brethren built their first church, the church known in my family as the Brotherfield Church.

The Mennonite Encyclopedia: “Brotherfield Mennonite Brethren”

     “The Brotherfield Mennonite Brethren congregation near Waldheim, Saskatchewan began services in 1900, and formally organized in 1901.  The first building was occupied in 1902, with a subsequent building program in 1911. …

   “The Brotherfield congregation was one of the first Mennonite Brethren congregations in Canada.  During the years 1897-1899 a number of families from Minnesota and South Dakota pioneered in the Waldheim area.  They met in homes until the formal 1901 organization.”             

            Cornelius Willems, my great-grandfather, was the first person buried in the Brotherfield Church cemetery.

~ ~ ~

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[1] University of Toronto Press, 1984.

The Death of Gerhard Willems (1820-1900)

Portrait of Gerhard photographed by my uncle, Frank Willems

                Cornelius and Elisabeth Boldt Willems, my great-grandparents, migrated to Canada with their children in the spring of 1900.  They were not the first of the clan to make journey.  Other family members awaited their arrival.   Gerhard Willems’ daughter Elisabeth Willems Quiring (1862-1927), her husband, Johann (1862-1931) and their children moved to the Rosthern area of Saskatchewan April 18, 1899.   Two weeks later Gerhard joined them.  Not quite one year later, on 12 March 1900, as the family’s first winter in Saskatchewan was ending, old father Gerhard died. 

            That information comes from a long letter I found in the Zionsböte, the Mennonite Brethren newspaper archived at the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies in Hillsboro, Kansas.    The letter was written by Johann Quiring, the son-in-law with whom Gerhard was living.  Below is a translation of the section that describes Gerhard’s last days.  These are the earliest words written by one of the participants in my family’s history.  Johann Quiring was a fluent writer.  Reading his words these people who had been just a collection of vital statistics become real:

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Zionsböte 11 April 1900

Saskatchewan, Rosthern, 20 March 1900.

Our dear father Gerhard Willms was overtaken by a stroke on March 6^th in the morning when he wanted to come to breakfast and he was outside when suddenly he was so wonderfully taken.  It was 40 feet from his door to our door.  He said he wanted to go left, and he was irresistibly moved to the right, so that he didn’t have his own will, and fell to the ground.  It cannot have been longer than 5 or 10 minutes that he laid there, because I had looked at the thermometer glass only a short while before; he had already been there because it was his first job first thing in the morning when he got up.  The thermometer hangs on his house.  When little Peter, who always slept with him, came to say, “Grosspapa [grandpa] is lying outside,” we all ran to him and because he was a healthy [robust, heavy?] body, I could not lift him well; we brought him into the house as good as we could.  He had settled with his hands in the snow and since was 24 degrees cold, his fingers were somewhat frozen.  When we had him in bed, he could speak again after an hour.  He could no longer move the right side, however, which was so-to-say dead from head to foot, just how we laid him.  We had to lift our dear father out of bed, and again lay him down throughout the entire time that he spent this way.  He could still speak for three days, then he lost his speech entirely and so he could only nod and turn his head.  When he had laid so for three days, we asked him whether he had a joyous hope, when he should depart from this world.  Yes, he said, he could believe that Jesus’ blood had redeemed him.  Then we sang to him several songs, especially this one:

            There shines in the distance a land,

            Our eyes of faith can see it well,

                        And led by the hand of Jesus,

                        His people will enter there in peace.

                                                (Chorus)

                        Soon, yes, soon, Oh how lovely,

                        We will also enter there with rejoicing.

Then he said, “Soon, soon, I am there.”  He had kept very quiet till the end.  On March 12^th at 7:30 the hour came when he could go over into the dwelling above, where the struggle has its end, where there is no more affliction and pain.  It is so, as the apostle says, “Death, where is your sting?  Grave, where is your victory?”  On Friday, March 16^th, we accompanied him on his last journey to his resting place [buried him], to which a number of neighbors and brothers and sisters [in faith] had been invited.  The Lord gave us his blessing there.

May this serve as a report to all his children and grandchildren, because his children live scattered; one still [lives] in Russia by the name of Gerhard Willems, specifically in the Crimea, and one in Nebraska by the name of Johann Willems, and others in Minnesota.  The dear father Gerhard Willems reached the age of 79 years, 4 months and 1 day.  He produced 16 children, seven of whom have already preceded him into eternity.  As much as we know, he became grandfather to over 76 children, 21 of whom have gone before him.  He became great-grandfather to three children.  He is from the Crimea, South Russia, immigrated to America in 1875, and settled in Minnesota and lived there until 1899.  In that year on April 18^th we moved from Minnesota to Saskatchewan; in about two weeks he followed us.  He has always been quite active and lively; only now and again he had pain in his body [abdomen].  He lived with us almost eight years and it always went well for us with him.  We now greatly feel the loneliness, yet we do not deny him the rest.  The condition of health is rather good; winter still doesn’t want to lessen, in spite of the fact that spring stands at the door.  Today it is very nice.  We wish all of the brothers and sisters and readers of the Zionsbote a heart-felt “live well”                                                                                                                                                                       Johann Quiring[1]

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                Old Gerhard’s life journey was long, long in distance and years.  In the course of his 79 years, 4 months and 1 day he participated in the migration of Dutch/Prussian/Russian Mennonite people from the  North Sea to Black Sea; the Molotschna Mennonite Colony to the Crimean Peninsula; the Crimea to Mountain Lake, Minnesota; Minnesota to Saskatchewan, Canada.    He embodied within his individual lifespan the history of his Mennonite people.  And he left descendants, many descendants.  The 16 children Katharina Rempel Willems bore him brought forth many children of their own, who in turn brought forth children of their own, and so it has proceeded until the number is virtually uncountable.   

       "After [Gerhard] died he was put in a grave and it was covered with boards.  In the Spring when some of the sons came from Minnesota, his body was viewed and then buried."
                                                                                                          Willems Gen. I. II. III.

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[1] Translated by Peggy Goertzen, 13 June 2006, on behalf of Loretta Willems.  Peggy is the Director of the Center for MB Studies at Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS.