55 Treffer anzeigen

Sketch of children playing near and swimming in a creek near their homes, continuing to spend their Sunday afternoon,
"At our place and at Thiessens we talk at table. Penners don't. They are a large family, I think twelve. Maybe that's why they don't often eat elsewhere. They are a "brought together" family. Mr. Penner has lost one, no, two wives, they died, no other separations or divorce exist, and had children by each, Mrs. Penner had a family too and now they have Annie and Helen together. A boy baby in their old age dies soon after birth.
After Faspa it's time to get the milk cows home. We and Thiessens share a fence just outside Chortitz. It's always fun to do this. Sometimes Abram Thiessen and Jake Froese come too. Otherwise we seldom play outside, boys and girls, except in school hours. The boys may decide to strip and plunge into the creek, one hand between their legs, one over mouth and nose. We scream with excitement along with the boys 'tho at a respectable distance and guess who remembers the cows? On Sunday other village children come and it's great fun. They take a running leap to make the muddy water splash, no matter cows do their thing in it too."

Sketch of Marta and her sister playing dress-up in the pantry of their home
"All Beginnings
Mary beckons me to the pantry, "Close your eyes: Suprise!" She has basted together a "brassiere" for me, of flour sacking, and dyed it pink with beets; I look so funny with it on, we "sneeze" out into laughter."

Sketches of Marta's family going out to their wheat fields in a wagon and stopping for lunch
"Our wheat is ripe! The weather fine, the water in the barrel begins plish-plashing here in the back of the feedwagon. Lisa and Abe would rather come to the fields...
"Well, shall we break early for lunch?" in the fields everything tastes better! Cold potatoes, meat, bread with pickled cucumbers..."

Sketches of a family collecting straw and using it to stuff mattresses to sleep on circa 1930
"Stuffing our straw beds circa 1930.
Here in the strawloft it is scary; it is only of wide-spaced branches laid. One must step straddle-legged not to slide through!
How sweet the sleep then on such a high fresh-smelling flax strawbed..."

Sketch of Marta's father and a government worker hauling ice in the winter
"This winter we have a government worker, Jacob, eldest son of the widow, Mrs. Fred Thiessen, from the village end. The government pays Jakob a few dollars a month, and something to father for providing the work and for his food. He eats with gusto (doesn't fuss), is always friendly, and helps willingly enough. We like this arrangement! Here he helps father haul ice from the (woods)creek..."

Sketches of a family cutting chop and discovering mice in a stack of oatsheaf
"Towards spring once, when cutting chop, we found one oatsheaf stack (was) riddled with mice. What a squeaking, squirming and scampering - ranging from naked new-borns to stunned old ones! At first our barnyard cats leaped, startled, about among them. But soon, not knowing which ones to follow, bewildered quite, they turned tail and fled...
When the cats fled from the mice!!"

Sketches of a family around the dinner table and in the cow barn at night
"After supper
Before bedtime"

Sketches of children going to the bathroom in the cow barn before going to bed
""Now quick: go and pee and then to bed!" says Greet
In Winter we go behind the cows - big eyed and slow - because of the scary shadows...
At night alone on the pot"

Sketches of the burial and funeral of Marta's mother.
"At the cemetery we wing, pray, and the minster "thanks off". Then he scatters the first handful of earth on the coffin... Village women brought butter and milk together yesterday to make the rolldough. This they carried to other women and took some themselves for baking. While we are at the cemetery, they set the coffee table: rolls, coffee and sugar cubes. The men eat first, then the women and the children."

Sketches of Marta and her siblings dealing with fleas in their bedclothes.
""Look how the beasts hide themselves in the seams! There - you must be quicker than they - get 'em between your thumbnails and squish them before they hop away!" says Greet. No one seems to know where these fleas come from that spread through the village now and then. Some say from the hay, some say from Mexico. We chuckle at those who still wear old-fashioned clothes. We call their high collars flea collars because they hide the telltale red dot flea bites!"

Sketches of a cow breaking into the family's garden, and the family chasing it out again
"Greet calls: "Children, come fend off! Yellow (one)'s in the garden! That old beast! That sneak-thief! She needs a ladder hung on her again!" We drive her out gently so she won't panic and trample yet more underfoot. Such a ladder is used only on young stock, and that only rarely..."

Sketch of a house on fire, and the community rallying to put it out with buckets of water
"The dogs are suddenly barking like crazy, horses neigh, cows bellow, and there's a banging at the window. "At old Frank Groening's is fire and pass on the word!" Father jumps out of bed, runs across the yard to Penners... and so the news goes through the village. People run, call to each other, some with lanterns, buckets.. there's pouring water, carrying out what can be saved, thanking God no one is hurt. Next morning so much is brought together, Greet says, "Groenings are better off after the fire than before!""

Sketch of a woman and two girls in the yard in front of their housebarn
"Grandmother's Sorrel Soup
Simmer smoked pork with bay leaf and peppercorns until done, then add cubed potatoes and coarsely cut greens - sorrel, onion, parsley, dill. When done add heavy clotted cream. Now, two generations later, whole milk yogurt does quite well too!
Sketches from a Canadian prairie Mennonite village childhood.
Picking sorrel in Grandmother Katharina Fehr Neufeld Reimer's backyard, Schanzenfeld
Coming to Canada from Russia at twelve in 1874, Grandmother Katharina Fehr married widowers John Neufeld and "Ütroopa Reima" successively, 1881-1901 and 1904-1923. Besides numerous step and even step-step children she bore twelve of her own of whom, however, only five survived to have families half the size of hers. Her only child by Ütroopa Reima, a son, was Watkins salesman in the Mennonite villages of southern Manitoba for many years. Auctioneer
Among other favourite foods grandmother made were yeast-raised Pāpânāt. Spice buns they are called in some recipes now. She used to bake them on large darkened pans and keep them covered with tea towels in the pantry by the backdoor. It was a most welcoming aroma to greet us in. Translated from her intuitive homemade yeast and honey sweetened one can still come close:
Crumble and sprinkle a fresh Fleischman's yeast cake into warm honey-sweetened water, stir in unbleached white flour, add a bit of salt, stir until batter slips off mixing spoon. Wait until bubbly, then stir in corn oil, pepper, and cinnamon with caution, keep adding flour while kneading to soft dough. Let rise covered in warm place, shape into buns, let rise again and bake in rather slow than fast oven..."

Sketch of a woman and a young girl stooking wheat in their fields circa 1933

Sketch of Marta and her father moving hay into the loft of the barn using a haysling her father rigged
"Among the interesting labour-saving devices father makes is the haysling, designed to hoist hay into the loft. Already in the fields where we load long rows of raked hay, he lays the network of rope in two sections, one on the bottom of the rack, the other of the half-full, clicking the iron coupling dead centre, saying "don't step on it"!
My job today is trampling down and pitchforking it as evenly as I can in between the huge forkfuls father cascades up. It looks like rain. "Is the centre firm?" he calls, "if it isn't, the load will slide out before we get home." Then he comes up to check, sinking to his knees all over, even in the centre! Ah, it's only the beginning: I can't step on it. He arranges and locks the upper section, "Don't step on it;" jumps down and proceeds as before, only now higher and higher. I'm scared to go close to the edge and he tells me not to be such a "rabbits foot", "Here, take it," he calls, I try, but half of it falls back on him. "You musn't be such a fullgeshat stocking," he says, looking at the clouds bearing down from the Pembina Hills...
We get the load in just before the shower! After Faspa we hoist it into the loft, me guiding Maude and Charlie, our most docile horses, diagonally across the large yard. They're pulling a rope attached via pulleys to the rail high along the loft. The top half goes in alright but the bottom one opens! "Whoa" father calls from the hole in the side of the loft though I can tell well enough by the change in tension in the rope and the horses who've gone through this often stop by themselves. But someone has to say something at prospect of getting it up by fork. Looking down on the pile spilled just between rack and loft, he scratches his head shoving his sweat-soaked hat askew, "Schweinarie!" (Schwein is pig. Piggery!)
Margaret comes to the rescue, pitching almost as big forkfuls up as father, and Betty and I carry, push and slide it along the smooth-worn wide plank floor to the back. It smells good, the sun-drenched hay, they dry well-beamed loft, and the freshness left by the shower, spilling in through the hole into the half-light, when our eyes adjust to it. Father comes up and says it's good, and Margaret "Hurry down, it's time to get the cows home!"