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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!"

Sketch of a newly-built ice cellar by a corner of Marta's family's housebarn circa 1395
"Finally we have an ice-cellar! It is built somewhat like a semlin. Other summers we hung our cream and butter in the well for cooling. If then sometimes the big cream can accidentally spilled, we'd have to pump out the whole well!
Milk buckets on a post - to drip (dry)
Circa 1935"

Sketch of cows in a field with a small shed in the background, on the Manitoba prairies
"Well... the Pembina Hills still rise. Our hen-barn, a few of the many giant poplars, the gate; other cows and heifers stand, and stare at one, and do not see, and do not hear, what I: our former Goertzen stead, bedwelt, betoiled, bewept, beloved..."

Sketches of the original semlin that Marta's grandmother's family lived in when they moved to Canada
"Semlin-living
The Benjamin Fehr family move to Canada in 1874
This is how they lived during the first years:
Their Katherina becomes my grandmother! The Frank Goertzen, Neufeld, Penner grandparents (1874-75) likewise:
One digs three feet or so into the ground, stacking the sod for walls, lays branches to form and hold up the roof.

Sketches of a semlin like the one Marta's grandmother's family lived in
"Two more early sketches of (earlier) Mennonite Architecture as my (Marta's) great-grandparents lived in their first years in Canada. The parents could not afford a separate "Semlin" for their animals, chickens, etc. and partitioned their habitat to accommodate. Also it was late in the season and so, timewise, it was not possible to put up even a rougher version for them. Circa 1874
Who could have predicted us descendants of the Semlin generation would ever get to live in such a fine penthouse apartment as we do in only a century plus, thanks to you, Vic and Rosemarie, with some sold input by Geschwister Vern and Frieda, and Mary who set up a hospitality tradition here that permeates the whole community. Bravo! Circa 1874"

Sketch of Marta and her sister as children on a Sunday afternoon walk on their property in rural Manitoba circa 1929
"Chortitz circa 1929
Tina and I going home for Faspa from a Sunday afternoon wakl over the snowdrifts in the cowfence. Fix, our dog, comes to meet us."

Sketch of a church service inside a rural Mennonite church
"This church stood in Chortitz and is now in the Mennonite Museum in Steinbach Manitoba
We children sat on the crossbench"

Sketches of various figures, possibly done as practice

Sketch of a family and the interior of a rural Mennonite house in Manitoba

Handmade title page for Marta's sketches about her childhood on a rural Mennonite farm in Chortitz, Manitoba
"WHEN THE SUN
IS TWO
HANDS HIGH
SKETCHES
FROM MY CANADIAN PRAIRIE
MENNONITE VILLAGE CHILDHOOD
MARTA GOERTZEN
1923-2008"

This is a drawing called De Pracha or "the beggar" [HR 120].

A sketch of a map showing the locations of families and buildings in the village of Chortitz, Manitoba (West Reserve) in the 1920s and 1930s. Includes one copy.

Sketch of a family pressing manure into bricks in front of their housebarn, circa 1933.
"Manure Pressing in Spring. Chortitz by Winkler, Manitoba circa 1933"