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This fonds contains a composite photograph consisting of 167 individual portraits of Mennonite men that served in the Imperial Russia's Forestry service at Razin, a photograph of teacher Heinrich Johan Dueck (1862-1922) with students of school(Dueck was a teacher in Kleefeld, Gnadental and Klippenstal, Molotschna), and a 1903 funeral photo of 18 year-old Heinrich Albrecht of Prangenau (South Russia) showing the coffin being transported with a horse drawn carriage. This fonds also includes background information on the Razin Forestei where members of the Warkentin and Albrecht family served plus genealogical information on the Albrecht, Peters, von Kampen, and Warkentin families. Some of the data is an update for the published family history book entitled, "John Warkentin and his Descendants 1820-1990".

This fonds consists of 35 photographs, mostly taken in Russia, of the extended Goossen family that lived on the Wintergruen estate, founded by Jacob Goossen (1858-1920). The photos are of high quality and show a wealthy Mennonite family in Russia. Included is a rare photograph of the interior of the Schoensee Mennonite Church.

This fonds consists of eleven thin notebooks containing dried wild plants collected from the Molotschna area, South Russia, current day Ukraine, north west of Berdyansk. The area was a large grassland agricultural plain with a moderate climate. The plants are mounted on scrap pages that have a mixture of German and Russian handwriting and print on both sides that include correspondence, mathematical and chemistry equations and financial accounting from ca. 1914-1920. Along with each specimen is its name. Many also include location and date obtained. With each notebook there is a separate listing of the Latin, German and English names of the plants, possibly prepared by faculty at the University of Manitoba.

This fonds is very unique and the only one of its kind in this archive. This fonds provides a snap shot into the native vegetation of the area and can give suggestions as to accompanying animals found in the area and what inhabitants used for everyday living including food and medicine. It has not been determined if the scrap paper the plants are mounted on have any significance.

Photographs were taken of the collection and saved on compact disk.

This fonds consists of eight photographs primarily of the activities of Mennonite conscientious objectors in the forestry service in the Asov region of Imperial Russia around 1915 where Johann Kroeker served. The photos provide information on the activities, tools and environment in which the alternative to military service took place.

This fonds contains 120 letters that Nicolai Thiessen received mainly from his father, KIaas Thiessen (1844-1918) and siblings of Schoenfeld, Russia, during the years that he served as a missionary in Java, Dutch East Indies (named Indonesia after 1949). (A few letters are from other friends or acquaintances.) The letters contain hints about the nature of the mission work and preparation for it, and also they tell of conditions in Russia from 1905-1917. The letters contain information about the economic, political, social and religious life in the Mennonite colonies in South Russia. Deaths in the community are often reported. There are several letters written a brother from the Forestry Service camp. One letter is dated 1924 and one 1935.