Preservings $20 Issue No. 26, 2006 - Home at Plett Foundation

Material Culture
Passing on the Comfort
From a brochure displayed at the exhibit, and edited by John J. Friesen.
On June 2-6, 2006, Mennonite Central Committee
exhibited a display of quilts at the Canadian
Mennonite University, called “Passing on
the Comfort – The War, the quilts and the Women
who made a Difference.” The traveling display
will be exhibited in Mennonite communities
throughout North America until 2008.
The display includes18 quilts and comforters
made by North American women and sent to the
Netherlands by MCC following World War II.
The exhibit pieces together the stories of those
who stitched, distributed and used these gifts of
comfort, and honours those who responded to the
horrors of war with courage and compassion.
For decades, the quilts were in the care of a
Dutch woman, An Keuning-Tichelaar. During the
Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, her home
served as a refuge for Jews, hungry children and
others in danger. Following the war, like many
other Dutch Mennonites still reeling from their
losses, An and her husband sheltered Mennonite
refugees from Ukraine. MCC provided her with
bedding for the refugees, who eventually moved
on to build new lives in Paraguay. Some of the
quilts stayed behind. These were loaned to MCC
for use in this exhibit.
The quilts and their stories testify both to the
cruelty of war and to the power of compassion.
They were also a reminder of the current needs
of refugees and others affected by war, poverty
and natural disasters.
Today MCC supporters continue to pass on
the comfort and hope by sharing blankets. The
Winnipeg MCC material aids office, for example,
each year receives thousands of blankets from
Mennonite churches and Hutterite colonies in
Caption needed.
the area. These blankets are folded, baled, and
shipped to suffering people around the world.
The Peters’ barn moved to the Mennonite Heritage Village
On May 29, 2006 the Peters’ barn was moved
from the village of Vollwerk (now Mitchel, Manitoba)
to the Mennonite Heritage Village. Built in
1885 by Peter Peters, the son of Jakob Peters,
the first Oberschultz (Reeve) of the former East
Reserve, the barn was one of the last remaining
heritage buildings on the former East Reserve.
In early May it appeared that the barn would
simply be demolished to make way for a new
building. But then a number of people, including
some descendents of the Jakob Peters family,
worked to save the building. They persuaded the
owner to delay demolition for a short time. The
Mennonite Heritage Village was approached if it
would be willing to accept and restore the barn.
The MHV agreed to accept it if funds would be
provided to finance the project. A committee was
established, and it agreed to secure the necessary
funding. A mover agreed to transport the building,
and a foundation was poured on the museum
grounds. And so, at the end of May, barely a
month since the project began, the building was
moved.
The building is in remarkably good shape for
its age, and stands as an excellent reminder of the
architecture of the day. It housed the animals, the
hay, and other feed for the animals. On the MHV
grounds the barn is attached to the Waldheim
house. The two form the second house barn unit
in the Mennonite Heritage Village.
The Peters Barn exhibits a number of interesting
architectural features. Large diagonal braces
are connected to spanning cross beams in a unique
design directly related to Medieval Danish and
north European barns. The sway braces are lapnotch,
instead of mortis and tenon, with a curve
on top of the joint seen only among older Mennonite
barns (pre -1890). The horse stall dividers
are also curved and have been preserved. The
inner wall of the “schien” (storage end of barn)
is full log construction, which is uncommon but
was probably built to shelter livestock from fierce
northwesterly winds. Only a handful of barns like
this remain in Manitoba, and most will probably
be destroyed in the next 20 years.
The barn is a material reminder of Jakob
Peters, a remarkable pioneer. In Russia he was
the Oberschultz of the Bergthal colony, a position
somewhat similar to that of reeve in Manitoba.
In 1873 he was one of the 12 delegates to inspect
settlement possibilities in the United States and
Canada. He recommended that the colony move
to Manitoba. He laid plans for the sale of the entire
colony in Russia, for the move, and for the establishment
of new communities in Manitoba. He
remained in Russia for a year to sell and dissolve
the colony lands, and arrived in Manitoba in 1875
to personally direct the settlement process.
As Oberschultz of the entire East Reserve,
Peters laid out villages and organized the farmers
into works groups to build the necessary roads and
drainage ditches. When the provincial government
established its own municipal system, he
negotiated with the government to have the two
municipal systems, the Mennonite and the provincial,
work harmoniously and smoothly together.
When Lord Dufferin, the governor general, and
his wife and daughter visited the East Reserve
in 1877, Peters was the official spokesperson for
the Mennonite community. Peters’ commitment
to serve his community was continued by his
descendents in that both his son and a grandson
served as reeves of the area.
The Peters’ barn being moved to its site on the Mennonite Heritage Village, Steinbach.
Preservings No. 26, 2006 - 97