The Andreas Schrag Mennonite Delegate Diary of 1873

by Lawrence Klippenstein

The story of eleven Russian Mennonite delegates travelling to Canada and the USA in 1873 is quite well known. We touched on it again in the June issue of HP.

Much of the data giving us the account of that trip comes from diaries kept by several members of the delegation. All the ones extant (Leonard Sudermann, Paul Tschetter, and John F. Funk) have been published, except the Andreas Schrag document. This one we want to feature here¹.

Schrag was one of the two delegates (Tobias Unruh being the other) who represented the Volhynian Mennonites on that trip. He was a layman who left south Russia with the third group of delegates in late April of 1873².

Schrag's diary-journal, extant now only in portions, was translated into English by Orpha V. Schrag from a transliteration made by Lydia Unruh Schrag³. The section dealing with the Manitoba portion of the trip is brief and does not offer much that is new. Still, it is relevant and Heritage Posting is pleased to publish the section here⁴.

At night we came to Fargo. A boat was waiting at Moorhead the next morning so we boarded and sailed on the Red River toward Manitoba⁵. We were on this ship for four days until we came to the English Province and the city of Winnipeg. Here we stayed one day until the officials had five wagons prepared to drive our 25 men into the plains and prairies. Two wagons were sent ahead with tents and provisions.

On this route by Brukwerts⁶ and throughout entire stretches of prairie we saw thousands and thousands of grasshoppers. They were still small - up to an inch long. We looked at the land for four days. It was very flat and low and at places there was much water and it was so swampy that we had to drag out horses and wagons. It did not suit us here.

We then parted. I, the two Tschetters, Br. Ewert, Br. Unruh, and Br. Funk went back to Dakota so we could get a better look at it. The others stayed⁷. We again boarded a ship to Fargo.

Endnotes

1. See Leonard Sudermann, Russia to America: In Search of Freedom (Steinbach, MB: Derksen Printers, 1974); "A Journey to America: Excerpts from Paul Tschetter's Journal," in Jacob Kleinsasser, ed. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, Vol.II (Ste. Agathe, MB: Crystal Springs Colony, 1998), 706-754; and Kempes Schnell, "John F. Funk, 1835-1930, and the Mennonite Migration of 1873-1875", Mennonite Quarterly Review XXIV (July, 1950), 1988ff.

2. The first two groups, i.e. the Bergthal and Kleinegemeinde delegates had left in late February and mid-April respectively.

3. Orpha V. Schrag, translator and editor, "The Diary of Andreas Schrag in Historical Perspective", unpublished paper, 1974, Mennonite Library and Archives, North Newton, Kansas, USA.

4. A typed copy of the original German manuscript which has many pages missing is included as an appendix of Orpha Schrag's work cited above.

5. Translator Schrag designates the date of boarding as June 13, though Andreas did not mention the date as such. Sudermann gave the time of boarding as "On June 13 at quarter of eight in the morning". See In Search of Freedom, 13. Some diaries use the Russian Old Style calendar so entries there begin at June 1. Bill Schroeder in The Bergthal Colony (Winnipeg: CMBC Publications, 1986), erroneously dates the departure on Saturday, June 14 (p.64).

6. Brukwerts seems to be the name of a locality which Schrag connects specifically with seeing many grasshoppers (other diarists tend to stress the swarms of mosquitoes). Brukwerts, as a place, has not been located. Conceivably it could also refer to a family with whom they made contact on the trip.

7. The ones staying would have included the representatives of the Bergthal Colony, Jacob Peters, Heinrich Wiebe, and Kornelius Buhr, along with Kornelius Toews and David Klassen of the Kleinegemeinde of south Russia, as well as government immigration agents, William Hespeler and Jacob Y. Shantz.

Mennonite Swedenborgian Research: An Update

In 1992 Leonard Doell of Aberdeen, SK, and Dr. Adolf Ens of CMBC, published an article in Journal of Mennonite Studies titled "Mennonite Swedenborgians". It brought together various scattered references to what may have been treated as a "fringe group" at the time. The Swedenborgian development was however a movement with a good deal of momentum in the heyday of its influence in Mennonite communities of Western Canada.

Both authors have continued their interest in the topic. Doell, for instance, has a list of several hunderd Germans known to have had membership in this church. We are learning about new sources for study on this theme, particularly the work of Doreen Funk of Quesnel, B.C. We introduced her project in the March issue of HP (see p.4.) She has recently sent a number of photos including one of the Happy Lake school building where, incidentally, the recently retired Professor of Music at CMBC, Dr. George Wiebe, also taught in 1946-1947.

We established contact as well with Michael Hamm who works at Suite 202, l0816A-82 Ave., Edmonton, AB T6E 2B3. He submitted some very interesting articles from Swedenborgian publications, including one "A Visit to the Northwest" by Rev. F.E: Gyllenhaal. It describes numerous contacts with Mennonite families in the Happy Lake school district area, as well as the Rosthern, SK area where they visited the Wilfred Klippensteins and other Mennonite families, some from Manitoba originally. They went on then to Grande Prairie, Alberta as well as Dawson Creek, BC.

The most recent addition to these research files is a book As I Remember It, just published by Peter Letkemann who grew up in the Arrow Lake district of the Renata, B.C. area. He includes a chapter on his experiences in the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) congregation of that community. A Winnipeg member of the group and an excellent resource for research, Tom Eidse, passed away in Steinbach a year or two ago.

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