Reinländer Ältester Johann Wiebe, 1837-1906 (Part 2)

by Peter D. Zacharias

People came from far and wide on horse-drawn vehicles and on foot. The Ältesters, the ministers, the deacons, and the Vorsänger gathered at the door. The Vorsänger announced the hymn: Walt's Gott in Jesu Christi Namen (Gesangbuch, #89). As the singing of the third verse began, the Ältester opened the door of the thatched roof pioneer meeting house and entered. He was followed by the aged Jacob Wiens, born in Prussia, Gerhard Paetkau, Abraham Wiebe, the Ältester's brother, Johann Friesen of Neuenburg, Cornelius Peters, and the deacons, Peter Klassen and Johann Enns.

As the singing continued the whole congregation filed into the church. Ältester Wiebe preached the dedicating message; he spoke the blessing. The feeling of gratitude that prevailed was genuine.

But as time went on, problems could not be avoided. The church and its Ältester were challenged on several fronts. One major conflict swirled around the issue of hymn tunes. Some in the congregation wanted to return to the use of the old tunes used in Russia, some not familiar in the congregation. Oral tradition indicates that Johann Wiebe did not want to return to the old hymn tunes, but was under pressure to do so. However, many in the congregation were already used to the choral tunes of Heinrich Franz before coming to Canada.⁷

So two seemingly intransigent positions became a deeply divisive issue. Another tough issue was the application of the ban. Should the ban be used sparsely in cases of severe infractions? Should the ban be used to enforce social control as it related, for example, to the maintenance of the village settlement pattern?

The Brotherhood meeting (Bruderschaft) of 5 October 1880 left the West Reserve more deeply divided. It hurt Ältester Johann Wiebe to see this disintegration. His vision was, after all, one church, one colony, and one colony administration, based on the village settlement pattern.

The vision was further threatened by the influx of a large Bergthaler group from the East Reserve which had begun to come to the West Reserve in search of better land. Their worship and community ways now provided an alternative pattern, thus aggravating these growing divisions within Ältester Wiebe's own congregation.⁸

We may question the social control exercised by the Reinländer Mennoniten Gemeinde. But consider Ältester Wiebe's concerns form his own vantage point. Was it not a most egalitarian concept? Belonging to the congregation meant living in the village. It meant sharing the good land, sharing the poor land, sharing in the community pasture. It meant no more big private estates (chutors). It meant taking seriously the word of the prophet: Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. (Isaiah 5:8 NIV).

We may question the Reinländer, and Johann Wiebe's, attitude to schools, and their resistance to the anglicization and secularization of the school system. But can we also see the integrity of Ältester Wiebe's position? The education of Mennonite children throughout the centuries of Anabaptist educational history had never been the business of the government. This was the responsibility and prerogative of the parents and the community of faith. Their church school was designed to reinforce the values of the society and milieu in which the children of the church community were living. It was set up to prepare young people to live healthy, productive, socially well-adjusted lives within that society. It sought to plant the roots of faith in firm soil, and, one could say, was successful by its own standards.

Johann Wiebe lived to see the school controversy begin in earnest in the West Reserve. He lived to see the payment of the Brotschuld, a $100,000 government settlement loan to early settlers, and later wrote a letter of thanks to the government.⁹

Ältester Wiebe saw land getting scarce so that young couples could no longer get 160 acres each. The land in the West Reserve had all been claimed and so he also witnessed the beginning of Mennonite settlement in Saskatchewan. His son Abraham became an Ältester at Swift Current; his son Peter would become one in Manitoba. It was the Saskatchewan Ältester Jacob Wiens who officiated at Johann's funeral service in the village of Reinland.¹⁰

I want to close with a letter of condolence, a short letter that was sent to Jacob Wiebe, Ältester Johann Wiebe's son, in Rosengart, by William Hespeler:

"With sadness of heart I receive the painful news that your father who was so close to me has gone to his Creator. Please accept my deepest sympathy and also express my condolences to the church he left behind on its irreplaceable loss. He was a faithful shepherd and spent his energy, indeed, his whole life, for the welfare of this flock and as its example. I will always remember him as a personal friend and as the father of the Reinländer Mennonite Church. I also express my sympathy to his own family and to those who lent assistance and support in his good works and I hope that his good spirit will remain an example to them."¹¹

That was certainly the sentiment of many, many people who had known Ältester Wiebe within his congregation and outside of it as well.

Endnotes for Part 2

7. Some issues related to the Russian Mennonite singing tradition are discussed in Wesley Berg, From Russia With Music: A Study of the Mennonite Choral Singing Tradition in Canada (Winnipeg, MB: Hyperion Press, 1985), 13-40.

8. On the Bergthaler move to the former West Reserve cf. Henry J. Gerbrandt, Adventure in Faith: The Background in Europe and the Development in Canada of the Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Manitoba (Altona, MB: The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Manitoba, 1972), 69-76.

9. On the Brotschuld (Settlement Loan) cf. E.K. Francis, In Search of Utopia: The Mennonites in Manitooba (Altona, MB: D.W. Friesen and Sons, 1955), 58ff.

10. On the story of the Reinländer move from Manitoba to Saskatchewan late in the 19^th century cf. Frank H. Epp, Mennonites in Canada 1786-1920: The History of a Separate People (Toronto: The Macmillan Co. of Canada Ltd., 1974), 303ff.

11. A copy of the letter is in the author's personal files.

Peter D. Zacharias