Of This Earth (38 page)
Authors: Rudy Wiebe
Childhood memory is always a family affair, especially in an immigrant Mennonite family. Abram and Katerina Wiebe had seven children, and in 2006 only three of us remain. Therefore my first and most heartfelt thanks are for my brother Dan Wiebe, Grande Prairie, Alberta, and my sister Elizabeth (Wiebe) Uren, Lethbridge, Alberta, and for the stories we could tell each other. In particular, the five-year diary which, for several years, Liz continued intermittently after Helen’s death, has helped me pinpoint events with a precision far beyond any possible memory. Thank you, dearest Liz; I know you
will be understanding where my remembering, as given here, bears little or perhaps even no resemblance to your own.
Thank you also to the following: Tony Fiedler, Lethbridge; Gerald Fiedler, Belleview, Alberta; Frances (Hingston) Cotcher, North Battleford, and Anne Klassen, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Paul Poetker, Edmonton; Ferne Goll and the Glaslyn committee that published the two huge volumes of
Northern Reflections: History of Glaslyn and the Rural Municipality of Parkdale
(2005); the Speedwell School contingent at the Glaslyn celebrations on July 1, 2005, which included (to give them their Speedwell names) Elsie Koehn, Margaret and Jack Trapp, Hilda and Jake and John Enns, Olga and Nick Sahar, Edward and Vera Funk, Henry and Stella and Margaret Martens; special thanks to Mary (Loewen) Fehr, Kelowna, British Columbia, who sent me her 117-page personal memoir: “My youth, my school, our farm, our church in Speedwell, Saskatchewan,” and also Dave Little of Willowdale, Ontario, who discovered and sent me a copy of the application map for a “Pearl Lake School District” made by Aaron Heinrichs in 1930.
In particular, I want to acknowledge the work of Dr. Jack Thiessen, without whose absolutely unique
Mennonite Low German Dictionary
, Max
Kade Institute for German-American Studies, Madison, Wisconsin, USA (2003), so much of this book would have been impossible to write. Thank you, Jack, for making the (for me) instinctive sounds of Low German systematically visible on paper; at last.
And to Louise Dennys, Jennifer Shepherd, Nina Ber-Donkor, Angelika Glover, Scott Richardson, Deirdre Molina and Sharon Klein: you are the people who make publishing with Knopf Canada much more than bringing a book into existence. Thank you.
RUDY WIEBE is widely published internationally and the winner of numerous awards, including two Governor General’s Literary Awards for the novels
The Temptations of Big Bear
and
A Discovery of Strangers
. His most recent novel is
Sweeter Than All the World
. Rudy Wiebe is an Officer of the Order of Canada and lives in Edmonton.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2007
Copyright © 2006 Jackpine House Ltd.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2007.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Wiebe, Rudy, 1934–
Of this earth : a Mennonite boyhood in the boreal forest / Rudy Wiebe.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37347-2
1. Wiebe, Rudy, 1934– —Childhood and youth. 2. Mennonites—
Saskatchewan—Speedwell—Biography. 3. Farm life—Saskatchewan—
Speedwell. 4. Speedwell (Sask.)—Biography. 5. Authors, Canadian
(English)—20th century—Biography. I. Title.
ps8545.138z47 2007 971.24′2 c2006-904700-6
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