“‘Moch’s gut. Make it
good,’ whistled Ankela
through her troublesome
false teeth.”
Mother and Father,
two years after their wedding.
ALONE IN HER upstairs bedroom, Mary reached for her wedding dress and stroked its soft, rich fabric. It had been meticulously constructed from six yards of beautiful brocade delivered to her door three weeks earlier. The material had come from a reserve of fabrics held on hand by the head seamstress following one of her twice-yearly buying trips to the Winnipeg wholesaler, Gilfix and Roy. Along with the bolts of modest cotton prints for dresses, black rayon for pants, and checkered cotton for shirts, the seamstress kept a judicious eye out for finer fabrics in the event of a wedding announcement.
It would not have occurred to Mary to wish for an elaborate, white bridal gown with a matching veil so prized by women in the outside English world. Blue was the traditional color for Hutterite brides, and her simple ensemble was comprised of the same five pieces as a standard Hutterite dress: the Pfaht, a Mieder, a Kittel, a Fittig, and a jacket, or Wannick. It was as practical and fluid as her everyday dresses, but its texture and color ensured that for the next twelve hours, she would be the center of attention.
Today, for the first time, Mary’s Fittig, or apron, was the identical deep cornflower blue of her dress. Women’s aprons were always a distinctly different color from the rest of the outfit, but friends had pressured her into setting a new trend and cutting her apron from the same fabric as her dress. Mary wistfully thought that perhaps a nice emerald green apron would have given her outfit that extra sparkle.
She slipped on her Pfaht and Mieder and fixed her Kittel with a safety pin. Holding her breath, she centered her matching Fittig over her Kittel and Mieder and wrapped the extra-long apron ties twice around her twenty-four-inch waist, firmly positioning them into a neat bow on her left side. Sometimes a mother or older sister with advanced sewing skills would tailor something as important as a wedding dress, but Mary was an experienced seamstress and had sewn the outfit herself. She tried to catch a full-length glimpse of herself in the small dime-store mirror Paul Vetter had nailed to the opposite wall, but all she could see was her trendy blue apron and its precise bow.
She combed out her waist-length, dark brown hair and carefully parted it down the middle. With practiced hands she began to drah it, twisting each side tightly into her hairline and securing the coils with hairpins in the same manner that her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother had done before her. The hairstyle had been fashionable in Austria in the early 1500s and was adopted by Hutterite women ever since for its modesty and simplicity.
Mary lifted her Tiechel from the bed and looked fondly at the initials J. M. embroidered into the left corner. Six months before she had turned fifteen, she had sewn the kerchief and added the initials J. M., for Joseph’s Mary, as a symbol of whom she belonged to and a reminder of her father’s care and protection. She felt a surge of warmth as she thought of him watching her now. The black kerchief with white polka dots had distinguished Hutterite women in North America for more than a century. As a young girl, Mary had tried on her sisters’ kerchiefs, or Tiechlen, and imagined her own ascension to womanhood. She would take the pointed ends of the kerchief and practice folding the fabric, twice clockwise against her cheeks, before twisting the ends in a knot under her chin. She loved the dark of the fabric next to her clear, pale complexion and the stiffness of the starched cotton against her face. Mary had earned the privilege of wearing one on her fifteenth birthday, the twenty-sixth of May, when she exchanged her childhood Mütz (bonnet) for it.
She had risen after the meal in the children’s dining room and announced her birthday to the supervising German schoolteacher. “John Vetter, ich bin funfzehn Johr olt. Uncle John, I am fifteen years old.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as John Maendel stroked his graying beard and cautioned her that she was now entering a deeper level of commitment to the Hutterite faith, and this important passage into adulthood must be reflected in her conduct. It was a brief and simple ceremony, but for Mary the honor lay in her unconditional acceptance into the adult world. The next day she put on her Tiechel and took her place alongside the other women in the adult dining room.
Today, the simple triangle of fabric would serve as her veil, as much a symbol of her identity as a crown to a queen. She had taken extra care to starch and press it, using the weight of a hot iron to crease a sharp V through the middle. She centered it on her head and tightly knotted it under her chin, pleased with the stylish crest it formed at the top. She wore neither makeup nor jewelry; both were forbidden. In a culture that stressed an inner adornment of the heart, her smile would be enough.
As she prepared, Mary couldn’t help thinking about what a miracle it was that she was getting married after all. She thought she’d never live down the humiliation of having her letter from Ronald exposed in such a public manner. After that incident she had retreated by throwing herself into the endless cycle of women’s work in the community. Months passed; then one afternoon, her sister-in-law Sara approached her at the clothesline. Though it was in her house that Mary and Elie had shared the grapes, Sara matter-of-factly raised the subject of marriage. “I don’t want to get married to anyone!” Mary blurted. “The price is too high!”
A week later Mary was hanging out towels when Sara came to her again. “Have you given any thought to our last conversation?” she asked.
“I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mary snapped.
Sara watched as Mary picked up a wet towel from the wicker basket and pinned it to the line. “Look at it this way,” she said. “You’re living under Sana Basel’s roof. She has a husband, three siblings, and thirteen children to take care of. It’s time for you to decide your future.”
Mary’s brother Peter approached Ronald to see where he stood. “I asked Mary to go with me more than a year ago,” a bewildered Ronald replied, “but she still hasn’t given me an answer.”
Peter sent his wife, Sara, to see Mary for a third time and invite her to the same upstairs room where she had braved the ill-fated visits with the carpenter from Fairmont. In Elie’s place stood a terse Ronald Dornn.
“Why haven’t you answered me?” he demanded.
“How could I?” she replied.
Mary shared her private feelings about Elie’s advances and the pressure she felt from her brothers. Ronald was disarmed by her gentleness. His face softened when she went on to explain that she felt as isolated and alone as he did. When Sara offered them a plate of plums, they shared the fruit and agreed to meet secretly every Sunday at Ronald’s house.
A few weeks later, when Mary was sorting potatoes in the basement of the community kitchen, she unexpectedly found herself alone with her older brother, the assistant minister, and knew that God had given her an opportunity to plead her case. “Jake, you’re the only father I have to go to,” she said, “so I’m asking for your permission to marry Ronald.” The dark cellar was an unlikely spot for a serious conversation, but if her brother was taken by surprise, he didn’t let it show as he continued throwing spoiled potatoes on a growing pile. “I really don’t know anything bad about him,” he finally admitted, pushing his hair from his forehead with the cuff of his shirt. “I’m not for him, and I’m not against him.” The compromise was all Mary needed.
At exactly 9:25 in the morning, Ronald Dornn left his modest lodgings in the northeast corner of the colony and briskly walked the sixty yards to Sana Basel’s house to collect his bride. All eyes in the community were glued to their windows to monitor his progress and wait for their signal to follow the bridal couple to church. “Do kummt der Bräutigam!” cried one of the cook’s helpers from the doorway of the community kitchen, announcing Ronald’s approach even as the breakfast dishwater dripped from her forearms. She took in his earnest disposition and the way he wore the perfectly fitted black wedding suit that Mary’s sister Katrina had sewn. His washtub hat had been replaced by the traditional black Schmiedeleut hat, purchased at Eaton’s in Winnipeg. At twenty-nine, Ronald was older than the average Hutterite groom and eight years older than his bride. When the couple emerged hand in hand from Sana Basel’s house, the rest of the colony fell in line behind them and followed them into church.
Inside, the church was sparsely furnished but functional. At the front, a low oak table served as a pulpit, with seats on each side for the local and visiting ministers. Ronald and Mary took their places across the aisle from each other while the congregation quickly filled the remaining seats. The loud clack of well-worn shoes echoed against the polished linoleum floor as women moved to the right and men to the left. Visitors from the Old Rosedale, Sturgeon Creek, and Deerboine Colonies were the objects of stolen glances by the New Rosedalers, anxious to see who the minister had invited.
Sam Kleinsasser, Mary’s uncle-in-law, was the senior minister at Sturgeon Creek Colony and had been given the honor of officiating at his niece’s marriage. Prediger, or “preacher,” Kleinsasser wiped his spectacles on a fire-red handkerchief—then with one, loud honk, his nose—as he prepared to lead the service. “Lieben Brüder und lieben Schwestern. Wir haben uns wieder versammelt in dem Namen unseres Herrn und Heiland Jesus Christus,” he began in High German, the formal language reserved for prayers, songs, and sermons.
He looked out at the congregation over his wire-rimmed glasses, and his eyes fell on Sorah Kleinsasser, his dear wife of forty years, sitting with the women in a sea of prints and polka dots. She was the sister of Mary’s deceased mother and had arrived in New Rosedale a week earlier to do general mending and patching for Sana Basel and to make a feather quilt and pillows, the customary wedding gift from a mother to her daughter.
Before Sorah’s arrival, Sana Basel had directed her daughters to get a big homemade rug and cover the Kellerlein, an underground crawl space in each of the homes, where store-bought treats like candies or cookies were stowed. The Kellerlein was hidden by a trapdoor at the foot of Sana and Paul Hofer’s bed. Sorah was incurably curious, and it took her less than a day to find the treasure chest. Gravity assisted her descent below the floorboards, but her expansive girth made the return impossible. When a rankled Paul Hofer found her, wedged into the square opening, with a package of Fig Newtons in one hand and a box of Paulin’s Puffs in the other, she was as flushed as a young lover caught in a compromising position. Today, fully recovered, she sat perched like a duchess between Mary’s sisters from the Deerboine Colony, Anna and Katrina.
Across the aisle, behind Ronald, Mary’s twelve brothers were as somber as a jury, faces intent, hands folded on their laps. Just a week ago some had been in judgment of their sister’s choice at her Hulba, the engagement party. The Hulba was typically held one or two weeks before the wedding and was the first time an engaged couple was seen together publicly. While it was mostly an occasion for celebration, the Hulba also included a special meeting, where the men tested the worthiness of the bridegroom. The suitor was required to rally supporters to speak in his favor while others raised doubts about his virtues. The tradition was rooted in eighteenth-century Russia, when the son of a basket weaver was prevented from marrying a young Hutterite girl because he hadn’t learned a trade. For the most part, this ancient Hutterite practice was merely a formality, and the man would be sent on his way in record time to celebrate with his intended. It was rare for a woman to change her mind about a prospective husband or bow to pressure from apprehensive family members and call off the wedding. If that did happen, though, he would be presented with a Korb, an empty basket to symbolize the woman’s refusal. Followers of the custom reasoned that a dose of embarrassment now was better than a life of misery.
If Ronald was feeling any doubts about the meeting, he didn’t let it show as he and Mary went door to door the night of their Hulba to formally introduce themselves as a couple. Earlier in the day, Andreas Hofer, the senior minister at New Rosedale, had sent a bottle of rye whiskey and two miniature glass steins on a matching tray to the groom’s house. Andreas was one of the first to know of Ronald’s intentions to marry Mary Maendel, as Ronald was required to receive his formal permission. The head minister was bound by tradition to set the wedding date and determine which colonies to invite.
That evening, as they made the rounds to receive Schenken, Ronald poured out exact measures of Black Velvet for the toasts, and Mary offered the small tumblers to every adult. “To a dozen children and good, strong nerves,” offered one resigned father, swarmed by his large clan. “Liff for Jesus,” admonished Ankela, a grandmotherly soul who’d already taken out her bottom teeth for the night. Most people gave the couple some practical advice, but some delivered a dose of reality. “You poor snake, you’ll find out!” cried one woman to an unsuspecting Mary while gulping back her drink and looking like she could use another.
Everyone was eager to see how the couple presented themselves on their first outing, and children, not content with just a brief glimpse of the betrothed, followed them on their rounds and into the houses. If crowd control became unmanageable, the children were unceremoniously shooed back outside.
When Ronald and Mary finally returned to Sana Basel’s house, the girls’ upstairs bedroom was packed with young people in high spirits, playing mouth organs, singing, and enjoying rounds of beer and schnapps. The beds and a few pieces of furniture had been pushed against the walls and a circle of wooden chairs set up in the center for Ronald and Mary and their closest friends and family. Some guests leaned against the walls and filled the doorways while others stood behind the wedding party singing sanitized love songs, such as “Are You Mine?” and “You Are My Sunshine.” Bottles of beer and chokecherry wine in old whiskey bottles sat on the single dresser next to a tray of glasses and cups that had been brought over from the community kitchen. Most of the guests helped themselves, but some of the young men with eyes for the pretty girls were glad to offer themselves as waiters.
Dating on a Hutterite colony was generally frowned upon. Young people had to rely on work exchanges between colonies, berry picking, Sunday visits, or weddings to size up the opposite sex. The prevailing wisdom among the elders was that if a couple really wanted to get acquainted, they should get married. Ronald had been reduced to discreetly flashing his house lights to signal Mary to come over for their weekly visit, but it hadn’t taken long for the whole colony to wonder what was wrong with Ronald’s electricity.
Some colonies were known for their beautiful women, but a true trophy wife was considered fein, known for her virtue, loyalty, and duty. That night, seated next to Ronald, her eyes shining, Mary was both.
The party upstairs was an occasion for the young people, but the lustig (irresistible) atmosphere drifted downstairs, tempting senior colony members to push their way into the upstairs crowd to satisfy their curiosity and enjoy the music. The boys from Deerboine, always eager for romantic songs recounting memories of love letters, stolen kisses, and girls with big, blue eyes, coaxed Sana Basel’s daughters into singing the enchanting German ballad “Es War Einmal ein Mägdelein” (“There Once Was a Beautiful Maiden”). Someone called for a Hank Williams tune—it was none other than Elie Wipf from Fairmont Colony. Sana Basel’s son, Paul Jr., who listened to CKY radio on his contraband crystal set, launched into “May You Never Be Alone,” his favorite hit from the great country legend.
Paul winked at his friend George Wollman, who had hoped today would be his Hulba too. George had had his eye on a pretty girl from Surprise Creek Colony and his mind on a double wedding with Ronald and Mary, but when he went to see his love interest unannounced, to spring a proposal on her, she refused to see him because she had just had all her teeth pulled. “Dat just killed da romance,” he confided to Paul upon his deflated return home.
“Sing the kissing song!” shouted a flirtatious girl who had loosened the knot in her Tiechel. The German love song was the equivalent of tinkling glasses to invite a wedding couple to kiss. “Mir wöllns auch sehen!” protested four women in unison, straining to see through the wall of black jackets and pleated skirts that had gathered around Ronald and Mary to give them some privacy for this rare public show of affection. Everyone sang, “Unser Bruder der soll leben, ja leben, ja leben, und soll seiner Schönsten ein Bussela geben . . . Our brother he should live, live, live, and should give his beautiful one a kiss . . .”
A few teenagers looking for their own wall of privacy took their drinks outside, where their alcohol consumption wouldn’t be monitored. Bolstered by the home brew, they argued with their visiting peers that New Rosedale’s seven John Deere 80 tractors outperformed the Allis Chalmers and International models that other colonies had purchased. Sylvester Baer would have liked to join the debate, but he lumbered past the revelers and made his way upstairs to the Hulba. His hair and beard were the color of rust, and his pockmarked face was tense. He was nervous about the impending meeting downstairs, where he had promised to defend the character of his friend Ronald.
The upstairs room was cramped with too many bodies, and the air heavy with Lily of the Valley perfume. Sylvester roped his way through a row of harmonica players toward a small window at the back, and with big, fleshy hands, pried it open and propped it up with a ruler. The cold November air brought relief from the flashback to his Hulba less than a year ago, when he had had his own character scrutinized. It had been a considerable challenge for the widower with six children to find a woman to marry him. The girl’s alarmed parents tried to talk her out of the marriage, arguing she didn’t know what she was getting herself into. It took two days of wrangling before the family relented and he was finally able to claim his bride. Sylvester hoped his friend wouldn’t have to endure the near-Korb experience he had gone through.
“Reinhold, kummt’s gehen! Ronald, let’s go!” called Paul Vetter through the Hulba noises as he beckoned him to the meeting downstairs. Ronald stepped through the overflow crowd seated on the narrow staircase with Sylvester on his heels. All twenty of the married men in the colony were squeezed into Sana Basel’s small living room.
“Brothers, let’s get started,” Jake Maendel began. Ronald locked eyes with the aging senior minister Andreas Hofer, who was sitting at the front. Andreas had once hoped Ronald would choose his daughter, Emma, for his bride and had gone as far as inviting the Waiselein, “orphan,” into his own family. When the potential match fizzled, Andreas had been disappointed but tried hard not to let it show. The Maendel brothers sat next to Andreas, and Ronald wondered what each of them might have to say. Mary’s brother Samuel, poker-faced and rigid, was still smarting from his failure to broker a deal for his wife’s sister. The bake house letter hadn’t ended Ronald and Mary’s relationship as he’d hoped, and when he’d heard that they would be married, Samuel marched over to his future brother-in-law’s place and demanded his hat back.
Jake Maendel cleared his throat and began by commending Mary for being a good Christian woman, born and raised in a good Hutterite family. The others took turns extolling her virtues and praising her for being dutiful, hospitable, and a hard worker. When Mary’s other brothers noted that Ronald was an outsider, born in Russia to non-Hutterite parents, Ronald nodded to Sylvester Baer to come to his defense. It took a series of nods and nudges before Sylvester, eyes wide as saucers, propelled himself to his feet. “I can’t find any words!” he exclaimed as the room dissolved into fits of laughter.
Upstairs the celebrations were in full swing without the future bridegroom. Ronald had been absent for more than two hours when one of the John Deere boys reappeared for another beer and teased Mary that the men had turned Ronald down and the marriage was off. When Elie Wipf heard this, he came and sat on Ronald’s vacant chair. Elie’s peers were amused by his pluck, but Mary, unnerved by Ronald’s long delay, slipped out of her chair and left the room.
Downstairs, Jake Maendel composed himself and cobbled together a few positive things to say about his future brother-in-law on Sylvester’s behalf, pointing out that he didn’t drink to excess and was a reliable worker.
Later at the community kitchen, over ham sandwiches and coffee, Ronald tried to make light of the irregular Hulba meeting that had lasted until midnight. “No one would speak in your favor,” he teased Mary. “They finally told me, ‘Have her already!’”
As their wedding ceremony neared an end, Sam Kleinsasser closed his black prayer book and asked the groom, then the bride, to come to the front. Mary extended her left hand toward the Prediger, and Ronald placed his right hand on top of hers as they promised to live faithfully together until death. The congregation was feeling restless after ninety minutes of sitting still, and by now most of them were daydreaming about dinner, but when Ronald was asked to make the final vow required of all Hutterite men, everyone leaned forward to hear him promise: “Should I suffer shipwreck of faith, I, Ronald, will not ask my wife or my children to follow me off the colony.” There was no kiss to seal the vows; neither did the couple exchange rings. To signify that he was a married man, Ronald would now have to grow a beard.
Over at the community kitchen, Sana Basel moved between the large soup vat at one end and the restaurant-sized grill on the other. She loved being the head cook, one of the few managerial positions held by women on the colony. Today she was filled with the added joy of preparing the wedding feast for her youngest sister. She dipped a large, metal ladle into the steaming soup vat and tasted the simmering beef broth. Sumptuous soups were a Hutterite staple, and noodle soup was the premier soup for Sundays, religious holidays, funerals, and weddings. Earlier in the week, the colony women had made the noodles from scratch with fresh eggs and flour and dried them on long, white sheets in the bakery.
Sana Basel fished out the cooked cubes of beef and meaty bones and put them into a large, stainless-steel bowl, covering the meat with a cotton cloth to keep it warm until serving time. “Here come the big eaters from Sturgeon Creek!” teased Sana Basel as three women from Sturgeon Creek Colony arrived to help prepare the meal for all the extra visitors. Sana Basel was as pleased with their company as she was with their offer to help. Three fifty-pound burlap sacks of potatoes had been brought up from the basement and were waiting to be scrubbed and boiled. The visitors joined several of Sana Basel’s helpers, who had already begun to prepare the vegetables in large sinks of water.
In another corner, the younger women were cutting up heads of green cabbage that had been grown that summer in the community garden. The Dienen wielded sharp butcher knives with uncanny precision, but when one of them accidentally nicked herself, her coworkers ribbed her that she was having Heiratsgedanken, marriage thoughts of her own.
“Did I see right? Is her apron the same color as her dress?” Ankela asked everyone in general as she entered the kitchen. She had just returned from the church service and didn’t know whether to trust her failing eyesight. “Su’e narrischa neue Styles!” she sputtered. “I can’t even tell she has her apron on!” She stopped to rinse her ill-fitting false teeth in the potato water before shuffling off to the dining room. The bride’s apron was already a hot topic of conversation among the kitchen help. In a community that generally followed a homogenous dress code, aprons had long been a means to express individuality, and young women would sometimes barter with friends on other colonies for a choice piece of fabric. Mary’s apron received unanimous approval from the potato caucus, who considered themselves on the cutting edge of Hutterite fashion.
At eleven thirty the meal was ready. “Geh glöckel die Glucken!” announced Sana Basel, pointing to one of the women who proceeded to pull the thick rope attached to an old church bell on the roof of the kitchen. It rang out just as the sun broke through a blanket of gray cloud, spilling golden light onto the cow and hog barns, the machine shop, the Henna Hüttel (henhouse), the honey house, the church, the kitchen, Ronald’s small dwelling, and the rows of semidetached residences that formed the backdrop of New Rosedale Colony. Ronald felt its warmth as the bridal party stepped outside of Sana Basel’s house on their way to the reception. He hoped its light was an omen for a better future.
The couple entered the Essenstuben, the dining room, where the head table had been set up against the south wall. Eight-foot wooden tables, placed end to end, ran the length of the east and west walls, and two extra rows of tables were squeezed between them to accommodate all of the guests. Each of the tables was covered with a white cotton tablecloth and set with Hochzeit G’schirr, special white dishes with green bands, used only for weddings.
As guests poured into the Essenstuben, they were met with the promising aroma of a special meal. A row of hooks just inside the door filled with men’s black hats. Wooden benches were soon lined with women looking forward to a day of catching up with sisters and childhood friends who had married into other colonies, and newcomers with fresh chatter about births, deaths, and forthcoming marriages.
Ronald and Mary took the two center seats at the head table, where a single place setting symbolized their union. It would be the only time in their married life they would be permitted to sit together in the Essenstuben. Two of Mary’s sisters, Anna and Katrina, sat next to her. The third sister, Sana Basel, was needed in the kitchen. Her head and hands were tending to the thousand fine points of preparing a feast for two hundred people, but her heart would be at the head table with them. Sorah Basel filled in for her, happy for her niece but in tears because her own marriageable daughter was e Tegela ohnes e Deckela, a jar who hadn’t yet found a lid.
Prediger Kleinsasser—finished with his formal duties at the church and as eager as the rest for a good dinner and a glass of wine—took up the position of honor beside Ronald. Traditionally a groom’s father and brothers would occupy head table positions, but no one from Ronald’s family had been able to attend. When Ronald had contacted his father in Ontario and told him about his upcoming marriage, Christian Dornn told his son, “You are marrying the enemy.” Christian had never heard of Mary Maendel, but he had succumbed to the teachings of Julius Kubassek, who was angry that his commune had been rejected by the Hutterite Church.
Mary’s brother Jake and her brother-in-law Dafit Wurtz, the man Mary’s father had urged Katrina to marry for love, took up the last two chairs at the head table. Jake trained his eyes on Elie Wipf standing with two Buben, “young men,” from New Rosedale in the far corner of the dining room. One of them gave Elie a good-natured slap on the shoulder, and they both laughed. Elie appeared to be taking his recent setback in stride, but seeing their glib behavior annoyed Jake, who was left to shoulder his disappointment over his sister’s choice.
“Let’s pray,” announced Dafit Wurtz, who had become the new junior minister at Deerboine Colony. He rose to his feet, and everyone clasped their hands and bowed their heads for the prayer. As soon as the wedding guests said “Amen,” a dozen young men burst through the swinging doors of the main dining room, carrying mahogany trays filled with bowls of steaming noodle soup. Wedding meals were always served by the Buben, and they hurried in and out of the dining room, squeezing their way through the narrow spaces between the tables, setting out tender chunks of beef, boiled potatoes, cabbage in cream sauce, and crisp dill pickles. The young men took every opportunity to flirt with eligible girls from other colonies as they delivered the food and offered up glasses of beer, wine, Orange Crush, and 7Up.
On the opposite side of the Essenstuben, separated by the main kitchen, the children’s eating school, called the Essenschul, was filled to capacity with fifty colony children and their young visitors. The Essenschul Ankela (eating school grandmother) was as busy as a short-order cook during the noon rush, ladling out soup, refilling the bun baskets, and wiping up ketchup spills. She was glad the Hochzeit G’schirr, special wedding dishes, hadn’t been wasted on this unruly bunch.
Mary was hungry and wished she didn’t have to share her bowl of soup with her new husband but insisted he go first and handed him the spoon as she reached for one of the fresh buns. Trays of food kept pouring into both dining rooms until the adults had had their fill and the tables were sagging from the weight of plates and empty serving bowls.
Mary’s brother Darius had just finished his second helping of beef when he broke away from his table to say hello to their stepmother, who had arrived from Old Rosedale. When the colony split, Rachel Gross Maendel had chosen to stay behind because her daughters had married men from the community, but she had urged Darius to move to New Rosedale to be with his older brothers. He was her pet, and the decision had been a difficult one for both of them. Even though Mary had been only thirteen when she had moved to New Rosedale, Rachel was here to witness the marriage of a stepdaughter with whom she maintained a distant, but respectful, relationship.
“Mer sein recht für cake!” shouted one of the young men as he entered the kitchen with an empty tray. Fifty round pans of white wedding cake lined the tables of the bakery, ready for serving. The glistening cakes looked like small, snow-covered lakes scattered with stars. They had been baked the day before and decorated with white icing and silverettes. Three of the young women were carving the nine-inch rounds into even slices, stopping occasionally to lick the whipped-cream icing from their fingers. Every family would also take a share of cake home. Those pans sat on a separate table, ready for pickup in the afternoon.
“Gott Lob und Dank für Speis und Trank. God be praised and thanked for his blessings and provisions.” The closing prayer signaled the end of the noon meal and the beginning of a short break to allow the Dienen to clear the dining room and for the cook and her helpers, the Nochesser, “after eaters,” to enjoy their dinner.
Pockets of people, some with visitors in tow, returned home to put children down for their naps and take a short rest themselves. The bridal couple and their entourage were in a celebratory mood and returned to Sana Basel’s house to drink home brew and serenade each other with music.
Darius, aided by a glass or two of whiskey, entertained the throng gathered around the Booker coal stove with hilarious renditions of “Froggy Went a Courtin’” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” One pimple-faced boy, buoyed by the schnapps, demanded the girls sing “Red River Valley,” but they didn’t want to waste a good song on a substandard suitor. One of his friends took pity on him and played his request on the harmonica.
At one thirty the bell rang, and members of the colony retraced the snowless paths to the kitchen and filled the dining room once more. Fresh from his afternoon nap, Andreas Hofer adjusted his black hat with one hand and clung to his Hutterite songbook with the other, as he followed his daughter Emma to the reception. As senior minister, it was his job to open the celebration with “Am drit-ten Tag ein Hochzeit war,” a song depicting the biblical story where Jesus attends a wedding with his disciples and turns water into wine. The song was followed by other traditional wedding hymns, “O Mein Jesu Du Bist’s Wert” and “Lass die Herzen immer fröhlich,” the Hutterite version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” A table of women as uniform as a girls’ choir—in polka dot Tiechlen and bold, plaid aprons—cut in with an English favorite, “Come and Dine.”
All the while, a steady flow of potato chips, peanuts, oranges, ice cream, and cake poured in from the kitchen. The servers launched the loaded trays over singing heads, mindful to not spill too much wine on the oblivious songsters.
By three o’clock most of the children had poked their noses into the dining hall for a peek at the festivities and a glance at the relaxed adults who, flushed with wine, were regaling each other with stories from their own courtships. The children knew that special bags filled with candy, gum, and peanuts were about to be handed out and did not want to miss the customary wedding treats. All the adults received a candy bag, too, but the sweets were the best part of a wedding for the younger ones. By five o’clock the traditional closing song, “Nun ist die Mahlzeit ja vollbracht,” had been sung with gusto and the wedding formally ended. Fathers hurried over to the colony machine shop for a quick look at the latest John Deere equipment, while mothers rounded up children for the journey home.
A small group of family and well-wishers stopped to say goodbye to the newlyweds, pressing them with timely pronouncements. “Now you’re nicely on the shelf,” sighed Rachel Maendel to her stepdaughter as she fastened the snaps on her Wannick for warmth on the ride home. “Moch’s gut. Make it good,” whistled Ankela through her troublesome false teeth, squeezing Ronald’s hand on the way out. Behind her, a visibly pregnant woman with a shiny round face that bobbed like a bird beneath a tightly knotted Tiechel had a warning for the startled bride. “You poor witch; de’re telling you lies when dey sing ‘Every day da sun will shine.’” She was Bara Baer, the wife of Sylvester Baer—the man Ronald had asked to defend him during his Hulba.
Some of the visitors lingered for the supper meal, and young people conscripted into staying the week for the annual turkey slaughter joined Mary and Ronald at Sana Basel’s to continue the celebrations late into the evening.
The colony was cloaked in darkness when the couple walked hand in hand toward Ronald’s house. Mary’s small wooden hope chest, a gift from the colony when she had turned fifteen, had already been delivered. It contained all her possessions: six dresses, her underclothes, hankies, and a small cross-stitch sampler embroidered with the German alphabet and the name Katrina Maendel. It was the only tangible vestige from her mother that she had inherited.
Ronald’s home had been furnished with the customary gifts from the community: a double bed, a table, and six chairs. A large wooden Schronk (a fabric storage cupboard) and a Singer sewing machine would be delivered to the couple in a few weeks.
The day had been bittersweet, but Mary was relieved that it had gone so well. She was glad to see Elie Wipf flirt with Emma, the daughter of the senior minister, Andreas Hofer, by stealing her candy bag and daring her to retrieve it. Mary remembered the letter of refusal she had sent Elie after they had shared the grapes, telling him, “You are a very nice man, but God must have someone else picked out for you.” She hoped it was Emma.
Ronald gave the doorknob a sharp twist and reached for the string dangling from the ceiling light. The newlyweds looked at each other in astonishment. Someone had unwrapped all their gifts and spread them across the kitchen table. Next to a broom and pail, towels, some cups and plates, and a few pieces of cutlery, an opened card read, “May your joys be many and all your troubles be little ones.” Curious Sorah Kleinsasser had treated herself to a little gift-opening for her week of hard work.
On his deathbed, Joseph Maendel had made eerily accurate predictions about each of his children. Of Mary he said, “You will receive much discipline but little love.” Mary was glad that part of her life was over. Each night when she returned to the little two-room house after a long and tiring day of community work, she found what she had yearned for, for so long . . . the love of a husband and a home of her own.