“I longed for an older
sister and found her in
Sana Basel’s cherished
granddaughter.”
Catherine Hofer, Sana Basel’s cherished
granddaughter.
THE WINTER AFTER Carl Jacob arrived, my tormented fears about Jüngste Tog returned; it had occurred to me that if I could outwit God, he would surely find a way to outmaneuver me. Sana Basel had warned us that if our last deed on earth was noble, then we would go to heaven, but if we were caught behaving badly or merely thinking unworthy thoughts, then we would burn in hell for eternity. I was haunted by her words. Adding to the pressure was our German teacher Katya, Jake Maendel’s daughter. She had full, red lips and eyes so big and round that they could instill the fear of God in you with their earnestness. The beautiful nineteen-year-old shared her father’s ruddy complexion and persuasive oratory skills. She echoed everything Sana Basel had said about Jüngste Tog, and I came to the decision that the surest way for me to get to heaven was to commit suicide. I would do something really nice for Mother and then end my life.
On Sundays, we were treated to a bottle of pop with the noon meal. I loved Orange Crush until I heard Strankel, “String Bean,” tell one of his friends that if you put two aspirins into a bottle of 7Up and drank it while it was fizzing, it would kill you. Strankel was a fountain of useless information and always up to some foolish scheme. The previous week, he had been selling suckers to the Essenschul children for one and a half cents each, so of course we all had to come up with two pennies. Everyone considered him a simpleton, but his pockets were constantly jingling with our nickels and dimes. Now, I was counting on his formula to help me kill myself.
Mother was besieged by cranky, crying babies when I arrived home, so I offered to wash the dishes and clean up the kitchenette while she put the little ones down for a nap. I hurried through my chores and found two aspirins in the bathroom medicine cabinet and a bottle opener with the cutlery.
Then I remembered my Japanese orange collection and the effort it took to accumulate it. Weeks earlier, the colony had distributed Weihnachtsgeschenken, “Christmas goods.” By tradition, the bell would ring on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and every household would rush to the community kitchen with sleds and toboggans and wagons for their share. Beneath a cardboard sign with the initials R. M. D. (Ronald Mary Dornn) stood boxes and boxes of store-bought cookies, candy, fruit, and nuts. Halvah, ribbon candy, shiny chocolate coins, licorice, toffee, Dubble Bubble, broken chunks of Sweet Marie bars, Sultana cookies . . . on and on it went. A child’s dream: it was like being let loose in a candy store with a year’s worth of treats right in front of our eyes.
The excitement had started to mount on the last day of school, when the Eatons’ truck arrived and two delivery men brought dozens and dozens of wrapped parcels into the classroom with our names on them. Our gift from the colony had arrived! Visions of tea sets and dolls and toy guns and yo-yos danced through our brains. We could hardly suppress our exhilaration, even though we knew what they contained; in November, we had given the teacher our order from the Eatons’ catalog, with a price limit of $2.99.
No one had a Christmas tree in their homes, and we did not receive gifts from our parents; but on Christmas Eve, we laid one of our wool socks on the table, and Mother and Dad would fill them with peanuts and a single Japanese orange from our bursting Kellerlein. The orange was exquisite but so small it went down before you could properly taste it. That year I had started collecting them, and I made the rounds to all my favorite homes to ask for another. Then I bartered with the other children for more so I could have a real feast.
Like precious little eggs, I had amassed thirteen oranges in the back of my underwear drawer, and I wasn’t about to deny myself one last moment of pleasure. Then and there I consumed them all, leaving an arc of peels across my bed. By the time I added the aspirins to the 7Up, my stomach was pitching, and I felt as if I already had one foot in the grave. As I watched the aspirins dissolve, I remembered how much my parents cried when Renie died, and how awful it felt in my heart for so long, and my resolve began to evaporate.
Dying was turning out to be a very inconvenient undertaking, and I realized I was going to have to get used to the threat of Jüngste Tog for the rest of my life, just like everyone else. Besides, in my young girl’s way of thinking, there was always something exciting around the corner to look forward to. Any day now I would be receiving a special invitation not to be missed! Whenever the mood struck him, often over the Christmas holidays, Jake Vetter would invite a handful of children to his house for the evening. We were always summoned at the last minute and in the same manner. One of the young Dienen would open our front door and yell, “Ann-Marie, der Jake Vetter werd G’schichtlen verzählen,” announcing the exclusive invitation. And while she was off to the homes of other invitees, I would dash off at full speed to my uncle’s house at the opposite end of the colony. Only about five of his nieces ever made the list, so we felt very special. We descended on the rickety ladder into his Kellerlein, surrounded by shelves stacked with fruits and nuts and box after box of chocolate bars. At six-by-six feet, the Kellerlein was bigger than anyone else’s on the colony. It even had its own lightbulb.
We found our places on the hard ground around him, and he offered us each a handful of toffee. Jake Vetter preferred girls as an audience because we were less troublesome—not as likely to fart or fidget. He looked like a character straight out of the Bible, perched on a wooden stool, with his full beard and his thinning hair combed neatly back. Dark suspenders crisscrossed his checkered shirt, and his feet were wrapped in thick, burgundy slippers that had been crocheted by his wife. He always left the Kellerlein opening ajar so his daughters could pass him fresh cups of tea and so his wife, who must have been as captivated as we were, could listen in while she did her knitting upstairs. For two hours, with the toffee melting in our mouths, we were transported to Egypt and suffered with the children of Israel as they endured plague after plague before Pharaoh finally relented and let them go.
After the story, Jake Vetter would go on at length about the meaning of all that, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and the years of anguish the children of Israel endured. I had no way of comprehending the similarities between this story and his troubled relationship with my father. In my view, Jake Vetter was simply a masterful storyteller who left us spellbound, just like his sister, Sana.
The long, lazy days of fall were magical in Fairholme. The trees in the colony apple orchard hung low with a bumper crop of fruit, while up above, the velvet skies were dotted by hundreds of Canadian geese flying south in V-shaped formations. As the sun retreated, we were warmed by steaming vats and crackling fires.
The kitchen was a giant ventilator, circulating aromas of Strankel Worsch, bacon, and fresh bread. Meaty tomatoes were transformed into jars of soup, joining the hundreds already lining the burgeoning shelves in the basement pantry. Deep-red beets, boiled whole and eaten with the skins left on, and thick cobs of corn slathered in butter and salt tasted mächtig gut, “incredible.” I admired Sana Basel’s cherished granddaughter, Catherine Hofer, and she and I would grab one of those beets on our way out of the Essenschul. We would take it home and hide in our bedroom closets, where we applied the vegetable to our cheeks and lips and pretended to be Mrs. Phillipot.
Though Sandra and I remained inseparable, I longed for an older sister like Sandra had, and Catherine filled that role for me. She was a year older, but more mature and sophisticated, just like an older sister should be. Tall and slender, with jet-black hair, she carried herself with grace and had a reputation for being dutiful. Mrs. Phillipot liked her because she was diligent in school, and I liked her because she could satisfy my curiosity about almost everything.
We formed a club, just the two of us, which convened Sunday afternoons when all the adults and children took a nap. Catherine gave it the exotic name Secret Flowerpot. We would fish a large dill pickle from a gallon jar in the walk-in fridge and choose the softest buns in the kitchen for inspiration. Then we would sit on the wooden tables in the bakery, our legs dangling down and the warm sun on our backs, as we discussed a week’s worth of Mrs. Phillipot.
Catherine told me that Mrs. Phillipot dressed according to her moods: when she wore red she was mean, in blue she was pleasant, and on pastel days she was nice to everybody. I liked Mrs. Phillipot so much in red that I hadn’t noticed, but I promised to pay more attention.
Mrs. Phillipot was our closest specimen from the English world, and nothing she said or did escaped our scrutiny. One thing that had us scratching our heads was why Mrs. Phillipot wore nylons. In our practical world, they made no sense whatsoever. They didn’t keep her warm in the winter, and they didn’t cool her off in the summer. It was the oddest thing the way they matched the color of her skin and were next to impossible to distinguish with the naked eye, except for the slight crinkling at the knees when she stood up from a sitting position.
The topic had come up among the children at school, and we tried to penetrate the English person’s mind with wild guesses and ridiculous theories. Someone said Mrs. Phillipot wore nylons for health benefits, such as the prevention of Reisen, “arthritis,” but then another claimed it was to keep hair from growing on her legs. She certainly had the baldest legs we ever saw. Even Roland weighed in on the debate, speculating that she wore them to shield herself from our germs. Anything was possible. One of the older girls finally worked up the nerve to ask her, and at first she seemed taken aback by the question, but then insisted they really did keep her warm.
We giggled, thinking she took us for fools. Catherine considered all their theories, took a bite of her pickle, and said thoughtfully, “It has to be for style, because that’s what Mrs. Phillipot cares about the most.” Catherine always had the right answers!
I grew to rely on Catherine for answers to an abundance of questions. Our imaginations were fueled by the poetry Mrs. Phillipot read to the older students. We were smitten with a poem by Canadian poet Pauline Johnson, called “The Song My Paddle Sings.” We quickly memorized it, reciting it over and over again as we imagined ourselves floating down the Assiniboine River in Pauline’s canoe. The way she strung words together made us feel there was hope for the English language.
West wind, blow from your prairie nest
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
O! wind of the west, we wait for you.
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,
But never a favour you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.
I stow the sail, unship the mast:
I wooed you long but my wooing’s past;
My paddle will lull you into rest.
O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep,
By your mountain steep,
Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.
August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I,
Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift
On either side of the current swift.
The river rolls in its rocky bed;
My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip,
While the waters flip
In foam as over their breast we slip.
And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow.
Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl
In many a dangerous pool awhirl!
And forward far the rapids roar
Fretting their margin for evermore.
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound and splash.
Be strong, O paddle! Be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into
Reel, reel.
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.
We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead!
The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway,
As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away.
And up on the hills against the sky
A fir tree rocking its lullaby,
Swings, swings,
Its emerald wings,
Swelling the song that my paddle sings.
Pauline Johnson’s father was a Mohawk chief. In pictures, she looked so beautiful in a fringed buckskin dress and bear claw necklace; we could feel the wind blowing its bitter chill over the prairie as we glided through the pristine waters of some mighty river, our voices swelling and falling with every slip and dip of her pen.
Hutterites in Canada generally felt a kinship toward the neighboring aboriginal communities because neither was well accepted by the mainstream. The women from the nearby reserve often appeared after supper, and our cook would pack up the leftovers for them. (We were so spoiled we didn’t eat leftovers.) The women brought with them hand-painted, birch-bark brush holders and beaded broaches and necklaces in exchange. Although jewelry was prohibited on the colony, Indian beadwork worn discreetly was tolerated. Sometimes the women would make a stop at Sana Basel’s house. She knew them by name and offered up treats from her Kellerlein, but her generous nature irked Paul Vetter, who complained loudly as she carried box after box out to the car.
“Your husband, he talk too much,” one Indian woman observed when they were out of earshot.
“He sure do!” agreed Sana Basel. “He sure do!”
Loaded down with leftovers, the back ends of their dilapidated vehicles dragged on the ground as they pulled away in a cloud of dust. Some summer nights, the haunting sound of drums from the powwow at the Long Plains Reserve would seep through our open windows and lull us to sleep. Every year, a group of curious teenagers stole a colony vehicle in the night and returned with fascinating stories of feathers, regalia, and wild dances. The natives weren’t tempted by our lifestyle any more than we were by theirs, yet a quiet understanding remained between us, fortified by our shared status as second-class citizens.
Saturdays were all-out cleaning days on the colony. Every person and their floors were washed and polished, including the community kitchen, the kindergarten, and the school. When the older girls washed the floors at the school, there was always an audience, because they were given the key to Mrs. Phillipot’s little back room, where she kept her beautiful shoes. Lined up in a neat little row were black, blue, white, and brown high heels, each more stylish than the other. It was impossible to resist the urge to try them on, and soon all the girls were clippety-clopping up and down the aisles. I was desperate to experience the sensation of heels sinking into the sand the way they did when Mrs. Phillipot was walking to the Essenstuben, so when Sandra and I were given a turn, I chose the sleek, black patent pair, stuffing them with toilet paper until they fit.
Our feet felt like they had been poured into a vase, and they ached as we marched all over the school yard, wondering how Mrs. Phillipot made it look so easy. The older girls made us wash each pair inside and out until every speck of evidence was gone before returning the shoes to the exact spot from which they had been taken. Mrs. Phillipot never knew what a thrill her shoes gave her students at Fairholme Colony on her weekends off.
Sometimes, when we had a little pocket change, we would sneak off to Bambi Gardens. It was a seasonal resort area a quarter mile from the colony. A large, round Coca-Cola sign beckoned us on as we started down the long, winding road to our desired destination. As we drew closer, we could hear the owner’s yappy Maltese barking feverishly. Approaching the canteen, we could see the wading pool, the swings, and the Assiniboine River slowly rolling past like a picture book. Off to the right were the campers.
Mrs. Bamberack always seemed so strained in contrast to the tranquil surroundings. We could hear the familiar clatter of the wooden stick as she propped open the canteen window through which she shouted nervously, “What do you want, girls?” If we dared dip our feet in the pool or sit on the swings, she would say, “The wading pool and the swings are off-limits and for the use of my customers only. Now, come along, get what you want, and off you go.” We’d make our way to the window and longingly eye all the wonderful treats. The smell of cigarettes would rush at us while our eyes searched the shelves behind her for ripple chips, McIntosh toffee, ice cream, Coca-Cola, and 7Up. If we took too long, Mrs. Bamberack would prod us. “Come on now. I don’t have all day. Make up your minds and off you go.”
Beyond candy and Mrs. Phillipot’s fashions, we did not envy English people their stressed lives. For Catherine and me, it was enough to walk in the woods in the summertime and play miniskirt, fastening the bottom of our skirts to our waistlines and feeling the cool wind on our legs.
In the glistening days of autumn, when Fairholme was blanketed with leaves from one end of the colony to the other, the women would rake the lawns, and the teenage boys would come with wheelbarrows to collect the individual piles and deposit them in one huge mound in an open space near our house. The larger it grew, the more irresistible it became, until we hurled ourselves into the golden bed of foliage. Our sides would hurt from laughter, and our clothes and hair would be matted with bits of twigs and debris. The older boys would eventually set the pile on fire, and we would run down to the Kartoffel Kammela, “potato cubicle,” in the community kitchen and retrieve a potato from a heap as high as the leaves we had been playing on. Then we would hurry back to toss it into the blazing bonfire, deeply inhaling the sweet, tobacco smell of burning leaves and inching as close as we dared to warm our shivering bodies from the chill of fall, though each year the bottom of Rosie’s dress was charred from getting too near to the fire, and Mother would throw it away.
When the fire subsided, the boys would start pulling out the blackened potatoes with long rakes. Nobody got their original potato back, but we all claimed to identify the first one out of the fire as our own. Our hands and faces would be smeared with soot when our mothers would come to collect us for a scrubbing and bedtime routines. Sleep was never sweeter than in the fall when, drunk with fresh air and exercise, we ducked under thick feather comforters and dreamed contentedly of the days ahead.
Late fall was the most romantic time of year at Fairholme. The Manitoba Hutterite colonies were responsible for 95 percent of the province’s geese production, and every year Fairholme produced twenty thousand birds for market. The Buben (young men) from the Riverbend and Oakbluff colonies were always invited to provide the extra manpower needed for the two-week slaughter. They were industrious, courteous, and most importantly, flirtatious. When the bell rang after breakfast, lines of men and women fitted with aprons and rubber gloves made their way to the Gonsstoll (goose barn) behind the hatchery.
Out in the back, the young boys rounded up the geese while two Buben, armed with an ax and a block of wood, chopped off the birds’ heads and hung the carcasses neck down on a circle of hooks to let the blood drain. The geese were handed off to my cousin, John Maendel, through an opening in the wall covered by a rubber flap. John had an artful way of swinging the door of the boiler while keeping his eye on his stopwatch. It took exactly one minute to steam the feathers off six geese, and he had the timing down to a science. Inside the steamy Gonsstoll, women were stationed along the sides of large, rectangular plywood boxes built to collect the feathers that would be sold to markets in Minneapolis and Chicago for two dollars a pound.
While the geese were suspended from the ceiling by hooks, rows of women, two to a goose, plucked the feathers while the Buben ran to supply their favorite Diene with a fresh bird. The Fairholme girls used the opportunity to tease them about how longsäm, “slow,” they were, while married women shared advice about sensible things, like how to stop children from sucking their thumbs or wetting the bed.
As the community worked amid the blood and the goose heads and the feathers, the young women would start to sing. Their clear, beautiful voices surged in a unison so powerful you could almost feel your feet lifting off the ground. “In that beautiful land where it’s always springtime and the flowers bloom on and on.” At three o’clock, the colony boss brought special store-bought treats for Lunschen, and the children received handfuls of candy or bubble gum. Benches of straw bales bordered the length of the room where the adults rested and enjoyed soft drinks, ice cream, and coconut cookies.
Late in the afternoon, as the piano-sized boxes filled with feathers, the Buben couldn’t resist the invitation for some sport. One after another, a Boa (young man) would grab his favorite Diene from behind and throw her into the box of feathers. She would resurface covered in feathers and soft down, feigning astonishment, while onlookers laughed at their antics. The older women criticized the single women for being bubisch, “boy crazy,” and wild, but everyone knew the annual goose slaughter was a way for young people to share time together and playfully acknowledge their interest in a potential husband or wife.
In the evening, after the older crowd had retired to their beds, the young people gathered at my friend Catherine’s house. Guitars were forbidden, but her dad, Paul Jr., had one hidden in a closet, and the romantically inclined would pile into a back room to socialize and sing. At midnight, Paul Jr.’s thoughtful wife, Katie, who enjoyed the young people, would serve tea, chocolate bars, and fruit before everyone went home for a good night’s rest in preparation for another big day of work.
Wing feathers were not salable, but they were collected in gunnysacks for the women to make quilts and pillows out of them. After the goose slaughter, Sana Basel always took a big sack of wing feathers, and in the cold winter evenings, the call would go out to come and Federschleiss (feather strip) at her house. The women sat in a semicircle in her living room, each with a pile of feathers in her lap. The feathers were stripped down on each side, and the stems were thrown on the floor to be made into whistles for children. Federschleissen was our invitation to the theater, filled with good food, lots of laughter, and the latest gossip about who got married, who was in die Wuchen, who died, who rose from the dead, and who found Jesus.
The only thing more engaging than Federschleissen was when my mother’s sister Anna came from Deerboine for her yearly visit. She always stayed at Sana Basel’s house, and whenever those two Maendel sisters got together, it was worth dropping everything to pay them a call. Sana Basel’s husband, Paul Vetter, nearly had heart failure when those two teamed up. He was neat and orderly, and that’s the last thing you’d ever accuse them of. Within hours of Anna Basel’s arrival, she and Sana Basel turned the house upside down. Side by side they sat on the brown sofa in the living room, sacks of feathers sprouting between their knees. They clutched the delicate down in their well-worn hands and discussed its quality and potential while wisps of feathers floated around the room and dotted the furniture. Nothing held their attention for long, and by the end of the day, the house was a jumble of fabric and feathers. Garbage bags filled with rags for making rugs were brought down from the attic, and the colorful fabric was scattered about in careless heaps. Sana Basel took out her spinning wheel and started to spin some sheep’s wool while Anna Basel unfolded the sewing machine and began construction of a durable pair of underwear.
Paul Vetter couldn’t stomach chaos. He either evacuated himself early or remained barricaded in his bedroom. At Lunschen, the two sisters went in pursuit of his chocolate bars, which he kept under lock and key in a desk drawer.
“Voter, bring uns Bars! Father, bring us some bars!” Sana Basel demanded.
He wasn’t in the mood to break bread with the two mess makers, but he was due for a coffee, and the only way to get it was to dodge the mayhem in the living room and make his way to the kitchenette in large strides, complaining as he went.
“Good God, this house is a pig barn! How on earth can you two create such an awful mess?”
“Och stilla, Voter,” replied Sana Basel in a soothing voice. “Don’t scold, Father. You know that we’ll clean everything up. Hush, hush—here’s some good coffee.”
Sana Basel was fairly used to his discontent, and he understood that his objections fell on deaf ears. Still, they tried resolutely to change each other’s habits. And in their spare time, they had raised thirteen children together.
Eyeing the coffee, Paul Vetter plunked down on a chair, his thumbs in both suspenders, glaring at his sister-in-law with unmistakable indictment. “Anna, dos bist du Schuld!” he declared, laying the blame on her. “It’s a downright sin to be capable of making such a sorrowful mess!”
Anna Basel nodded her polka dots in Paul Vetter’s direction, wordlessly confessing her collusion as her face disappeared into her coffee cup. Then she and Sana Basel would try to distract my uncle with interesting gossip.
“I don’t care!” he shouted midsentence as they tempted him with a delightful tale, but then he’d press them for details, and they knew they had him.
They cooed and massaged and waited on him, but if he caught sight of Catherine and me passing by the window, pushing baby carriages outside, he would open it and bellow, his cheeks expanding and retreating like a goldfish. “Dindlen kommts her!” he’d beckon. “Something outrageous is going on in here. I beg you to come and clean up this piggery.” And then he’d dash back beyond the living room to the safety of his office.
Fairholme had a reputation as a free-spirited colony and was criticized by other colonies for being too worldly. The young women dared to wear their skirts an inch shorter than in other colonies, but Jake Maendel did not concern himself with such matters. In the winters, when all the young men on the colony disappeared after supper, everyone knew they were huddled on bales upstairs in the pig barn, watching the Stanley Cup finals on a small black-and-white television.
Despite Jake Vetter’s willingness to look the other way in some areas, his management style continued to clash with my father’s when it came to a moral code for community life. Father’s current position as cow man in Fairholme did nothing to improve his status with Jake either.
Back at New Rosedale, Father had been the appointed chicken man, assuming the position from Sylvester Baer, who stayed on as his assistant even after their unforgettable Hulba incident. The two had remained friends and worked well together in the colony’s new, large-capacity chicken barn. My father, who had never worked with chickens before, read everything he could on the subject before immersing himself in his new job. He constructed wooden water and feed troughs for six thousand birds, paying special attention to details, such as spacing to avoid overcrowding. Diligent and methodical, he was driven by the motto he adopted in his youth: “Things that you do, do with your might; things done by halves are never done right.”
While Sylvester had been satisfied to deliver a dozen cases of eggs to a handful of faithful weekly customers, Father set his sights on a bigger market and drove to Winnipeg to approach Safeway to buy his eggs. The large grocery chain offered him forty-three cents a dozen, but when the competition, Burn’s and Co., promised him half a cent more per dozen, he signed a deal with them. Egg production soared to over a hundred cases of graded eggs per week, and over the course of three years, Father had helped to establish New Rosedale as the largest egg producer in Manitoba.
My father always took pride in a job well done, but sometimes, when alone with the chickens, he wondered whether he had made the right decision by giving community life another chance. At New Rosedale, he had a kind and gentle wife who took good care of him, but the absence of brotherly love in the colony, at least the kind the Bible spoke of, left him questioning his judgment. He was troubled that his strained relationship with the senior Maendel brothers had not improved after his controversial marriage to their sister. Instead, they continued to downplay their brother-in-law’s achievements, praising the chicken men from other colonies as superior, even though the profit margins year after year proved otherwise.
My father applied that same exhaustive work ethic to his role as the cow man at Fairholme, and as a result, he helped to establish a dairy and breeding program that was booming. As had happened at New Rosedale, though, he didn’t get the credit. His profit was applied to other enterprises.
The summer I turned nine, Father’s commitment to community life was challenged once again, and Jake Maendel did what he swore he would never do: summon ministers from surrounding communities to help him deal with the mess. “That will be the day, when I need other ministers to help me run my own colony,” he had once bragged.
The crises began in the usual manner. Father asked for something, and Jake said no. At first, the two were at loggerheads, because Jake wouldn’t repair the barn’s water pumps. It was hot outside, and the cows’ water supply and milk were in danger of drying up. Father was so annoyed that Jake would jeopardize the colony’s milk contract that he retaliated by refusing to milk the cows. Then in August, as Father was struggling to keep up with the demands of his thriving livestock operation, he repeatedly asked to buy a wagon so he could cut grass and use it for cattle feed. Again and again Jake denied his request.
It galled Father that he was breaking his back to make a success of the dairy without any support or acknowledgment. He went to Winnipeg and bought a new wagon for five thousand dollars and charged it to Fairholme’s account. To buy something without permission was unheard of; not even ministers were allowed to do that. When he arrived home with his new purchase, the whole colony erupted, and Jake immediately called a Stübel, where he rebuked Father and told him he would be disciplined for flagrant insubordination.
“Jake,” Father responded, “before you punish me, you must first be punished.” Father’s anger made him fearless. “You and Hons are buying trucks without asking, and you know as well as I do that all big items are to be approved by the community.”
There was an audible gasp in the room as Father appealed to the rest of the men sitting stiffly on the wooden pews. “I asked and asked Jake for a wagon to feed my cattle, and he refused to even bring the matter to council. So I did what the minister and the boss do. I went out and bought it without permission. I acknowledge that it is against the rules, and I am willing to subject myself to the same punishment as they get.”
Mother’s other brothers were also in attendance, and during the discussion, Hons Maendel shifted uneasily on the front bench while Peter Maendel tried to mediate. “What,” he asked Jake, “was your reason for saying no?” The question hung in the air like a bad smell.
The Stübel was dismissed, and a diminished Jake went home and called twenty-five ministers from other Manitoba colonies to deal with the matter. Their decision was compromised by Jake’s own disregard for colony rules. Father was forced to apologize, but he made the apology on the condition that he would be allowed a wagon. It was agreed that he could have a wagon, but not that wagon. His hasty purchase was to be returned immediately, and the colony would buy a new one.
Mother’s brother Peter accompanied him to Winnipeg to make the return. They spent the better part of a day going from one implement dealer to another to find a similar wagon, but there was none to be found. At the end of the day, they quietly returned to Fairholme with the same wagon and said nothing.
“What are we living in the colony for?” Father asked Mother late that night as they both lay in bed, unable to sleep. “Why are we living our lives in a constant state of conflict?”
The answer came with the morning light, and Father’s frustrations were replaced by a steely calm. He knew what he must do.