“‘Ann-Marie,
your mother and
father are running
away!’”
Ann-Marie Dornn, age 9.
ACROSS THE WESTERN sky, the rich red, orange, and gold tones of a spectacular Manitoba sunset were bringing the soft summer day to a close. We felt spoiled by its beauty in Fairholme, for over and over again, even in the harshest of winters, we were treated to its splendor. Against this magic expanse of space, I was playing dodgeball with the children from the Essenschul. We all had the giggles, and our laughter infected a group of adults who had come to watch. The women on cook week, having put in a full day in the kitchen, folded their arms across their chests, ready for a little fun. They chortled with amusement as I, as wide as I was tall, kept eluding the ball. The older boys were on a campaign to take me out, and the laughter escalated as the bare misses whizzed by.
Above the merriment, a voice pierced the warm air. “Ann-Marie, your mother and father are running away!” I froze and turned toward home. To a Hutterite, nothing is more shameful than the word Weglaufen, “running away.” Weglaufen was for rebellious young people who needed to get it out of their systems, not for mothers and fathers with a bushel of children. Entire families simply didn’t leave colonies. It was unheard of.
I remembered in previous years how, one by one, Sana Basel and Paul Vetter’s daughters had started leaving Fairholme for that big, sinful world. Who wouldn’t want to wear a short skirt or cut her hair like Mrs. Phillipot just once in her life? There just seemed to be no end to this exodus, but through the tears and protests, their parents had the hope that they would soon be back to get married and settle down in the comfort and security of colony life. They always came back to visit on Christmas Eve.
I would watch from our kitchen window for car lights at Sana Basel’s when her daughters would sneak home. In the pitch dark, the driver would quickly turn off the lights, and dark figures would rush into her house. In less than a minute I was there. Her daughters were still in the hallway, their hair cut short and the change in their appearance dramatic. Their knee-length coats hung open, revealing long legs and miniskirts. Paul Vetter was frantically shouting for them to cover up. “Legt’s ench on! Ich bitt ench Diene n legt’s ench on! Get some clothes on! I beg you, girls, get some clothes on!” he said. “How can you come home like this?”
Sana Basel was getting food and coffee ready in the kitchenette. “Kommt’s einhin,” she invited, trying to be heard above the commotion. “Father, be quiet and let dem come in.”
Paul Vetter disappeared into the bathroom as the girls slipped out of their coats and into the living room to greet a large contingent of siblings, nieces, and nephews who had come to welcome them home. Chairs were placed against the wall all around the room, and the children sat in the center of the floor. “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants,” one of the children piped up. Paul Vetter emerged from the bathroom, red faced and balancing a pile of towels in his hand. “Cover yourselves up, girls. It’s a terrible sin to dress like this,” he insisted.
“You never know what’s under dose skirts until you git married. Den you find out, and I can tell you, dos women are full of surprises,” said James, their newly married neighbor who had popped in for a look-see. “Du geh Heim!” a flustered Paul Vetter exclaimed, pointing him in the direction of the door while placing towels over his daughters’ exposed knees and thighs. I wondered if Sana Basel had warned her daughters about Jüngste Tog as well as she had me.
The dodgeball hit me hard in the abdomen. The game was over. I rushed toward home, trailed by a probing entourage. Rounding the corner, I saw two strangers lifting our family table onto a truck parked out front. Behind them came my father with the chairs. What was happening was unmistakable.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my brothers and sisters dashing home from every direction. Word had gotten around, and we all singly and breathlessly arrived at our front door. Father ushered us into the house and into one of the bedrooms, away from prying eyes. The event that was unfolding had, in that moment, driven a wedge between us and the rest of the community. Watching the spectacle from their lawns and out of their back windows, colony members were in as much disbelief as we were.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, wide-eyed and speechless, we waited for our parents to enter the room. We were all still young enough to have a child’s trust in our parents but old enough to recognize the seriousness of what was taking place. My oldest brother, Edwin, was twelve, Alex was eleven, and in a matter of days, I would be ten. Rosie was poised to turn nine, Phillip was seven, Eugenie was five, and Carl, the baby, was four. Together we waited for our parents to help us make sense of this madness.
Days earlier, I had been confronted at the Essenschul by one of the older girls when I arrived for the noon meal. “Your dad is running away from the colony, and he’s taking your whole family along!” she said. I could feel her hot breath against my face.
“You liar!” I shouted so everyone could hear me.
“Well, then why is he wearing ass pockets?” she wanted to know.
I felt my face grow red and my throat go dry. Pushing past her, I took my seat next to Sandra. My mind reeled and my hunger vanished. It had escaped my observation that Father had acquired store-bought pants. I wanted to run home, but I couldn’t. Clasping my hands, I recited the traditional table prayer with the others. After a few bites, I waited for closing prayers and hurried outside. I didn’t dare mention the incident to my parents, for fear there might be some truth to the troublesome exchange. I removed it from my mind as only a child can.
Now Mother stood solemnly behind Father as he told us plainly that we were leaving the colony the next morning. We were asked to please cooperate and be good. Alex cried that an adult had told him our parents were leaving the colony and taking us straight to hell. Hutterites are taught that the colony is the ark of God, and like the story of Noah in the Bible, those inside the ark are safe, and those who refuse to enter perish. “Ich kommnitt mit,” Alex objected. “I’m going to hide tomorrow and stay here.” My parents knew their second son had the stubbornness to complicate things and tried their best to calm him, but he was not persuaded. Father resorted to threatening Alex with the strap if he pursued his own course.
Father never told us why we were leaving but had, in fact, spent the last year preparing for this moment. The previous summer, he had taken an unapproved trip to visit his sisters in Ontario. Jake had refused to even consider granting him permission, and when Father requested Jake call a Stübel to see what the other colony men would say, that, too, was met with a firm no. “I want you to remember that I came to you and asked for your consent,” he told Jake, closing the door behind him. Father then took a load of cows to the livestock market in Winnipeg, borrowed some money from his brother Dippity-Do Pete, and left by train for Ontario.
He stayed away for six weeks, contemplating our future. His daring move was the talk of the community. Some of Mother’s brothers told her he had left her for a new life in the outside world, and others told her to lock him out when he came home. Mother held fast to the letters he wrote to her every day and anxiously waited for his return. His sisters, who had long since left the Julius Farm and settled in rural Ontario, cautiously advised him that it would be difficult to find a decent job to support so many children, but deep in his soul their brother’s mind was made up.
Jake hadn’t seen it coming. With such a large family, and with Oltvetter and Oma living next door, he never expected my father would leave the security of colony life. But after Father defied his orders and went to Ontario, Jake began to grow anxious about what his brother-in-law was capable of.
Upon his return, instead of being disciplined or excommunicated, Father found he had more leverage than ever. Hay and feed supplies for the cows were delivered on time without a hassle, and if he required a vehicle, one was promptly made available. Father was milking the cows one day when Jake unsteadily came to ask him if he felt what he’d done was right.
“If you would have treated my request with respect, or at least tried to appear reasonable, I would not have taken this trip,” said Father. “But Jake, we are like two immature boys arguing all the time. How can you stand there and begin your sermons every day with the words ‘Der Frieden des Herren,’ ‘The peace of God,’ when we have such disrespect toward one another?”
Angered by Father’s doggedness, Jake promised “to deal with him” and left, but nothing came of the threat. An uneasy calm prevailed until just before Easter, when Father felt compelled to find out where he stood.
Easter is a time of renewal and the most significant religious holiday for Hutterites. Not only is it the time of year when serious young adults are baptized and become full members of the Hutterite church, but it’s also the only time its members take communion. The communion service lasts for three hours. Special loaves of bread are baked by the women in the bakery for this solemn occasion, and everybody’s Luckela arrives early to care for the children so all the members of the church will be in attendance. All the women and girls, even those too young to attend, got a new dress. Watching the Dienen going to church in gorgeous new outfits was not to be missed.
Before the sacred holiday began, my father went over to Jake’s house and informed him that he would no longer be attending church. “In the Bible it says if your brother has ought against you, leave your gifts at the altar and go and reconcile,” Father said. “We don’t even consider straightening our matters out, and I don’t want to be a part of this anymore.”
The startled minister was moved to take action. He called a Stübel to clear the air, but as he stood at the front, defending his past actions, he began to contradict himself. This disturbed the rest of the men, who started to argue about the discrepancies. Finally Jake announced, “Well, we’re going to apologize.” The room fell silent as Father stood to his feet and said to the Prediger, “Jake, you’ve said up until now you have always done your best and have done nothing wrong. What do you have to apologize to me for?”
Immediately the men were up in arms because Father wouldn’t let a minister apologize to him. “I’d like to explain myself,” Father said, and he gave them a parable. “Supposing you accuse me of stealing something from you and I repeatedly deny it and argue my innocence all night. Then, all of a sudden, I say to you, ‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ and you ask me, ‘Did you steal it?’ and I say no. Would you accept my apology?”
Infuriated, Jake ordered Father to leave the meeting so he could speak privately with the men and determine a course of action. But Father said to him, “Jake, if you send me out now, I will take that to mean that you’re through with me, and I won’t come back.”
From then on, Father’s resolve exceeded the fear and doubt any reasonable man might have had about leaving the security of community life with a thirty-eight-year-old wife, seven children, and not a penny to his name. At forty-six, Father had never had a bank account, held a mortgage, or paid a bill. All he had was a grade-eight education and the heart of a laborer who knew the value of honest, hard work. After the Stübel, he devoted himself to his dairy cows and waited for his children to finish the school year.
One week before we “ran away,” Father took Edwin, Alex, Rosie, Mother, and me on a secret outing. Dad was vague about the trip, except to say that we were going to a place called Dahl’s Farm, because Mr. Dahl needed someone to clean his house. We didn’t get off the colony very much, so it sounded like a wonderful adventure.
Phillip really wanted to come along, but at his age Mother knew he would be more of a hindrance than a help. She told him he had to stay home. “Then I’m going swimming,” he sobbed. This alarmed Mother, who knew that the Assiniboine River was dangerous. Several Hutterite colonies were established on its banks, and its undercurrents had become legendary. Too many Hutterite young people, with no opportunity for formal swimming lessons, had lost their lives in its waters. Swimming was discouraged, and certainly stripping down to a swimsuit not condoned, but on hot summer days with no air-conditioning, rules and propriety gave way to the compelling desire to cool off. Typically, the teenage rule breakers influenced the younger crowd in need of excitement. The older ones often jumped into the river fully clothed, and the moment was not lost on the younger ones, like my brother, who would gleefully follow suit. Mother firmly warned Phillip that if he went near the river while we were gone, he would be disciplined when she returned.
Dippity-Do Pete had given Father an old brown pickup with a used camper in exchange for repair work on his home in Winnipeg. My father hid the truck in the bushes surrounding Fairholme. Mother, Dad, Rosie, and I climbed in the cab, and Edwin and Alex hopped into the camper, which was fitted with a yellow foam pad they could lie down on. Then off we went. After what seemed like a long time, we turned into a lane that went on for half a mile. It was very muddy, and the truck swerved all over the road as Dad fought for control of the steering wheel. Finally, we came to a stop in front of a small, yellow house with green shutters. Only our parents knew that this isolated little farmhouse would soon be our home.
Mother told my sister and me we had to help her clean the house, and she would give us a chocolate bar later. Dad went off to work, and the boys, to their delight, found two rusty old bikes in a nearby shed. They happily spent the day learning to ride them. We were given explicit instructions to not tell anyone where we had been when we got back to the colony.
Inside, the three of us—Mother, Rosie, and I—toured the lifeless, empty house. It was very dirty and smelled musty. The job got bigger by the room. Mother opened some windows to let flies out and others in. She appointed my sister to clean the bathroom, and me the kitchen. I was to wash out the cupboards and then the floors with the rags, pails, and Specksaften she had brought with her. Mother vanished to the basement, where she spent the day scrubbing a filthy cistern and removing the dead mice.
I filled the kitchen sink with water. A bottle of Ivory liquid dishwashing detergent had been left behind, and when I squeezed the bottle, a thick, milky solvent flowed into the hot water that released the most amazing scent. On the colony we used the practical and versatile Specksaften to clean everything. This was my first experience with dish detergent, and I was amazed English people actually did their dishes with something that smelled this fabulous. As I inhaled deeply, the steam rose and filled my enchanted nostrils. It smelled better than Mother’s perfume, and I couldn’t resist squeezing a small amount into my hand and daubing it on my neck. It was a bit sticky, but I felt unaccountably beautiful.
The Ivory detergent put considerable pleasure in my work, and it took me all day to do the job. Father returned for us in the evening. Mother, Rosie, and I had done as much as we could, and the boys were getting restless. We piled back into the truck, tired but happy to be going back.
On the way home, I rested my head on Mother’s shoulder and listened as she began to tell Father about a dream she’d had during her afternoon nap that week. Mother took her dreams seriously, for they often foreshadowed things to come. She was very conscious of their impact, because her own mother had been warned about her death in a dream that Joseph Maendel described in a letter:
A few days before she took sick, Katrina had a dream. She had taken her afternoon nap in the same bed upstairs, and when she came down at 1:30 she said to our daughter and me, “I was awoken by a dream and my sleep vanished from me.” We eagerly asked, “What was your dream?” She began, “I dreamt a big storm or a weather system was coming toward me. I screamed and tried to run this way and that, but I couldn’t get away. It frightened me and I woke with a start.” We couldn’t interpret the dream for her, but a few hours before she died, she reminded us of it and said, “This undoubtedly is what my dream was about.”
“I dreamt,” Mother said, “that a team of horses going very fast drove right through Fairholme and took off a corner of a house. I sat straight up in bed, I was so frightened,” she told Father. She was unsure whether the horses had run into our house or the house of the assistant minister, Andrew Gross, which stood directly in front of ours. “Something terrible is about to happen,” she predicted.
By the time we reached Portage la Prairie, I had dozed off. Suddenly my mother called out, “Police!” Dad stepped on the brakes, and I was jolted out of my slumber. “It looks as if they’re stopping all the cars,” Father said with a puzzled look, bringing his vehicle to a halt. He rolled down his window, and a police officer nearly blinded us with his flashlight. “What’s your name, and where are you heading?” he asked.
“My name is Ronald Dornn, and I’m on my way home to the Fairholme Hutterite Colony,” Father replied.
“Well, apparently somebody drowned there today,” the officer stated casually.
“Who was it? Do you have a name?” asked Dad, panic filling his voice.
“Oh, dear God,” whispered my stunned mother.
“No, I don’t,” he responded as he waved us off.
Father breathed new life into the old truck as he took off in earnest. Frantically, and out loud, my parents prayed that Phillip was safe. They alternated between begging God for his life and contemplating whether this was a sign from God that they shouldn’t be leaving the colony.
My brothers started banging on the camper window, upset by the way Dad was driving. They couldn’t imagine what had gotten into him as they knocked about in the back. Mother motioned for them to sit down and be quiet.
Dust and bits of gravel blew up behind us as we turned onto the sandy road to Fairholme. It was a dark night, and we were full of fear. In the event of such a tragedy, vehicles used to assist in the recovery of a body would traditionally be parked beside the home of the family who had lost a member. “Look, Ronald, they’ve parked the vehicles beside my sister’s house because we weren’t home,” said my mother, bracing for the worst. “No, that’s not your sister’s house, Mary,” said Dad. “That’s the assistant minister’s house.” We drove up to our house and rushed inside. Oma had put the children to bed and was sitting in the dark, waiting for our return. “They can’t find Ewald,” she said, referring to Andrew Gross’s son. It was a pain she understood only too well. Mother rushed past her into the children’s room, where she threw her arms around a warm and sleeping Phillip.
“They say he went swimming after supper,” Oma continued, “and now they can’t find him.” Relief and sadness flooded our rigid bodies. Mother returned and ordered us to bed. My parents were filled with gratitude that Phillip was safe but deeply saddened by the news. Eighteen-year-old Ewald was one of my dad’s best helpers in the cow barn, and Father was very fond of him.
Over the next few days, the predictable pattern of community life was turned upside down as the men searched the river. Ewald was handsome and likable and very popular with the girls. The whole colony was stunned by his loss. He had gone swimming after supper, and a strong undercurrent had carried him away while his two friends stood by helplessly and watched. His wary father had warned him not to go into the river, but Ewald was too old to be told what to do. “Then I’m off to build your coffin,” his father had said bluntly, trying to shock him into submission. Incredibly, his father’s terrible prediction came true.
Catherine and I sat on the riverbank, watching the men search the water with boats and tractors. I found her a great comfort in times like this. She displayed maturity beyond her years as she patiently explained how lucky and happy Ewald was to be with God. “We poor souls,” she continued, “must work hard to live good and productive lives.”
Many colony members came and went during the course of the day, including Ewald’s grieving family. Food and fresh coffee were brought from the community kitchen for the workers and for those holding vigil. Hours turned to days with no trace of the body.
Finally, it was decided that the best way to recover Ewald’s body would be to slaughter a pig weighing about the same as Ewald, and release it on the spot where he had disappeared. As soon as Catherine and I heard this news, we rushed to the pig barn. Since her dad was the pig man, we didn’t want to miss the slaughter, but by the time we got there, all out of breath, the pig was already on its way to the river. Rushing back to the river, we found we had missed the launch as well.
They eventually found Ewald’s body, and the funeral was held a few days later. His bloated remains were sealed in a steel coffin from an English funeral home, but even with this precaution, the putrid odor seeped through, making the circumstances surrounding the tragedy that much sadder. Because the coffin was closed, Ewald’s body could not be seen or touched, which suppressed the traditional good-byes.
Ewald was gone forever, and now, a few weeks later, we were leaving Fairholme too. Left in our wake was a community still reeling from its earlier loss. Like Ewald, we would no longer be a part of colony life, but unlike him, we would have to build a new life for ourselves elsewhere.
My parents went back to packing while their children wandered about the house in a daze. I went to look for Oma and found her in Mother’s small kitchenette. Her face was buried in her apron, and she was weeping so hard her whole body shook. As I entered, I heard her crying to God under her breath, “Dulieber Gott. Oh, dear God.”
I came undone. The sight of my cherished Oma in such a state was devastating. I threw my arms around her thick waist and started sobbing. She was my beloved grandmother who had taught me how to knit, fold clothes, and make tea. I was her favorite, and she mine. We ate and slept together on weekends and spent hours in her chamomile patch, picking the miniature, daisylike flowers that filled her house with fragrance as they dried. Every Saturday, when she could have chosen any one of the most capable colony girls to wash her floors, she chose me, patiently sitting in her rocking chair and pointing with her cane to the spots I’d missed. I couldn’t bear the thought of life without her.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered, composing herself as she quickly wiped her tears with her apron and smoothed her hair away from her face. Choosing her words carefully, she took a deep breath before she spoke.
“Ann-Marie, you must listen to your father and mother. They will need your help now more than ever. You have to be strong and set a good example for the younger ones. Your father is doing a very courageous thing, but you are too young to understand that right now. Someday you will understand and be grateful.”
I promised her I would do as I was told. I would have promised Oma anything.
When night fell, our house was nearly empty. The big truck was gone, and a sense of apprehension hung in the air. Little was said. Mother pointed my sister and me to a mattress on the living room floor, where we were to spend our last night as happy, carefree Hutterite girls.
I had worn my favorite dress that day. It was covered in small bursts of color and looked as if someone had taken a paintbrush and daubed red, yellow, and green blotches all over it. I loved the way it fit and wore it more than any other of my dresses. My fashionable mother had tried unsuccessfully to replace my well-worn, faded dress with new ones. That night, I couldn’t bring myself to take it off, an unspoken good-bye to a good friend. I slipped under my feather comforter and lowered my head on the soft, feather pillow. It took a long time before all the unanswered questions tumbling around in my head were overtaken by fatigue, and I fell asleep beside my equally subdued sister.
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of sobbing. Sana Basel and Mother were holding each other, weeping as if their hearts would break. Sana Basel knew my parents’ struggle intimately, but her arms did not want to let her sister, with whom she shared so much history, go.
Father had been up since 5:00 a.m. to milk the cows and do his chores for the final time. Then he went to see Jake Maendel. “Jake, I’m leaving the colony,” Father informed his brother-in-law. “Here are the records for the cows. Everything is in order. You’ve got milk for a whole year and then some. There’re a lot of little heifers coming in, and whoever takes over from me, the barn is ship shape. Now Jake,” Father said, looking him straight in the eye, “you and I have been at odds since the beginning, but I think you would have to agree that I gave my best years to the colony. I have been a hard worker and have done a good job of everything I’ve been assigned to. I’m starting over with nothing. Your sister and our seven children are relying on me. I am asking you to give me one milk cow for my family.”
“Absolutely not!” came the swift reply.
It was the last time the two men would ever see each other.
I wanted to run over to Sandra’s or Catherine’s house and tell them it was all a big misunderstanding, that we weren’t really leaving after all, and that this was just a bad dream, but I couldn’t. It really was happening.
“I’m going to da kitchen,” Sana Basel said, her voice cracking. “It’s not right dat you’re leaving empty-handed!”
We went next door to Oma’s and had hot oatmeal with brown sugar and cream for breakfast. It had no taste. Father was eager to go. He went out to put the mattress on which we had slept into the camper on the back of the pickup. Edwin, Phillip, and a reluctant Alex climbed in while Rosie, Eugenie, Carl, and I followed our parents into the front, a band of Hutterites on a risky venture. Sana Basel returned and pressed a chicken and a bag of noodles into Mother’s hand. It had started to rain.
No one said a word as we pulled away. I felt a lump in my throat, and tears well up in my eyes, but I didn’t dare cry. I looked straight ahead and tried to remember Oma’s words. “In God’s name we go,” Mother said softly.
The rain started coming down harder as we drove, and Mother and Dad sang a few German songs to lift their spirits and soothe their nagging fears about the future. Before long, Rosie started complaining of a stomachache and then began throwing up. In between spells of vomiting, she would curl up in a ball with her head on Mom’s lap and cry. We turned onto a long lane, and I recognized the isolated farmhouse in the distance. The rain had turned the road to gumbo, and the truck created deep ruts in the mud.
By now, Rosie was doubled over, and my parents realized they would have to take her to the hospital. Leaving the rest of us behind and me in charge of the younger ones, they drove to the children’s hospital in Winnipeg, thirty miles away. I stood outside and watched as Dad once again navigated the long lane. Mud flew up behind the wheels of the truck until he reached the adjoining road that led to the city.
Once inside, seeing our table, chairs, and beds around the house, I was left with the indelible impression that this was now home. My stomach started to hurt, but not in the same way as my sister’s. It was with the kind of aching loneliness that would last for a long time.
My parents returned late that night without Rosie. She had been admitted and stayed in the hospital for a week, during which time she turned nine. One of the nurses surprised her with a cake. On the colony, birthdays were acknowledged but not celebrated, and none of us had ever had the pleasure of a birthday cake. Thrilled with her good fortune, Rosie decided to take the plate of cake around the hospital ward and in her best English offered it to delighted fellow patients. “Want some, take some,” she would chirp. When I heard this, I wished with all my heart I could be hospitalized for my tenth birthday a few days later. In reality, the only thing I suffered from was homesickness. I wanted to go home, back to Fairholme Colony, where I belonged.
In our German family Bible, below the recorded births of all her children, Mother wrote in her plain hand, “Friday, July 16 we left the colony, 1969.”
Christian Dornn had exchanged his freedom for security, and now his son was giving it all up for the chance to be free.