1945
A boy in the colony
Born on the twenty-fifth of June in the Menno Colony, Paraguay — a Mennonite settlement carved out of the dry bush, where the holidays were kept the old way and a man made his living off the ground.
Read “Nobody There” →1964
The word he wanted
Over the three-day Christmas holiday he bicycles out to the Dueck farm at Rosenthal, walks Nettie home in the evening, and falls in love on the road between the two farms. “Are you coming back on the weekend?” she asks. That was the word he wanted.
Read “The Word I Wanted” →1966
Five thousand miles north
At twenty he is loaded onto a plane and carried to Canada with his family, leaving Nettie behind in Paraguay. He hands his wages to his parents to pay off the passage. The letters between them dwindle, and then stop.
Read “Oh Lord, What Am I Doing” →1968
He goes back for her
Two years and two months on, out of work and unwilling to let it end, he borrows fifteen hundred dollars he doesn’t have and flies back to Paraguay to find out if Nettie is still free.
Read “I Bought The Dress First” →Oct 1968
Married at Rosenthal
Three weeks of evenings together, and they marry that October in Paraguay. What matters, he says, is not the wedding — it’s everything that comes after.
Read “What Matters Is After” →1969
Home to Canada, together
In February they land in Toronto and begin their life in Canada for good. The rest — the framing career, the houses, the children and grandchildren, more than half a century of marriage — follows from that road at Rosenthal.
Read “Reflections” →