NotesTranscript

Notes

Colony history and migration

Wed, 01 Jul 26

Colony Life in Paraguay

• Two separate colony sections: north and south, all considered one colony
• Neighboring colonies settled by waves of Mennonites from Russia and Canada
  • Fahrenheim: arrived 1920s-1930s, via China from Russia
  • Colony Island: arrived 1948, escaped Russia
  • Colony Follendam and Colony Farnham: also from Russia
  • One unnamed colony: Canadians who arrived 1948
• Colonies were very separate then; today intermarried and integrated
• Church denominations split between colonies
  • His colony: all Conference (baptism by sprinkling)
  • Farnham colony: three churches (Conference, Mennonite Brethren, Alliance)
• Language differences between colonies
  • His colony used English loanwords (pie, gasoline, radiator)
  • Farnham colony used older German or Russian equivalents (plots, brandschaft, reglota)
  • Could understand each other, but mocked the differences
• Colony industries: cotton gin and peanut oil processing
  • Neighboring colonies brought their cotton and peanuts to his colony’s machinery
  • Cotton cleaned, seeded, baled, and shipped to Asuncion
• Paraguay has since transformed into a major cattle exporter; one nearby slaughterhouse now processes 1,000 cattle a day
  • In 1978, Paraguay had the best meat on the world market

Move to Canada and Return for Grandma

• Family received 10 paid tickets to Canada in early March 1966; left at age 20
• Leaving was deeply painful: was about to be baptized and had been dating Grandma
  • Told Grandma only one week before departure
  • No phone contact possible; letters were the only link, and those dried up for over a year
• Arrived in Canada, made friends slowly due to language barrier
  • Two other Paraguayan families provided early community; church came later
• After two years, three months, and three days, decided to return
  • On a Wednesday morning at 5am, drinking mate with his dad, made the decision
  • Bought his ticket by noon that same day
  • Needed a Paraguayan visa (unique requirement at the time); passport sent to San Francisco consulate, returned by Monday
  • Flew Monday night: Vancouver to Toronto to New York to Paraguay
• Kept the real reason for returning secret from people at the Mennonite Motel in Asuncion

Faith, Marriage, and Family

• Baptized April 7th, 1968, at 2:30pm, King Road MB Church, alongside Herman Jansen
  • Remembers the date and time precisely; considers it the most important day of his life
  • Grandma was re-baptized in Canada to join the MB church (originally baptized by sprinkling in Paraguay)
• Grew up without any teaching on being “born again”; baptism was tied to church membership and marriage eligibility
  • Viewed pre-baptism elder meetings as overly Pharisaical rule-following
  • Wishes someone had explained more about what marriage involves
• On staying married: “It takes two people”
  • Keys: forgive and forget, listen to each other
  • Acknowledges there were hard times, but could never leave because of the damage it does to children
  • Connects divorce to broken families and homelessness
• Children and their birthdays:
  • Veronica: October 31st, born at Burnaby Hospital (remembers watching trick-or-treaters from the 7th floor)
  • Michelle: January 5th, born in Abbotsford by C-section
  • Mike: December 17th, born in Abbotsford by C-section (“a Christmas gift”)

Transcript

Speaker ACities, that's where soccer was played.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker ABut in our colonies, nobody played soccer, you know, so that's why we were. We. We knew what soccer was, but that was about it.

Speaker BWell, you said you played volleyball.

Speaker AI played some volleyball here and there a little bit.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AI love playing volleyball. But.

Speaker BAnd did you all go to church as a colony, too?

Speaker AOh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we had churches. Who would. Every. Just about every Sunday we'd go to church, you know, drive with bicycles to church, sometimes with buggy and horses.

Speaker BSure. How many people were in your colony?

Speaker AThat I don't know. I probably knew it one time, but not anymore.

Speaker BSure. It locks then.

Speaker AYeah. See, we had, like. How can I describe it? We were two separate colonies there. Okay.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AI thought. Yeah, I thought this was white. Anyways, this. This in the area now, which is great. To where I live. That was the first. First colony. First mar. People moved. I'm doing in 1926. Yeah. Stairs. Yes. Ascension. And we lived about 400 kilometers northwest. Okay. Okay.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AThat's where our colony was like they call it. See, this is the part where we. There was two separate parts. It was an old part and a north part and south part. The south part. They started there later. Oh, I was. I think I was born already. It was from. From here to there. Some of my cousins lived there. So they. They started. But it was all like, all one colony.

Speaker BOkay, sure.

Speaker AAnd then on 1920s, 1930, a group of people came from what had left earlier. Russia.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AMost of them, they had gone somehow to China. And they came from there. And then they settled right beside us here. They bought a big, big chunk of land there. Yeah. And they called the colony Fahrenheim. Okay. Okay. Now, in 1948, when the. When the thing wants someone to keep a fleet. Russia, you know, escape Russia. Then came another group here. They settled here. It was called Colony Island. Okay. See, those. Those days, those colonies were very separate. Not anymore. They're all mangled, just like they marry each other from what used to never happen. Oh, okay. And. But also there came two more groups. One group settled there called Colony Follendam. They're also from. Those people came from Russia, another colony there. Colony Farnham.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AYeah. So then there was another colony here. Those people came from Canada, 1948, after you guys. A group of people then came there.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AThey call. We call them. What did we call them? They had a name. Can't remember the name or what I call it, what colony was called. So. So that's what. That's how all those nice. Came there, you know.

Speaker BGotcha.

Speaker AAnd the rest were like Spanish people in like is a. Well, Hispanic city, you know, is. The place where I worked before we came to Canada was called. Called Luma Plata. You know what Luma Plata means in Spanish?

Speaker BNo.

Speaker ALots of money.

Speaker BReally?

Speaker AOkay. In German it's called Zeld Zammerfeld. Summerfield. Summer feel something German, we say Zammerfeld. That word came from like. Came from Russia, from wherever that came, that word. You know, we had like the farm villages. We had one farm called Ostavik, East Wick or whatever, all those names. And one was Gortitz and one was, you know, all those German names. Those names came all the way back from Poland and Russia. That's where all the names came from. Another Canada, you know.

Speaker BYeah. Yeah. Cool.

Speaker ASee here, this colony what settled here, Fernham, they had their. Their follow their farm villages. They went with numbers. Number three, number one, number two, number six. They. They had also name, but they would never use a name. It was called. Hey, I. I'm going to number three, you know, Village. It was like long stairs. Farmers. Okay.

Speaker BYeah. Okay.

Speaker AThis. This calling here. Yeah. They. They named their farm, their villages, all that old names, you know. Yeah. They wouldn't call by numbers.

Speaker BOh, I see. Okay.

Speaker AAnd what happened over here? He's here. I. I don't know. Oh, yeah, now I know. What this one was, was called, this one colony. Kawasu. Kawasu or whatever. Yeah. Gold. And we also call it the East Paraguay. East Paraguayans.

Speaker BOkay, cool. Did you ever, like, were you. Were you hanging out with the other colonies? Like, did you ever spend time with them or did you.

Speaker ANo.

Speaker BTo yourself?

Speaker ANo. Okay. Like, see this, this was. We were all German Maronites. Okay.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ABut these guys here, they spoke a little bit different Nord German than we did.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AEven the low German comes all the way back. Actually, that comes from Holland. That's a mixed language, isn't even a written language. No. German. So we used to have never nothing to do. They called us all you Canadians. And we, we would tell. Oh, you are Russian.

Speaker BYeah, yeah.

Speaker AThese here, we had never to do with these or anything.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker ABut these are the. These days it's all. All one. Okay. Now back and forth. And the young people get together to, you know, it's all one. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. But it used to be all very, very separate. They had their. See, in our colony, we didn't have a church. That was called Mennonite brother. Right. This colony, they had three different. They had one Conference. One was a conference and one was a married brother and both. Oh, the other one was, I think, alliance. So they had three different churches, you know, sure. Hungers.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker ABut we had only. We were all. Our whole calling was what they call conference. Oh, I see.

Speaker BOkay. So you would all go to church together?

Speaker AConferences. We would. We did baptizing by sprinting. Okay.

Speaker BYeah. Okay.

Speaker ASee, the menite brother and they. They were like dipping. Putting on their water.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AWhat happened is we have a lot of words. The Canadians that came there, they have a lot of words, English words in their German. For instance, radiator. We would say a radiator. What's the English word? And low German, that's called reglota. You know, we would never use that word, reglota or gasoline and low German, we call it brandschaft. They would talk about brandstaff. We talk about gasoline.

Speaker BI see. Okay.

Speaker ASo for instance, pie, we would call a pie. It's English. They call it plots. Ah, plots.

Speaker BSure.

Speaker AYeah.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ASee, that's not someone. They had a lot of words, I guess that was real, real German, you know, but we have so many. And then they have some Russian words too, in their language. So there was. I mean, we could understand each other talking, you know, but there was certain words. One time from this Farnham colony, a couple of boys, teenage boy, had asked my uncle, what does pie mean? Uncle had said to them, that's something you spread on the ground you sleep on. See that? That's how it went there. They just mocked each other.

Speaker BRight, right, right.

Speaker AYeah.

Speaker BThat's funny.

Speaker ACnn. For many years, see, we. We had the. The cotton finery, okay, where we. Where we produce, get all the cotton ready and got shipped out on the world. Yeah, we had all the. The machinery, all everything. These two colonies did it. Nevertheless, they brought all their cotton to us, our colonies, and basically, I guess, they sold it to us. I don't know exactly. Anyways, they would bring all their cotton to our. Our manufacturing. You know, where we see what they did is they. We have big machines. They cleans the cotton real nice, and I'll take all the seed out. And then they cut wood. They cut wood. They packed big square balls like that and strapped. And then they would chip to Assumption. And from where it went there, I have no idea.

Speaker BOkay, cool.

Speaker ASame thing with peanuts. We. We would make peanut oil, you know, we had the.

Speaker BOh, no way.

Speaker AAnd they. Those guys didn't have it either. So they would bring their peanuts to our colony, you know. Now these days it's totally different. Paraguay has become now more or less like a cattle. When I left Paraguay, where we lived maybe two cattles and we got slaughtered. Now they have a slaughterhouse there, that same colony close by where I was working. I was told they do thousand cattle a day. That meat gets all sold all over the world. Wow. In 1970 or 78, Paraguay had the best meat on the world market.

Speaker BReally?

Speaker AYeah. Okay. Yeah. It's a totally, totally different world now than what, like divorce? There was no such thing as divorce. No divorce there. They do divorces, they're just up here

Speaker Bin the colonies too.

Speaker AYeah, yeah, in the colonies. Okay.

Speaker BThat's too bad. And so were you baptized in the church?

Speaker AI got baptized here in King Road. MB church.

Speaker BOkay, cool. After you moved back. After you moved, you were.

Speaker AYeah, I got baptized. Yeah. 1968, April 7th at 2:30am I got baptized. A friend of mine, him and I got baptized at the same time. And her name was Herman Jansen. Oh. A couple of years ago, I met him in a restaurant. We talked about it and I said, Herman, do you still remember? No, I said, what? No, I don't remember at all. Do you? I said, of course I said. I said it was the most important day for me. He couldn't believe it. I remember so precisely. April 7th to 30pm in the afternoon.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ANo, I will never forget that. Cool. See, grandma, she got baptized in Paraguay. Like the conference is dipping on the dipping water. But then in Canada, if you want to become a member of the Kingdom Church, she had to be re baptized.

Speaker BOh, really?

Speaker AI was very much again to the thing that it was, you know. Chris, does it matter how you get baptized if you're not a believer? It won't matter to my opinion if you get put under or just put water. Won't matter. So it matters. This here I agree. That matters. Okay.

Speaker BYeah,

Speaker AYeah. Like grandma and like her. Her mom and dad. Yeah, her mom and dad and her brother Jake, who gets killed. They all re baptized here and their church, you know.

Speaker BHow long did you attend that church?

Speaker AI start going there. They. That church started up 1966.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AI was 67 maybe. And I start going there. Yeah, I start going in 1977. That's when I start. No, 67. That's when I start going there. Then I got almost right away baptized. Actually, I was just. When we left Paraguay, I was getting ready to baptize there. Okay. See, we had in mind to get married. But you and grandma. Yeah, yeah, but because all of a sudden, see, my dad, mom and dad wanted to Go move to Canada a long time ago already. But we had no way because we didn't have money. My mom and dad had nothing except eight kids. Okay.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ASo. And then all of a sudden, my dad talked all about. And then I said, mom, start dating Grandma. And that time then I didn't want to hear the word cat at all. Right. I was afraid. Oh, sure enough. All of a sudden, 1966, I think it was beginning of March. All of a sudden, we had a telegram that 10 tickets were paid for us to come to Canada.

Speaker BWow.

Speaker AOh, no. What am I going to do now? Yeah, Chris, it was awful. I battled and battled with it and. And I said to grandma, no, I'm not going. And finally the pressure was on me so big, you know, that my mom and dad wanted me to come. So I finally gave him. And about a week before, finally, I told grandma that I moved to Canada, so.

Speaker BA week. Wow.

Speaker AYeah, it didn't. It was awful times. All I can tell you. Yeah, I have cried many times. I cried, you know, and you come to a foreign country, you don't know anybody, and.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AYour best part of your life at that moment was in Paraguay. You know, you couldn't talk to her because there was no such thing as phoning.

Speaker BRight.

Speaker AYeah. That was.

Speaker BDid you think you were saying goodbye forever when you left, or did you always know you might come back?

Speaker AWell, I. I had all this in mind. Hoped that one day I would go back, you know, but what happened is my mom and dad needed my income so bad. I was the biggest earner in the family. Okay. So. And the thing was. Well, I had everything.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AMy clothes were. After they were washed and nothing to worry about. The food is there and no reason to move out. I had everything I needed except the wife.

Speaker BRight, right. And this was 1966.

Speaker AYeah, 1966.

Speaker BSo you would have been 21.

Speaker AI was. Well, I was 20 when we came here. 20 when you came here. Okay, yeah, 20, but June 25th of turn. So you. What do you call it, 21 or 20?

Speaker BYou were 20 when you came here then, but almost 21. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker ASo that's when I came here. And.

Speaker BAnd then you were here for two years.

Speaker ATwo years and three months and three days.

Speaker BThen you went back and got Grandma.

Speaker AYeah.

Speaker BGood.

Speaker AYeah. You know, it was a time that I had kind of given up with everything. Hadn't heard from her a long time. Had no contact, at least for a year already more because of the letters. Right.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AAnd so, you know, like, all my friends are Getting married. And now all of a sudden, I realize that I've become. I become a loner, you know.

Speaker BI see they're getting married up here.

Speaker AYeah. So then this came August, I think it was August 10th. Yeah. In the morning. Was on a Wednesday morning. Sat there at 5:00. And my dad came and called me. Come in. Drawn from mate. See, that night. We're always drinking mate in the morning.

Speaker BRight, Right.

Speaker ASo I sat there for a little while and things were going through my mind. Thought about her in Paraguay. And. So I was. Maybe I should go. Went into the kitchen, told my dad that, and by noon I had bought my ticket already.

Speaker BThat's crazy.

Speaker ABut now I had to wait till following Monday till I had my. My visa. See, because I was a Canadian, I needed a visa.

Speaker BRight.

Speaker AAnd that time. And Paraguay was the only country at that time that required a visa to come in. Okay. The travel agents at all the other countries, you go in there and get the visa right at the airport.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ABut Paraguay, that time you had to have a visa when you landed. Okay.

Speaker BOkay, so how did you get it?

Speaker AWell, let's. This. The travel agent sent my passport to San Francisco. There was a Paraguayan council. I like it.

Speaker BOkay. So.

Speaker ASo they sent it away on Wednesday, and then Monday it was back.

Speaker BOkay, well, that's pretty quick.

Speaker AYeah. So. So I took off Monday, Monday night at 20:11, took off from Vancouver, that Air Canada basically traveled all night. And then Toronto and from there to New York and then from New York straight to Paraguay.

Speaker BWere you pretty nervous?

Speaker AVery nervous?

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AYeah, I had. I had no idea what I was facing. I didn't have a clue. Then a sunshine in a motel. There were a bunch of guys that I knew from before they knew me. And they want to know right away, what's the reason that came back. Oh, just come and visit. Yeah, I kept my mouse shut. I didn't tell anybody. Okay.

Speaker BDid your friends back in Canada know what you were doing? Did your friends in Canada know what you were doing? Did you tell them?

Speaker AOh, yeah. Yeah, everybody knew. Yeah. What I was. Yeah, everybody. So. Yeah.

Speaker BHow did you make friends here when you first moved? Was it through work or church or.

Speaker ANot? That took long time to have friends, you know? Yeah, we had some. There were two other families came from Paraguay here. They had like teenagers too, so we got more of them together, so. And then later on in church, you know, so didn't have much. Didn't have too many friends.

Speaker BRight.

Speaker ABecause the language barrier.

Speaker BOkay, sure.

Speaker AThere was a girl here, actually Two girls, they would have loved to go out with me, but because the language. How do you go out with. Date with a girl if you can't speak the language properly, you know? So the one I found out later on when I was back that she had. She had kind of expected me to date her and maybe married, you know, I found that out later. I also. What I experienced, I have never told anybody.

Speaker BNo.

Speaker AJust before I left, I know a lady in Vancouver. She was my age. She kind of. She gave a hint that. She said, why do you go to Paraguay? She said, I am available. Really? So what. What does that. Huh? Yeah, she was a nice girl. I. I just never thought I knew her from before. I just never thought that she would be interested all. And then. And now sunshine by the motel there, her name was Lisa Fung. She came into my room there and asked me all kinds of questions.

Speaker BOh, really?

Speaker ASo most likely, if I would have gone back to Asuncion, I would have probably run into her girl in Asuncion. That's what my uncle did. He. His wife died and he moved to Canada. When did they move to Canada? 1960. And when he got the dissension in. In a motel there, you see, there was a motel they called Mennonite Motel. Okay. Everything was German there. Okay. So he met the lady there. He married and. Yeah, so he met her there and got engaged there. But he came to Canada. He had three kids. Okay.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AAnd then she came here and then they got married. She. She died not long ago. So her husband, Uncle John, he died. Oh. Oh. We still lived in Chilliwack.

Speaker BOh, it's a long time ago.

Speaker AThat's quite some time already. All I remember, he was. He was 78 years old when he died.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AHeart attack. See, my dad had only one brother, John, you know, but he had. Oh, how many sisters did he have? Four or five.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AYeah. One sister, she moved to Bolivia. Bolivia. In the early 60s, so. But everybody's gone.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AAnd who knows where they are. Cuz all of them, they didn't know what. What born again meant.

Speaker BOh, really?

Speaker ANo. See, we got kind of brought up on the old marriage system that if I would ask you, are you going to be saved? Yeah. You would say, I believe I'm. I will. I'm saved, or whatever. You didn't know, right?

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker ABecause in those days and our colony, there was no such thing as preaching about born again.

Speaker BOh, really?

Speaker ANobody knew what born again meant?

Speaker BOh, interesting.

Speaker AYou know, England, schools, and in order to get married, you have to be Baptized, Right.

Speaker BThat's what you were saying. Yeah.

Speaker ASuck a Pharisee and a rule, you know?

Speaker BYeah. It's amazing how we make up rules, right? Yeah.

Speaker ALike here, too, where I have problem like this. You don't read anywhere in the Bible if you want to be baptized, that you have to take baptism Baptist. Baptist courses and all that. I think to me. To me, it's nonsense.

Speaker BYeah. Also, Jesus says, right, Repent and be baptized.

Speaker AYeah, that's it exactly.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AOh, the. The meetings I had with the. With the elders and before I got baptized, it was unbelievable.

Speaker BWhy do you think that is?

Speaker ANot a Pharisee rule. So, like, for the first year rule, Like marriage counsel, you know, we didn't know anything about marriage counseling.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AWe never had one. And I mean that. I mean, I wouldn't. Wouldn't say that's a waste of time, I guess.

Speaker BNolan said it was really good these days.

Speaker AThese days, I guess. Yeah. Point. Yeah. I guess it's not such idea, you

Speaker Bknow, Like, I don't think they make it a rule, though. Right. I think that's the difference. Yeah.

Speaker AI wish somebody had explained to me a little bit more what marriage is all about and what all involved, you know? Yeah. But there was no such thing as that.

Speaker BYeah. You just got married and figured it out

Speaker Ayour own.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AYeah. See, these days, the marriage. I don't know if you counsel about financing, how to handle financing and all that stuff. We didn't know all that. Nobody. We just got married and work and figure it out and go on.

Speaker BYeah. Yeah.

Speaker AAnd learn. Made a few mistakes and. And you learn from it and move on.

Speaker BYeah. Well, I think it's so easy to get divorced now, Right. That you make a few mistakes and you're like, well, I'll be done then. Let's just get divorced. Yeah.

Speaker AYou know what. I could have never done for my family? Leave grandma and go. Go. I could have never done it. Because you do more damage to your. To your kids, your family than to anybody else.

Speaker BRight. Yeah.

Speaker AYeah. I asked. Have lost a lot of people. What does it. What does it takes two people to be married that long? What do you mean, takes two people? Yeah. Takes two people.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AThe text forgive and forget and.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AAnd listen to each other, you know? Yeah. That's all it takes. Takes two people to be married that long.

Speaker BYeah. It's true.

Speaker AOh, believe me. To be honest, there have been many times that I felt like packing up and running, you know, but you better start thinking, where do you want to run to?

Speaker BYeah, exactly. Where Are you going to go? Right,

Speaker Alike Peter said to Jesus, where else should we go? When Peter asked. Jesus asked to believe. No, he said, where else should we go? That's the argument. Where else would I go?

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AYou have to think about it. When you divorce, you take your problem, but the real problem starts once you have a divorce. When I hear and see people, how they destroy their family, it's just unbelievable. And a lot of these homeless people these days, believe me, those are people, they come from broken up families.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AThey have nowhere to go there. They have no support.

Speaker BYeah. Yep. It's true. Do you remember the day mom was born? Like Eronica? Do you remember that day?

Speaker AYeah, I know she was born in Burnaby Hospital.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AI remember that in the morning. October 18th. No, October 31st is the Halloween night.

Speaker BYeah.

Speaker AI remember in the morning we lived here in Abbotsford and in the morning we packed up and went to Burnaby. And. She was born the beginning of the evening, I believe. All I remember very clearly, I was in Burnaby, sitting on the seventh floor and sitting there by a window and watching how the tricky is running on the street.

Speaker BYeah. And then it was Michelle next, right? Yeah.

Speaker AShe was born. Michael. Michelle are born here in Abbotsford.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AThey were born by cesarean, like.

Speaker BOh, C section.

Speaker AC section. Yeah.

Speaker BSo Michelle was January 5th.

Speaker AFifth, yeah, January 5th. And Mike was December 17th.

Speaker BOkay.

Speaker AJust before Christmas was a Christmas gift. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Speaker BOh, here we go.

Speaker AYes. Oh, Congo.

Speaker BBut I think England's gonna win.

Speaker AYep.

Speaker BThey're just playing so well.

Speaker AThey're stacked too. Ah, there.