Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives
Explore the history of Mennonites through materials found in the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Using interviews, object, and documents, this podcast will dive into stories inspiring, tragic, strange, and beautiful. As varied as the lives of the people and organizations whose materials are housed in the Mennonite Heritage Archives, this weekly podcast aims to educate and inspire greater interest in Mennonite history.
Episodes
76 episodes
Episode 70 with Andrew Unger
Today, we bring you an interview with author and satirist Andrew Unger about his book Once Removed. The novel’s main character, Timothy Heppner, is determined to preserve the heritage in his small Manitoba town, but is at odds with the...
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Season 2
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Episode 62
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14:59
Tragedy at Vanderhoof
Today, guest host Sara Dyck shares the tragic tale of a group of Mennonites who in 1918, moved from Manitoba to Vanderhoof, British Columbia. They had high hopes of owning land and establishing prosperous farms. For at least one family, their d...
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Season 2
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Episode 61
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15:00
David Bergen, novelist
Today, we bring your listeners an interview with nationally acclaimed writer David Bergen about his novel Away from the Dead, a fictional account of victims and their relationships during the historical events that led to the complex a...
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Season 2
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Episode 60
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15:00
The Disappeared Beaver Lodge Mennonite Church
Today, we bring you a story about the Beaverlodge Mennonite Church, a little known congregation that formed in the late 1920s and disappeared from the landscape of Peace River country in northern Alberta some 15-ish years later. Guest Doug Klas...
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Season 2
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Episode 59
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14:59
Elmer Hildebrand (Part 2)
In part two of this two-part series, Elmer answers questions about his personal interest in Mennonite history, and how he came to move and restore an old house barn that now resides in the village of Neubergthal.
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Season 2
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Episode 58
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15:00
Elmer Hildebrand (Part 1)
March 4 marks 69 years since Golden West Radio CEO Elmer Hildebrand first walked through the doors of the brand new CFAM radio station in Altona in 1957. We cover a lot of ground in this 2-part conversation. In Part 1, Elmer shares how Golden W...
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Season 2
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Episode 57
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14:59
Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 2)
Today, we carry on with our 2-part series featuring historian Dr. Aileen Friesen. In this episode, Aileen shares concerns about the endangered state of historical Mennonite documents in Ukrainian archives as the Russian invasion and war drags o...
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Season 2
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Episode 56
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15:00
Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 1)
Today, we bring you part 1 of a 2-part series featuring an interview with Dr. Aileen Friesen. Aileen wears more hats than a Caps R Us store can hold. She is a professor, a published author, a researcher, editor of Preservings magazine,...
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Season 2
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Episode 55
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14:59
From Russia with Woe (Part 2)
During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the more severe form of the camps called the Gulag. More than 80 years later, hi...
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Season 2
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Episode 54
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14:59
From Russia with Woe (Part 1)
Today, we bring you ‘From Russia with Woe’, part one of a two part series. During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the m...
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Season 2
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Episode 53
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14:59
Trapped in Icy Waters
Today, guest host Sara Dyck brings you the chilly tale about a group of Mennonites whose ship became trapped in icy Lake Superior in the spring of 1876. A journey that was meant to take five days turned into a 15 day ordeal. They ran out of foo...
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Season 2
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Episode 52
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14:59
The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 2)
Today, we bring you Part 2 of the Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 2, we return to the story of Jacob Hoemsen, as he rejects his pacifist upbringing to serve in the controversial Mennonite Self Defence League t...
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Season 2
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Episode 51
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14:59
The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 1)
Today, we bring you Part 1 of The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 1, Jacob Hoemsen was raised as a pacifist, pursued education in Germany, and completed his mandatory non-combatant role in the R...
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Season 2
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Episode 50
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14:59
Anna Thiessen, Nurse and Midwife in Paraguay
Today, we bring listeners the story of Manitoba born and raised nurse and midwife, Anna Thiessen. For years, she was the only trained medical practitioner in Colonia Sommerfeld, Paraguay. Anna helped an estimated 1,000 mothers deliver their bab...
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Season 2
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Episode 49
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14:59
REWIND: The Brommtopp
In this REWIND episode, host Dan Dyck explores the Mennonite holiday tradition called brommtopp, named for the strange musical instrument used, which can be translated as "rumbling top". This tradition was brought to Imperial Russia from Prussi...
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14:59
First Christmas in Canada, 1926
Today, we have a nostalgic retelling in English of the story Christmas 1926 by beloved Low German story teller Gerhard Ens. Told through the eyes of 10-year-old Hauns, Gerhard imagines a fictional account of what it might have been like for Men...
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Season 2
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Episode 48
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20:59
Festive Foods and Folkways from the Mennonite Tradition
In this episode, we bring you an episode with the excessively alliterative of Festive Foods and Folkways from the Mennonite Tradition. This instalment is based on a two-volume book series by Norma Jost Voth. She interviewed about 60 el...
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Season 2
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Episode 47
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14:59
Patrick Friesen, Menno Colony, Paraguay
In this episode, we’re delighted to bring you an interview with Patrick Friesen, a third generation Mennonite from Paraguay. His great-grandfather, C.F. Friesen, was one of the early leaders and teachers in Paraguay. Patrick shares about the hi...
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Season 2
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Episode 46
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14:59
The Cast-off Child
Today, we bring you a story that’s about as close to a Whodunnit Mystery as Mennonite history gets. It’s a story about a baby, a pig pen, and ongoing attempts to get rid of the child — even as he grows up. To learn more, tune in to Episode 53 o...
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Season 2
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Episode 45
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14:59
A Short History of House Barns with Roland Sawatsky
After a few consecutive episodes that leaned into some darker stories in Mennonite history, we’re pleased to bring you something on the lighter side.To air on Sunday, Nov. 30 we bring you… (drumroll )… A Short History of House Barns! Joi...
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Season 2
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Episode 44
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14:59
Who Was Nestor Makhno? (Part 3)
Today, we bring you Part 3, the final instalment of our series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary leader during the civil uprisings of the late 1910s. In Part 3, Sean Patterson brings us insights into the role that wealth and...
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Season 2
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Episode 42
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14:59
Who Was Nestor Makhno? (Part 2)
Today, we bring you Part 2 of a 3-part series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary during the civil uprisings of the late 1910s. Part 2 focuses on the terrible Eichenfeld Massacre on Nov. 8, 1919, when well over 100 Mennonites ...
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Season 2
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Episode 41
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15:00
Who was Nestor Makhno? (Part 1)
Today, we start a three part series on Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary during the Ukrainian Revolution in the late 1910s. Makhno was reviled by some, and praised by others. He commanded 100,000 troupes, bands of whom pillaged...
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Season 2
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Episode 40
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14:59
Smallpox and the Mennonite Experience
Today, we we present you with the story of Smallpox and the Mennonite Experience. According to historians, the smallpox virus has been circulating among humans for about 3,000 years. In this episode, we unpack the involvement of Russian Empress...
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Season 2
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Episode 39
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14:59