Tag Archives: Mennonite Heritage Village

X is for…

So here we are at good ole X in the alphabet. This is a letter for ABC Wednesday that takes a little creativity. Thank you to the ABC team for managing this meme and to Denise Nesbitt the founder.

Did you know that X stands for Christ and Cross and other stuff, too?

At Easter I make a Russian sweet cheese spread called Seernaya Paska that we spread on Russian Easter Bread that is called Paska by a lot of people and Kulich by my Russian relatives. In the Russian alphabet X is the first letter in Christ. We decorate the sweet cheese spread with an X and a B. X for Christ and B for arose/risen. Christ is Risen.

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If you are a regular on my blog you know I like to wander around very old cemeteries. There are always a great variety of crosses to photograph. Here are a couple.

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Windmills have a natural X visible from the formation of their rotor blades.

IMGP0229This windmill is located at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada.

P1030918This Windmill is located at Roozengaarde Tulip Garden in Mount Vernon Washington State.

That’s it for my offerings on the letter X. I’ll be curious to come around and see what you found for this challenging letter.

Summer has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. I’m still watching all the World Cup Soccer I can fit in. Our bathroom renovation is progressing. Never a dull moment at this old house. Someone mentioned and I’m in agreement that we don’t seem to have ordinary weeks or days anymore. I’ll have to cling to the verse in the Bible that says…

“This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24

The Village…

The Mennonite Heritage Village helps preserve the history of the Russian Mennonites.

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The outdoor village takes you back to 1874 when the first Mennonites arrived in Manitoba. Over twenty historic buildings, including Mennonite homes, schools, churches, and small businesses line the village street. You can absorb the history as you walk through the village and the buildings.

This is a replica of the turn of the century General Store.

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The original Klass Reimer general store was the first in the village of Steinbach back in 1884.

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Lichtenau Church was built in 1930 by Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920’s.

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We had an appointment at the Livery Barn Restaurant for lunch so I’ll stop here for a bit before we continue our village tour. This is Betty and her daughter Allison.

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All of us chose to order the Bestje Dit enn Daut. Sample of a little this and that. All of this plus it came with a slice of rhubarb plautz. A very traditional Mennonite sampling.

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Marg decided we could all sample the Cinnamon roll, too. Yummy!

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Mennonites used windmills to grind grains and drain marshes throughout their history in Europe and Russia. The first windmill in Steinbach was built in 1877 by Abraham S. Friesen. A replica was built at the museum in 1972 but was destroyed by fire in 2000. Now Canada’s only operational windmill, reconstructed in 2001, is an exact replica of the 1877 windmill of Steinbach and sits in this village.

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We didn’t have enough time to walk into all the buildings but I was interested in seeing the inside of one of the school buildings. This school was built in the village of Blumenhof, near Altona, in 1885.

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Dear’s mother taught in a one room school house and I can imagine it was not unlike this one.

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Lunch boxes or I suppose they should be called Lunch cans!

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The teacher could live right in the school in an adjoining room. I think I would have preferred to have quarters elsewhere.

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Old Colony Worship House

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The house and barn connection and dwelling layout of this home can be traced back to Prussia/Poland, where the Mennonites settled from the 1500’s onward.

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This is a Semlin which was made of sod, soil, grass and wood. These were the materials used in the first homes bulit by Mennonite immigrants in 1874. Although very crude, these sod buildings provided the shelter necessary for survival on the Manitoba plains.  The house above and below this Semlin was a vast improvement built with oak logs and larger rooms. IMGP0216

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Hope you enjoyed my little tour of the Mennonite Heritage Village. Putting something together on this scale must have taken lots of hard work and volunteer hours. From what I’ve seen and experienced, Mennonites aren’t afraid of hard work. Volunteers put in hours to mow the lawns on this 40 acre site, too. It really is a great destination to visit if you travel in this area.

I have one more post to wrap up our time in Manitoba.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Ht: Mennonite Heritage Village Brochure

A Surprise…

I had no idea of the scope of the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. When we pulled up in front I still didn’t realize what was waiting to explore within and beyond the museum building. For this post I’ll just share the Center and the Museum with our signing photos and in another post I’ll share the Village and the Barn Restaurant where we enjoyed some heritage food.

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The Village Centre contains the main exhibit telling the Mennonite story from the 1500s to the present.

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The whole time we were in the center signing books there was a steady stream of elementary students arriving in school buses to have a tour of the center and village.

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The Museum gift shop had a great collection of Mennonite books and they had our cover aprons from our first cookbook for sale in different fabric patterns.

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A walk through the museum took you on a time line of the migration of the Mennonite People over the years. There were many great photos and items from Russia in the museum.

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Even though I am not Mennonite these photos could have been a photo of my relatives from Russia. They look so similar to the few photos we have from our ancestors in Russia.

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Kathy’s cousins came to the center and it was fun to take this photo with Kathy holding her cousin’s Draft Horse Calendar that is sold in the Heritage gift shop.

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How cute are these little girls with their braids? We asked permission to take their photo.

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It was fun to meet Jeanine from The Baking Beauties who is actually only one baking beauty right now. She has a great Gluten Free Baking sight and you can click over to check it out. She’s in the middle in the back row.

When we were done with our signing slot we headed out the back doors of the center and I was pleasantly surprised with the sites I saw. I will share more in my next post.

We are busy now working on options for easily storing some of our larger pieces of furniture while we have all of our floors replaced. We are having it done in two stages and will be moving things in and out for the hardwood floors first and then following up with the carpeting. We are still trying to choose the color and pile we want on the carpeting. Everything you do opens up the door to more things that need to be done. Any big projects at your house?