Growing up in a Hutterite Colony
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About this ebook
I had an eventful childhood, which the readers may compare with their own.
To compile a detailed account of colony life and history would be an extensive undertaking. So the reader will have to be content with the few details Ive presented which are relevant to my growing-up experience.
Most events which include other people are mentioned, because they are somehow intertwined in my experience.
Also, I want to bring the Hutterites closer to an intense awareness that all is not well and the solution is not in buying more land or buildings more livestock and poultry barns. There are needs which can only be met by a closer walk with God.
Do I want to denounce colony life? No! But I have brought attention to some dangerous bumps in the road, which needs to be addressed in order to reverse the existing spiral. If the needed improvements are ignored, the results are predictable. If a conscious effort is not made to remedy the existing condition with scriptural guidelines, the results are predictable.
Peter Tschetter
I was born eleven pounds at New Elm Spring Hutterite Colony during a blizzard on the night of November 20, 1936. About five months earlier, on July 4, my parents and the Amos Hofer family moved down from Canada with the truck otherwise used to haul grain and livestock. My dad, my mother, and some of the others rode in the back of the truck with all their household goods. Children were shooting fireworks in the towns they went through. They came down on Highway 37 through Aberdeen, Huron, and Mitchell and turned east when they got to Dimock. Unpaved Highway 37 was very dusty and hot on July 4, 1936. When my parents arrived at Elm Spring, some of the people who were to resettle the colony were already there. When the minister Joe Hofer greeted them, he remarked, “I don’t know whether I should rejoice or cry over you.”
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Growing up in a Hutterite Colony - Peter Tschetter
Copyright 2012 Peter Tschetter.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
ISBN:
978-1-4669-4842-6 (sc)
ISBN:
978-1-4669-4844-0 (hc)
ISBN:
978-1-4669-4843-3 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012913199
Trafford rev. 08/16/2012
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INTRODUCTION
Like life in general, the following is a true, but not necessarily a nice story.
The writing of this book is for several reasons: one of which is an attempt to clarify to young Hutterites and also non-Hutterites how different we lived 75 years ago.
I had an eventful childhood which the readers may compare with their own.
To compile a detailed account of colony life and history would be an extensive undertaking. So the reader will have to be content with the few details I’ve presented which are relevant to my growing up experience.
Most events which include other people are mentioned, because they are somehow intertwined in my experience.
Also, I want to bring the Hutterites closer to an intense awareness that all is not well and the solution is not in buying more land or buildings more livestock and poultry barns. There are needs which can only be met by a closer walk with God.
Do I want to denounce Colony life? NO! But I have brought attention to some dangerous bumps in the road which needs to be addressed in order to reverse the existing spiral. If the needed improvements are ignored, the results are predictable. If a conscious effort is not made to remedy the existing condition with Scriptural guidelines, the results could create a situation of extreme inconvenience.
If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:13-14
Peter Tschetter
black.jpgI was born eleven pounds at New Elm Spring Hutterite Colony during a blizzard on the night of November 20, 1936. About five months earlier on July 4, my parents and the Amos Hofer family moved down from Canada with the truck otherwise used to haul grain and livestock. My dad, my mother, and some of the others rode in the back of the truck with all their household goods. Children were shooting fireworks in the towns they went through. They came down on Highway 37 through Aberdeen, Huron, and Mitchell and turned east when they got to Dimock. Unpaved Highway 37 was very dusty and hot on July 4, 1936. When my parents arrived at Elm spring some of the people who were to resettle the colony were already there. When the minister Joe Hofer greeted them he remarked, I don’t know whether I should rejoice or cry over you.
In July of 1936, New Elm Spring Colony was facing a bleak and uncertain future. For the benefit of understanding their situation I will relate a brief history of the people who were to resettle New Elm Spring colony as I have heard it being told over the years. In 1918, they were living in Maxwell Colony near Scotland, South Dakota. The World War I years had brought persecution and problems with neighbors. This was a time of radical opinions toward German speaking people and even German shepherd dogs became targets for harassment. A number of young men from different South Dakota colonies responded to the draft summons, but refused to participate in anything that was related to the military. Consequently, they were imprisoned in the maximum security prison of Alcatraz as well as in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At both prisons they were tortured in various ways to the point where two of the young men didn’t survive. When their people came to claim them they had been dressed in military uniforms they had refused to wear when they were living. When situations like these or other forms of cruel treatment had taken place in Hutterite history, they always responded by picking up and leaving for what seemed like a safer haven. This time it was Canada, but Bonhomme Colony, the first Hutterite colony in North America, stayed behind. By the time the other colonies moved to Canada in 1918 the war was over. The Maxwell people followed the rest of the migrating colonies to Canada where they settled not very far west of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they established Maxwell Colony. Within 10 years, the population of Maxwell was exceeding its living facilities and ability to employ the existing workforce. Realizing that overpopulation can result in social and economic problems, Maxwell bought a farm near Alsask, Alberta called Sundale Farm about 110 miles south of Lloyd Minister, Alberta.
After the normal process of colony division, the group who would eventually reestablish New Elm Spring departed by train for Alsask, Alberta, 12 miles from their place called Sundale Farm. The unharvested bumper crop of wheat looked like a great promise for the future. That big crop of wheat was the only one they harvested. The rains stopped and so did much of the hope for the fledgling colony, far from their friends and neighbors. These were the days of the dirty thirties.
I heard my dad say, that occasionally, a dark dust cloud would come rolling over the horizon which made him think of the possibility of Judgment Day. Due to the lack of feed, the horses were turned out in fall to fend for themselves. When they were rounded up in the spring for the futile fieldwork, they were in excellent condition. Throughout the severe Alberta winter they thrived on tumbleweeds. The horses fattened on tumbleweeds, while the people supplemented their meager diet with jackrabbits.
Anyway, after several years of planting crops that wouldn’t grow, they decided to get back to Manitoba. The multi-family two story house they had built was dismantled and packaged for shipment back to Manitoba. Even the wooden shingles were carefully removed and repackaged. Everything, including the tumbleweed fattened horses were loaded on the train for the long way back to Maxwell in Manitoba. But there was a problem, their previous homes had been inhabited. The families who couldn’t find living room, were temporarily taken in by surrounding colonies.
I’ll backtrack a few years now to the time when the Alsask group were at their greatest point of need. My dad and John Wipf and probably some of the others were appointed to seek employment on the outside. They traveled on foot and also with the tramps in boxcars. My dad was seventeen and he often mentioned how the bums had looked after him. Some of their fellow travelers were illiterate, professional tramps, but many were highly educated people in search of menial jobs. My dad and John Wipf traveled from place to place and were sometimes falsely directed to an area where there was no employment to be had.
One time they found temporary work on a thrashing crew for 50 cents a day. At any rate, Manitoba offered no place to settle, so the vacated colonies in South Dakota came to mind, and New Elm Spring was bought. Some of the land cost $40 an acre. I am able to recall at least 4 sections of tillable land plus several thousand acres of pasture. New Elm Spring was ready to become inhabited and go into production. The necessary living quarters were there, ready to be touched up. Facilities for dairy, hogs, sheep, beef cows and chickens were ready for use. There were many needs, the greatest of which seemed to be finances. The income needed to meet the demands of starting to farm didn’t exist, because Alsask had