Mennonite Archives of Ontario "Russlaender" Exhibits
In-person and online exhibits commemorating the centenary of the settlement of Russlaender in Ontario are now open.
The in-person exhibit at Conrad Grebel University College is called “What They Carried: The Archives of Russlaender Mennonite immigrants.” From 1923-1930, 21,000 Mennonite immigrants from the Soviet Union ("Russlaender") arrived in Canada seeking respite from war and turmoil.
Ontario Mennonites received and billeted 1,340 of these immigrants in 1924. Many stayed in Ontario, moving between different communities, but others headed to western Canada. By 1927-1928, many who had gone west returned to Ontario. Meanwhile, still others were arriving from the Soviet Union, though this flow slowed significantly by the end of 1927. By 1939, 1,253 Russlaender families were counted in Ontario.
They carried what most immigrants carry: portable reminders of home and family, recipe books and other forms of practical knowledge, songbooks to sustain faith and culture. They carried painstakingly-acquired documents vital for the crossing of borders. Less tangibly, they carried experiences of grief and loss along with feelings of trepidation and anticipation, from which new stories would grow. The exhibit links stories with documents and objects donated to the Mennonite Archives of Ontario.
A companion piece is the online exhibit “Russlaender Immigrants to Ontario: Sources and Stories,” found at https://russlaender.omeka.net. For the first time in digital form, this website makes available church registers of the 1920s and early 1930s for the Leamington, Vineland, Reesor and Waterloo-Kitchener areas. There was considerable movement by Russlaender in the 1920s and 1930s in and out of Ontario, and within Ontario. Therefore, families may appear in more than one register. In the early years, Kirchliche and Mennonite Brethren congregants often worshiped together, so Mennonite Brethren families may be noted in these otherwise Kirchliche (United Mennonite Churches of Ontario) registers.
Another fascinating set of documents on this site are the immigrant assistance lists. These lists were created by the Ontario Mennonite committee which organized temporarily housing and employment for immigrants in southwestern Ontario and Niagara. These hosts and employers are primarily "Swiss Mennonite" individuals and congregations; descendants of Mennonite settlers who arrived from Pennsylvania in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
The website is being added to as new documents become available. An exciting addition will be transcripts of 82 interviews conducted with Russlaender in the 1970s. Learn more about both exhibits at the Mennonite Archives of Ontario webpage.
By Laureen Harder-Gissing, Mennonite Archives of Ontario