Peter Kroeker

Title: Peter Kroeker fonds

Dates of creation: Oct 1917-Jun 1919, 1931-1934, 1938-1940, 1944-1945, 2010

Physical description: 3 cm of textual records

Biographical sketch:  Peter Kroeker (1885-1952) was born in Schoenau, Molotschna, South Russia to Peter and Maria (Penner) Kroeker. The family later moved to the Terek Mennonite settlement in Dagestan.  He married Maria Willms (1889-1964) in 1911; the couple had six children. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, violence broke out and most Mennonites abandoned the settlement. Kroeker recounts the violence and the family's harrowing escape from the region in his 1917-1919 diaries. Two of the couple's children died in 1919. The family came to Vineland, Ontario in 1925 from Nikolaidorf, Molotschna. By 1931 they were living in Hespeler, Ontario and later moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Kroeker became the first lead minister at Niagara United Mennonite Church in 1938. He served until 1944. Peter Kroeker died in St. Catharines.

Custodial history: Donated to the Archives in 2020 by Martha (Kroeker) Bartel (niece of Peter Kroeker) and family. Received from Niagara United Mennonite Church.

Scope and content: Contains diaries of Peter Kroeker in German with a translation by Martha Bartel, and a few miscellaneous documents.

Notes: Additional diaries were lost before Martha Bartel received them for translation.
Original archival description created 2020 by Laureen Harder-Gissing.

File list:

1. Diary, Oct 1917-Jun 1919 (photocopy)
2. Diary, Oct 1917-Jun 1919 (translation)
3. Diary, 1931-1934, 1938, 1944-1945 (translation)
4. Sermon outline (preached in Waterloo 3 Jul 1932), Bible texts for sermons, 1938-1940
5. Correspondence re death of infant son Peter, 2 May 1919