{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/901zc7sc7c/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Interview with Susan and Henry Gerbrandt"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/128/original/UA_Logo_WHT_RGB_%281%29.png?1725471982","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003ca href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\"\u003eAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)\u003c/a\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Kule Folklore Centre (Creator)","Gerbrandt, Susan (Interviewee)","Gerbrandt, Henry (Interviewee)","Kampen, Christine (Interviewer)","Thiessen, Angela (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2005-04-14 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["4 audio files; wav; 2:03:31","audio/x-wav"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["d217qq75n (avalonid)","LC301 (other)","2005-091-4146 (local)","2005-091-4147 (local)","2005-091-4148 (local)","2005-091-4149 (local)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["oral histories (topical)","Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (spatial)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Interview"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date First Ingested"]},"value":{"en":["2021-02-04"]}},{"label":{"en":["Note"]},"value":{"en":["Interviewee: Gerbrandt, Susan (creation/production)","Interviewee: Gerbrandt, Henry (creation/production)","Interviewer: Kampen, Christine (creation/production)","Interviewer: Thiessen, Angela (creation/production)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003ca href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\"\u003eAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)\u003c/a\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["University of Alberta Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["University of Alberta Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/128/original/UA_Logo_WHT_RGB_%281%29.png?1725471982","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/469/small/audio-default.png?1640663561","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 4 - 2005-091-4146.wav"]},"duration":1807.06975,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/469/small/audio-default.png?1640663561","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/469/original/2005-091-4146.wav?1661168591","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1807.06975,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 1 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: history of Mennonite settlement in Manitoba","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=9.0,272.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls the history of the Mennonites in Manitoba (he reads): Their forebears came to Canada under the government of John A. Macdonald. The government was not engaged in a great Samaritan mission when the accepted the Mennonites. Gerbrandt states that the Canadian government didn't want to save the Mennonites but to settle Manitoba in order to curb American expansion, in particular when the American railway system came closer to Manitoba. The Canadian authorities needed good settlers to make the building of and East-West railroad possible. He also stresses that the Mennonites were seen as counterbalance to the growing French population. The \"Indians and Metis\" were concerned that they were losing their land and rights when the settlers came in. Gerbrandt says that German Mennonite farmers were considered suitable for settlement there. The Mennonites were \"part of a great gamble to extend the Dominion from shore to shore\". (Gerbrandt stops reading.)\nHe repeats: The Mennonites were not invited in because of their religion but to \"stem the tide of the Americans in here\". Gerbrandt asks if the interviewers have questions. He states that he did research in Ottawa archives on Mennonite history and written a book about it. \nAsked if his already Canadian-born parents talked about the history of the Mennonites, Henry Gerbrandt says yes but \"professionally they didn't know\". His parents were \"honest good farmers\".\nHenry Gerbrandt continues to talk about the general history of Mennonite settlement. He describes the Canadian Homestead Act in detail. He asks the interviewers if they know what an acre is, they say yes. He states that the word is not used today.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=9.0,272.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: family background, settlement in Manitoba","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=272.0,570.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that his grandfather applied for a homestead and settled southwest of Altona, Manitoba. He farmed and became quite well off. 18 years later, he sold his homestead and bought two quarters (half a section): \"Some became rich and some didn't\" but at the beginning, all were equal. He explains that there was no controlled economy, and people could expand.\nHenry Gerbrandt grew up in the Lowe Farm district not far from Altona, Manitoba. He was born in 1915. By the time he remembers, some farmers had already a section (four quarters) of land. Others were losing their land. Gerbrandt recalls that the area his grandfather moved to after selling the homestead wasn't a Mennonite area then but it became Mennonite: \"The Mennonite were strong farmers.\" The land in this area had been already bought up by Americans and that's why the government was so afraid. The Americans were \"absentee landlords, they lived in the States and bought up the land here\". He repeats that the Mennonites were invited to counterbalance the American expansion.\nHis grandfather bought half a section in the Lowe Farm district from what they called \"yankees\". Henry Gerbrandt states that \"there were also crooks in the Macdonald government, and one of them was John Lowe\". He was secretary of agriculture when the Mennonites came first to explore. He immediately saw that the Mennonite would be good farmers, and together with others, he bought up all the land, thousands of acres. Today, they would be under investigation. They had got the land from the \"yankees\" who had been there earlier, and then they re-sold it to the Mennonites. That's why the district is called Lowe Farm. Henry Gerbrandt repeats that John Lowe would be investigated today. (He laughs.)\nIt was an English community his parents moved into \"but so much land was owned by non-resident yankees\".\nSusan Gerbrandt intervenes: The Mennonites bought more and more land and moved south, and it became a Mennonite community.\nHenry Gerbrandt continues and states that \"Mennonite have been known as very strong farmers. Now today, they are business people.\" He tells the interviewer that there are some \"powerful entrepreneurs\" in North Kildonan where she grew up. When he was young, \"the land was the wealth\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=272.0,570.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: a picture of his parents, death of mother","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=570.0,701.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewer looks at a picture and asked Henry Gerbrandt whether it depicts his grandparents or parents. Gerbrandt says that these are his parents, it was taken in 1927, three years before his mother died. His mother had a tragic death: toxemia. She died because there was no doctor. The interviewer asks how he learned the exact cause of death if there was no doctor. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: They knew that Henry Gerbrandt's mother was intoxicated, the midwife knew that. Before the confinement, they knew that she should have been in a hospital because she had blood poisoning, \"she was toxic and died of that\".\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that before his mother died, the doctor came to times. It is a \"sad story\". He still remembers that night in 1930: \"It is a very sad story\". He says that today, \"the Mennonites are leaders\", their hospitals in southern Manitoba are very good hospitals. Even a Mennonite mental hospital is a leading institution in Canada. He repeats that today, Mennonites are leaders but \"in the early years\", it \"wasn't so\". It was the same in English communities. \n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=570.0,701.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: favourite authors, Steinbach museum","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=701.0,797.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt states that he doesn't know what the interviewers are reading. There is a woman called Cora Hind who has written a lot of \"our pioneer days\". He tells the interviewers that they should go to the Manitoba archives and look for her. Another author Gerbrandt recommends is Bruce Hutchinson who has written beautifully about the rural Canada. He used to read those authors when he was a boy. Cora Hind always had a column in the Winnipeg Free Press. Gerbrandt also recommends to go to the Steinbach museum that has \"collected all the old pictures\"- ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=701.0,797.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: mother's life story","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=797.0,958.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewers are looking at a picture and say that Henry Gerbrandt has told them before the interview that he still remembers when it was taken. He explains that the family had a small camera, and this picture is one of the first his father took. There is a calendar in the picture, it was taken in 1927. He says that he had \"a very beautiful mother\". His mother didn't grow up Christian. She grew up in a home that was very brutal. Her father was an alcoholic. His mother had to walk from home to home to work as a kitchen maid. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: Henry Gerbrandt's mother was a house maid and his had to work for other people when she was quite young because she grew up in very poor circumstances. There were still some strong Amish homes at that time, and his mother did the cooking there and learned a lot about their language. His mother wanted her children to get an education, she pushed her son Henry to go to school and become a teacher. When he was 14 and he came home from field work. It was a few days before his mother died. He washed himself in the kitchen, they didn't have a separate washroom. He was bareback, and his mother put her thumb onto his back and said (in Low German) that he would become the teacher of their family. That was a stimulant for Henry Gerbrandt to go in education. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=797.0,958.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: reading","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=958.0,1090.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that \"we were poor people\". They didn't belong to the rich in the community. One reason was that they all spent their time reading. They weekly read the English papers and a German paper called \"Der Nordwesten\" (The Northwest), later called \"The Courier\", they also had the \"Rundschau\", later also the \"Steinbach Post\". Gerbrandt recalls that they were \"reading, and reading, and reading, everyone read\". Everyone wanted to read something else. His sister Sarah wanted to read romantic stories. He read stories written by Cora Hind, his father also. Henry Gerbrandt says that his wife's family worked more but \"we liked to read\". (The interviewers are laughing.)\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that before he \"became a Christian\", he read cowboy books \"but they were waste of time\". Asked why he considered them a waste of time, he explains that \"you didn't enrich yourself very much.\" Years later, when he came back from bible school or high school, his friends were still talking about cowboys. He couldn't understand that anymore.\n ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=958.0,1090.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: parents","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1090.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt's parents were called Jacob and Halina (née Penner). His wife's mother was also called Halina (née Giesbart?). Asked how his parents met each other, Henry Gerbrandt laughs. His father \"came from a well-to-do home\". Susan Gerbrandts intervenes: \"Oh yeah, that's quite a story!\" Henry Gerbrandt continues: His mother was a poor girl. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"well-to-do for those times\", now Henry Gerbrandt's father would not be considered well-to-do but they already had a farm and \"more things which then was well-to-do\" whereas Henry's mother came from a home with barely enough to eat. Henry Gerbrandt continues: His grandfather already had a section of land by the time his father married. His father played the accordion at barn dances, a friend of his father the violin. It was his father's friend who introduced his father to his future wife at a barn dance. She was a good dancer. They looked at her through a hole in the wall, he friend said: \"That's the girl, you try to catch her.\" (Henry Gerbrandt has described this episode in his memoirs, he shows the book to the interviewers.) When his paternal grandfather wanted to visit his future daughter-in-law at home, it turned out that they were living in a one-room house, a shanty. There was no place to visit. Henry Gerbrandt's mother had \"one or two vicious brothers\", and his grandfather wore a fur coat, a buffalo coat. Her brothers would sit on the buffalo coat. His mother would get so angry, she got red in her face, and she had freckles, and her brother Henry would later say that she was so angry that her freckles got out.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1090.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: parental home, Mennonite clothes","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1283.0,1504.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt talks about a photograph of his parents. It was taken in their bedroom. They had a very small house, and that's the barn, they built a suit at the end of the barn, and that's where the photo was taken. Susan Gerbrandt explains: Barn and house were in one single building. Henry Gerbrandt continues: There were three rooms in it. Henry Gerbrandt is wondering why his mother didn't take off a little pin cushion when she was photographed. He explains that his mother's dress was the dress women wore at that time: long skirts. His father was always \"dressed very neat\" when he wasn't farming. He wore a suit, a white shirt and a tie. Later on, his father became a minister. He was assigned to the Rudnerweide Mennonite church. Henry Gerbrandt recalls that the early Mennonite pioneers were \"very legalistic\", they didn't wear ties, and so his father had to take off his tie and put away his white shirt when he became a minister. Henry Gerbrandt wasn't at home then but his younger brother always talked about it. One day, their father came home from preaching angry: \"Where is my tie?\" (Henry Gerbrandt recalls the sentence his father said in Low German, then in High German. His father had called the people who made him put away his tie \"stupid\".) The Mennonites expected Henry Gerbrandt's father to wear just a black shirt. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes and explains that the community was the Rudnerweide Mennonite church, \"they came out of the Sommerfelder church\". The Sommerfelder church still has the custom that the ministers wear black shirts and no ties. They thought this to be \"very Christian\", they have \"nothing extra that is vain\". It changed gradually in the Rudnerweide church: \"Now they are just like anybody.\" It was a new church that came out of the Sommerfelder church and \"they wanted to do everything right\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1283.0,1504.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: attitude of community towards education","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1504.0,1678.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt talks about a photograph of the farm he grew up on until he was 14-15 years old. At that age, he went out working and finished bible school and high school. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"Later, like not directly from grade 8, only quite a bit later.\" Henry Gerbrandt continues: \"In that sense, I was a pioneer in our community by going to school instead of developing our farm.\" The interviewer asks how the community felt about that. Henry Gerbrandt hesitates to answer, and his wife asks him if she should say something about that. He says yes. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: Attending Bible school was still considered ok in the community but when Henry Gerbrandt wanted to finish high school, he was expected to work in the church and in the community instead. The community felt that he didn't need a \"secular education\".  Some of the ministers even tried to dissuade his father to send him to high school. Henry Gerbrandt explains that it was around 1936. It was during the Depression. He had to work and gave money to his parents because \"they had such a large combined family\". In 1936 he had enough money to attend school. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: That was for Bible school but it was not until 1939 that Henry Gerbrandt started high school, when the war had already started. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1504.0,1678.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: United Church and conscientious objection","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1678.0,1807.06975"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469/index/79813/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that with the start of the war \"came the whole conscientious objector era for Mennonites\". Gerbrandt was a CO (conscientious objector) too. He was supposed to go to a pig farm but he tried to continue to go to school. The United Church had some very good leaders that were sympathetic to the CO position. There were about 50 United Church ministers that signed a letter urging the government to allow the CO position. A doctor Corman (?) became Gerbrandt's friend and supporter, and he put Mennonites into \"Indian schools\". Henry Gerbrandt recalls that the United Church is still \"very social-conscious\". They protected COs.\nSusan Gerbrandt intervenes: While most COs had to plant trees or work on farms, Henry Gerbrandt was allowed to go to a school. He taught for two years as a CO which as a very special privilege. He already had his grade 12, and on permit, he could do that without normal school or any further education. He first taught in Southern Manitoba and then in Cross Lake, Northern Manitoba.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133469#t=1678.0,1807.06975"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 4 - 2005-091-4147.wav"]},"duration":1808.55583,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/470/small/audio-default.png?1640663694","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/470/original/2005-091-4147.wav?1661168611","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1808.55583,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 2 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: family picture, siblings","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=0.0,243.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt explains a family picture. He says that it's \"a very sad picture\" because it was taken \"just after mother died\". He recalls that they had a \"very close-knit\" family but then his mother died \"very suddenly\" after 10 days of illness, and this picture was taken after that. He explains that \"these little fellows\" in the picture were a year and a half old. Henry Gerbrandt says that he can't see the persons in the picture well enough and asks his wife to identify them. Susan Gerbrandt names the persons in the picture from left to right: Mary, she corrects herself: Helen Duck (Dyck?), her husband became a minister, and Sarah, her husband became the bishop of the Sommerfelder church. He is still living, he is 92 now. Right to Sarah is Mary, Henry Gerbrandt's oldest sister. Her husband died after two or three years of marriage, she married another one later. The next person is Henry, followed by \"the younger boys\": Jake, John, Died (Diedrich), and the twins, Pete and Ed. They were six brothers. Susan Gerbrandt corrects herself: The twins are not in the picture. Henry Gerbrandt says that they must be there. Susan Gerbrandt corrects herself the second time, she finds the twins in the picture.\nHenry Gerbrandt continues: When the census taker came to their place, sister Helen was at home, he and his parents weren't at home. The census taker asks about the names of the children and thought that \"Pete and Ed\" was one name. Then he asked what does Ed mean: Edmund, Edward? Susan and Henry Gerbrandt do not know what his actual name was: He was always Ed. They have never seen his birth certificate. Henry Gerbrandt sneezes. The interviewer says \"Gesundheit!\" (Bless you!). Henry Gerbrandt replies: \"Danke schön!\" (Thank you very much!)\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that none of his sisters were married when the picture was taken. His mother died in 1930. His older sister was 16 at that time and she married two years later.\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=0.0,243.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: Mennonite church and women: hair style, children born out of wedlock","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=243.0,656.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt's sisters all had long hair at that time. He recalls that the Klaasen girls walked into the church with cut hair, and Mrs. Werner Thiessen. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"Good church people\" didn't cut their hair at that time. She says that \"that was wrong, to cut hair\". Henry Gerbrandt continues: Nothing happened to those girls, \"they were just admonished\". People weren't excommunicated for that. But if girls became pregnant, \"then they had to come before the church.\" Henry Gerbrandt still remembers that several girls had to stand up in church and say that they were sorry that they were pregnant. No men had to do this. (He laughs.) Henry Gerbrandt wrote about that in his book. Susan Gerbrandt adds: \"Men were never guilty.\" Henry Gerbrandt continues: \"It is still that way, when a girl becomes pregnant, she is blamed. She has not lived right\", or not dressed right. Henry Gerbrandt found it interesting when he came to Mexico to the Old Colony people that the girls were \"dressed from here up to their toes\", and they had more pregnancy problems than the Mennonites of the German conference: \"So we very quickly realized, it's not the dress.\" He says: \"Naja (well), that's something.\" He could tell the interviewers \"all kind of stories of church life\", he and his wife have worked in the church for many years. He \"always protected the girls.\" He didn't \"want the girls to stand up in church to say I'm pregnant.\" Susan Gerbrandt adds: \"They could come before the minister or the kins or whatever but not the congregation. They needed to confess it, their life but not in front of the congregation.\" The interviewer asks: \"What about the fathers?\" Susan and Henry Gerbrandt are both laughing. Henry Gerbrandt adds: \"They didn't talk about that.\"\nThe interviewer asks if some of these couples would get married, or what happened to children born out of wedlock? Susan Gerbrandt replies: \"You know, this did not happen that often.\" She remembers one case where the couple get married. In some cases, the father was an \"almost unknown person\". She recalls a case when a hitchhiker raped a Mennonite girl, and she became pregnant. It would not be said in public. The interviewer asks (shocked) if the woman still had to confess. Susan Gerbrandt says: \"Of course.\" She doesn't know if this child was raised by that woman or if it was given to adoption. Her niece gave a baby up to adoption after some time, she had the baby \"for a little while\", a few weeks. Her niece herself picked the people she wanted to raise her child. Henry Gerbrandt says that \"it didn't happen very often\". Susan Gerbrandt knows only three cases in their church in 20 years. Henry Gerbrandt repeats: \"No, it didn't happen very often.\" He recalls one case he had to do with. One girl was \"fooled\" by her boyfriend, he had told her that she didn't love him if they would not have sex. She was \"so dependent that she really thought he loved her\" but he left as soon as they had sex. The girl came to Henry Gerbrandt's office and told him her story. He had his catechism class, and after catechism and baptism, she disappeared. She came back after she had delivered her child and said that she wanted to \"straighten things out\". Henry Gerbrandt told her: \"This is all we want.\" He told her that he would keep her story to himself.  Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: The girl did not come home with the baby, she left it at the hospital. She must have given the baby over for adoption. Henry Gerbrandt recalls that his ministerial body was \"so strong on the old way that she had to confess before the church.\" Henry Gerbrandt says that the woman left the church, and he heard that she was a bitter person. He says that in 50 years of church life, he had different experiences, \"and not all our boys and girls were angels\". (The interviewers are laughing.) Gerbrandt continues: \"Nor were their parents, nor the ministers.\"","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=243.0,656.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: serving as minister","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=656.0,678.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that he worked most for his life in Altona, Manitoba, as a minister. It is a German conference church. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=656.0,678.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: father's remarriage, \"combined family\"","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=678.0,939.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewer asks about Henry Gerbrandt parents because he said earlier that it was \"a large combined family\". Henry Gerbrandt recalls that they were nine children when his mother died. Two years later, his father married a widow with 10 children. The interviewer is stunned: \"Wow, 19 children then together!\" The interviewer asks were did they live? Henry Gerbrandt explains that they were never living at home at the same time. The interviewer repeats: \"19!\" Henry Gerbrandt didn't know the woman his father married and was angry. Asked why, he passes the question to his wife: \"Why was I angry, Susan?\" Susan Gerbrandt continues: \"You didn't want a strange woman to take over the household and you didn't want all those step-siblings.\"\nHenry Gerbrandt is looking for a family picture.\nThe interviewer asks how Henry Gerbrandt's siblings felt about their father's second marriage. He recalls that they were younger, he doesn't know how they felt about the marriage. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"They accepted it sooner, now they had somebody to cook regular meals for them and look after them. And the second mother was very good, the twins were only 4 years old, so they now had a mother. So they younger ones didn't feel the same than the older ones did.\"\nHenry Gerbrandt asks his wife where the picture of the \"united family\" is. She doesn't know. They find a picture of Henry Gerbrandt's \"Gerbrandt cousins\".\nThe interviewer asks how many of the new wife's children were living at home. Henry Gerbrandt says three. He wasn't home. Both Henry and Susan Gerbrandt said that it happened frequently that widows and widowers remarried. Henry Gerbrandt says: \"It still happens in here\" (in the senior citizens residence they are living). Susan Gerbrandt explains that here, the children are not involved. She recalls that her father \"married a single girl the second time. He was still quite young when mother died.\" ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=678.0,939.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: family, living conditions, attitude towards the English","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=939.0,1279.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt explains a family picture. They were 10 girls in the family, nine of whom were born in a little two-room house: \"But we never knew that we were poor, we just didn't know that.\" Her father owned a farm, and they \"didn't really need much\". When she was 12, the \"Waisenamt\", a Mennonite bank, went bankrupt, and her father lost his land. He had mortgaged for his siblings, and somehow, her father lost the whole land. It was a \"very very sad time\". Her father drove around and tried to do something about it. While her father was away, the leaders of the \"Waisenamt\" came to their place. Susan Gerbrandt can still see her mother standing by the car, \"she knew what it was\". They drove off the yard, and her mother \"stood there for quite a while yet\". They had to move with 9 children, and her mother was pregnant. Finally, her father found a rented place, a big house, and Alma, the youngest, was born there. The picture they are looking at was taken in the yard of the new place. They lived there for three years. At that time, \"living on a rented place was a disgrace\". Her father was looking for land to buy. In the North, land was cheaper and more available. It was among English people. The girls were very afraid, \"we can't live among English people\". Susan Gerbrandt was the \"spokesperson\" of her siblings. Back then, they were not as free to tell their thoughts their parents as children are now. She told her mother that they cannot move there, because they could fell in love with English people, and they can't marry English people. The girls were \"very seriously, genuinely concerned about that.\" Asked if her parents were not concerned, Susan Gerbrandt replies that she doesn't know, \"they didn't see that but they never bought land there.\" (The interviewers burst out laughing.) Susan Gerbrandt was 12 then. She repeats that she was \"the spokesperson\" and that her sisters were 2 years apart from each other, and all 10 were very close. Asked why she was the \"spokesperson\", she recalls that she was more outgoing. She had three older sisters.\nSusan Gerbrandt explains the picture. On the left, there is her sister Helen. She married a few months before her mother died. The wedding was in their house (in the big rented house). Her sister married and lived at home, her boyfriend worked for her father. He lived there, they married, and he continued living there.\nWhen her father found a new place, a house had just burnt down. It was only one quarter section. Her father could buy only half of that, and he rented the other half. It was a very poor beginning. Her father was a small man, \"never very strong\", he had \"asthma and 10 girls\". The family moved into the machine shed that was quickly built out at the new place. They had two rooms. They lived there until they gradually built that out. Her mother was happy even in that poor house: \"Now, I am at home\". Susan Gerbrandt recalls that it was \"such a hard thing\" for her parents to live on a rented place. It was tremendously important to own a place and be one's own employer, and not work for other people. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=939.0,1279.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: family life after death of mother, lives of sisters, marriage patterns","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1279.0,1435.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that they moved to the new place in September, and in January, her mother died: \"10 girls alone\". Her sister Helen was married, \"so naturally, she took over.\" Mary, her second-oldest sister, was always an outdoor person. As there were no boys in the family, Mary and she \"were Pete and Bill\". Her parents had a boy first who died after 14 days. Then Helen was born, and then, her parents had another boy who also died after a few days. They were called Pete and Willy. So, she and Marry were Pete and Willy for their parents, they had to help outside.\nTina, the next person on the picture, was a person who did what she was told to do. She was not mentally retarded (she later raised a very nice family) but when her father's mother died, Tina moved away and Susan Gerbrandt had to take over the responsibility for the family: \"six younger sisters and two older sisters\".  Susan Gerbrandt identifies herself in the middle of the picture. She \"sort of ran that household\" for three years. She was 17 when her sister moved away. She names the other sisters: Margret who is the only sister of that ten who is not alive anymore, she died two years ago. The next sister, Nettie, is \"Mrs. George Groening\", he is well-known as minister in BC. The other sisters in the picture are Anne, Agatha, Jessie and Alma. Four of her sisters had four brothers courting them at the same time. At Christmas, they had to decide who of these boys could come. Four brothers married four of Susan Gerbrandt's sisters. \n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1279.0,1435.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: sister Helen's wedding","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1435.0,1563.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls her sister Helen's wedding. Susan Gerbrandt was very young but she sewed her sister's wedding dress, she had taken a sewing course in school at age 10. From the time she was 12, she did most of the sewing in their house. She made a pale green dress with a white organdy colour. The engagement was announced in church, and the wedding would usually take place two weeks after that. Her mother was still alive, and Alma was being born, and they couldn't have the wedding until Alma was born. It was about 4 weeks after the announcement. The wedding was planned the day Alma was born. Eventually, the wedding took place 5-6 days later. Susan Gerbrandt recalls that she doesn't know how her mother could do all the cooking just days after childbirth. The wedding wasn't big. They had a fairly large room and a living room, and both were full. The couple was sitting in the doorway, and the minister married them there. Susan Gerbrandt can still see it in her mind. Henry Gerbrandt asks who married them. Susan Gerbrandt can't remember but is sure that it was reverend Schulz. Susan Gerbrandt grew up near Steinbach, closer to Altona, Manitoba.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1435.0,1563.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: sister Mary's wedding, language use, different Mennonite communities","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1563.0,1808.55583"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470/index/79814/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that her sister Mary's wedding she \"did pretty well alone\". She planned and did the baking, boxes full of cookies. Mary also married during that time when Susan Gerbrandt was in charge of the household. The wedding was held in a school (Malver (?) school). It was the church for the MBs (Mennonite Brethren) in that area. Church, Sunday school, Jugendverein was all there. There was a lot of preaching going on in the school because the church was farther away. Mary's husband lived half a mile away from that school, Susan Gerbrandt's family two miles. Mary's husband was not one of the four brothers. Mary's husband was the only one in the family who had come to Canada in the 1920s: \"We made a lof of fun of him, about him, because of his speaking. He talked differently than we did.\" His Low German was very different. Mary's husband Ab was also belonged to the Mennonite Brethren who were very strict on baptisms, and Mary was already baptized in their church. They couldn't get married, and their father said that his daughters could't marry someone from another church. He thought that a couple had to be in the same church. The siblings and parents of Mary's husband couldn't understand that Mary wouldn't join their church. Mary would have to be re-baptized, and neither she nor her husband wanted to do that. Finally, Mary's husband Ab had to join the Bergthaler Church. They never were \"Bergthal-people later\" but Ab had to join at the wedding. Referent Schulz gave him his hand an accepted him into the Bergthatler Church. Mary and Ab always attended the Mennonite Brethren (MB) church though. Later, when her children joined the MB church, she joined too (in Brandon, Manitoba). They were surprised because they thought that Mary had been a member of the MB church because she had served as chairman for various things. By that time, they accepted her without baptism. Now the whole family is MB, and Susan Gerbrandt also grew up in the MB community: The choir and her social life was \"all MB\". When they moved to their new place, the neighbourhood was MB and they \"immediately searched the Christian activities\". The choir practice, bible study, prayer meeting took place in a home a mile away from their place. They walked to that home three times a week sometimes. Her parents felt fine about that. She can't remember ever telling them that they shouldn't join. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133470#t=1563.0,1808.55583"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 4 - 2005-091-4148.wav"]},"duration":1804.0976,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/471/small/audio-default.png?1640663828","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/471/original/2005-091-4148.wav?1661168631","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1804.0976,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 3 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: Mennonite Brethren and Bergthaler church communities","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=0.0,94.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that her parents felt fine that they participated in the activities of the MB church. It was clear to her that the MBs were great people but when it came to baptism, they would go to their own church. Her parents were glad that they were in a Christian community. By that time, their father was already a minister in the Bergthaler church, so it was natural for them to be baptized there. The Bergthaler church had 19 congregations, Susan Gerbrandt states that her husband's book is the \"write-up\" on the closing of the Bergthaler church as a conference. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=0.0,94.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: farm life after mother's death","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=94.0,256.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt talks about two pictures. She was in charge of the household then, and her sister Mary was the \"man of the family\". Their father was \"away so much because he was minister\". She explains that her sister Mary had cleaned out the barn of the manure and wanted to \"have some fun\", and the three younger girls were sitting on the horse when they took the manure away. Sometimes, her sister would tie a little wagon on to the manure sledge. She identifies Alma, her youngest sister, in the picture. Her sister Mary did most of the work outside when their father was away. They did mixed farming, they had cows, ducks, geese, chickens and pigs.\nSusan Gerbrandt says that her younger sisters had \"very little\" appointed chores to do. She thinks that she way maybe not a good organizer. Most of the work was done by her and Mary, and Tina, the next one, always did the dishes, she was \"a happy girl\" but didn't do organizing of sewing. Susan Gerbrandt did all the sewing for all her sisters, all the dresses, jackets and coats in pictures were sewn by her.\nThe interviewer asks if Susan Gerbrandt had any special relations with the animals. Did the horse in the picture have a name? Susan Gerbrandt says no but then she remembered that the horse was called Barney. Her two horses before her mother died, when her sister and she ploughed, were Bill and Fly. She had to harness them when she was still quite young. Her sister who was older ploughed with four horses, she herself with three horses.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=94.0,256.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: English and German animal names","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=256.0,302.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewer remarks that the horses had English names. Henry Gerbrandt intervenes: \"The horses spoke English, in all Mennonite yards, the cows, they  spoke German.\" Susan Gerbrandt agrees: \"Yeah, that's right!\" They called one cow \"Wite\" (the white one, Low German), the other one \"Bunte\" (German, the colourful one). Henry Gerbrandt adds: \"Rote\" (the red one). \"And the dogs, they were all English.\" Susan Gerbrandt recalls that their dog was called \"Sandy\". Henry Gerbrandt says: \"You never spoke German to a horse.\" He doesn't know why: \"That's part of the culture. We haven't talked much about culture yet.\"\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=256.0,302.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: garden, butchering, jam, breakfast","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=302.0,493.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that they \"lived off the yard on the farm\" unlike in town. In fall, they butchered 3-4 big hogs to get a lot of lard and big hams. At threshing time, they killed a calf for the threshers (they made roasts). The gardens supplied the potatoes, cabbage, beets. Carrots and potatoes were a staple. They didn't buy too much in town, except for sugar. His father cut sugar beets, cooked them, and tried to get sugar out of them: \"He didn't have the right method.\" Henry Gerbrandt asks his wife how many gallons of jam they made. Susan Gerbrandt recalls that they had a five-gallon crock and filled it with wild plum jam. They used \"only stuff we had\" except for the jam where they needed sugar. One of their rituals was that every one of them had a white embroidered apron. Sunday morning, they were always cleaned and ironed, and Sunday morning for breakfast, they had tea with sugar and buns. When they didn't have sugar, her father would go to town to buy have a pound of sugar. It was a ritual, and all of them wore white embroidered aprons. Her mother embroidered very much. They couldn't afford coffee, so they roasted grain. Susan Gerbrandt has done that too, she tried out different ways. She didn't have recipes, she roasted them in a frying pan. They also couldn't afford to buy oat meal, so they cooked wheat. They smashed it up \"and cooked it and cooked it and cooked it\". They ate it \"but how I don't remember\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=302.0,493.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan and Henry Gerbrandt: cooking, crackles, baking","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=493.0,906.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that cooking was \"very much seasonal\". They did very little canning. They even had asparagus which was new to some people at that time. Her mother cooked very good asparagus soup but they didn't eat it as vegetables, only in soup. They ate a lot of soup: peas, carrots: Not the peas but the pea pods. Susan Gerbrandt says that they cooked what they had. Sometimes, they didn't have butter for lunch when they went to school. She would add extra salt to the dough to make Kringel (Kringle), with a lost of crust. They could eat them \"quite nicely without anything on it\". She did a fair amount of that when her mother had died and her father was \"despondent\". She made them with extra salt, then she could do without butter. They didn't have recipes, and they didn't have casseroles. She can't remember that she ever roasted meat in the oven, everything was done on top of the stove. She says that it was done so in her husband's family too.\nHenry Gerbrandt continues: They made chicken soup, \"real chicken soup, not from the cans\". They added carrots, parsnips. The garden had to supply their food. They had raspberries and straw berries. In town, they bought \"Rogers Golden Sirup\". Henry Gerbrandt says that he likes parsnip soup, others don't. He asks the interviewer if she knows the word \"Jereiwe\" (?, Grieben in High German). She says yes. Henry Gerbrandt correctly assumes that she doesn't like it. It means crackles. He says that the generation of the interviewers doesn't like it. The interviewer says that her Oma (grandmother) loves them. Henry Gerbrandt says that one can still buy them in Winkler, Manitoba. He says that he liked them: \"But that's how we lived and we lived well.\" He remembers that his mother made \"many kinds of milk-based\"...(he hesitates, Susan Gerbrandt continues): soup. Henry Gerbrandts corrects her \"Moos\" (moose). His mother also made rice, fried eggs, fried bacon (\"not the bacon you buy in town\"), thick slices of bacon: \"We lived quite well but not in today's standard.\"\nAsked if her family cooked traditional Mennonite food, Susan Gerbrandt replies that they had \"lots of fried potatoes\". They would cook big pots of potatoes with skins, then peel and fry them. If they could afford, they would add some eggs to it: \"That was pretty well the meal, and bread, of course.\" They had very little brown bread, and she doesn't know how the 10 sisters grew up: \"We didn't eat according to health standards at all.\" They ate white bread and jam. They didn't always have fuel for the cook stove to bake, so her father built a little outside-oven. She says that they can see such an oven in Steinbach (at the Mennonite Heritage Village). At the museum, the oven is built with bricks, they built it with a \"kind of mud\" with some wire. She baked a lot in that oven. She also made pies (they had long pans), with some rhubarbs and some sugar. They had pie and coffee for a meal: \"It wasn't health food at all!\" Asked if it was like American Pie, Susan Gerbrandt says yes but \"not nearly as rich the dough, and very little fruit in it, and very little sugar in it\". She makes pies todays still in square pans. \n\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=493.0,906.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: pumpkin pie, liver sausage","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=906.0,1074.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt is asked if his mother cooked differently from other Mennonites as she learned how to cook from English people. He replies that they had probably a pie which was new in the community. He says that his mother was \"outstanding in baking pies\". Her mother would cook the pumpkin, and then put the pulp into a sugar bag and squeeze it through, and it became very fine, there was no fibre in it. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"We didn't have the blenders.\" Henry Gerbrandt continues: \"Those pies are very good.\" His mother also knew something about roasting but \"generally speaking, she was very Mennonite too\". His father was very Mennonite. When they killed a pig, they made liver sausage. They were made with all the fat in them. They would take two gallon crocks, take the sausage in there, and pour lard over them, and they preserved it that way. On New Years or Christmas Eve, the crocks were taken into the house from the summer kitchen (everything was frozen there). On New Years or Christmas Eve, that was brought out and reheated, and the liver sausages were very fresh. He liked them then, now he would not even eat them. They were very fatty. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: The pigs had to be as fat and big as possible, \"just to get more\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=906.0,1074.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: Christmas, bible studies at school","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1074.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that they celebrated Christmas on Christmas Day. He states that the liver sausage was prepared for the Christmas Day meal. They had a Sunday school program on Christmas Eve. Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: \"school program, we didn't have Sunday school\". Henry Gerbrandt agrees. He recalls that they always had religion in school: \"I don't know when that changed.\" Asked if that was a Mennonite school, Susan Gerbrandt says that it was a government school. Henry Gerbrandt adds: \"But the trustees were all Mennonites and you had what you wanted.\" (The interviewer laughs: \"Ok, fair enough.\") The interviewer asks if they had German and bible studies either before or after school because of the education laws. Henry and Susan Gerbrandt agree. Susan Gerbrandt recalls that they had \"bible stories\" the first half hour. She thinks that the \"government wasn't that fussy\" about that, it should be after 3:30 then. She is \"sure they were more particular in the cities, not in the country, as long as the rest of the curriculum was followed\". The bible stories were in German. She didn't have any German grammar.\nSusan Gerbrandt recalls that Christmas Eve was \"a very big thing\". Her mother was \"always with a baby around\" and wouldn't go out much in winter, but she took blankets because she didn't have many warm outdoor clothes and came to the Christmas Eve program. It was a \"very big thing for the community\". When they came back home, each one had put her name on a little piece of paper and they also put big plates onto the table. There gifts were candy, a pencil and a scribbler, usually. Sometimes, her mother had redone dolls, or made new clothes for dolls. There was a big white sheet over all of that when they came into the dining room on Christmas Day. They had breakfast first, and only then the sheet was opened. Then they would eat candy all day. They didn't have a Christmas Tree, never. There was a Christmas Tree with candles in school. Two men were always standing by the tree and watching the candles. ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1074.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry and Susan Gerbrandt: Mennonite teachers, school life, Low and High German","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1283.0,1574.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt says that they always had Mennonite teachers, in Henry Gerbrandt school, there was a non-Mennonite at one time. Susan Gerbrandt had very good teachers, \"a bit older men\". Some men already had their degree but there weren't too many Mennonite teachers but in their community, there were only Mennonite teachers.\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that there was a battle between conservative Mennonites and the more progressive ones. The government wanted to do away with all the Mennonite schools. They even changed the names of the schools from traditional Russian Mennonite villages names to English ones. He didn't go to a private school.\nSusan Gerbrandt says that her father was a private school teacher. He went to the MCI (Mennonite Collegiate Institute) which was very unusual for her father's time. He had to walk there from Birkfeld (?), Manitoba, for quite a few miles. He went there without getting a degree, and became a private school teacher in the community.\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that his two older sisters attended private school from 1917 to 1920. Then, the government \"enforced English schools on the Mennonites. Many Mennonites couldn't take it, and they left for South America or for Mexico.\" He has written about that in one of his books. When he started school, it was all English but he can't remember having learnt English. Susan Gerbrandt recalls that \"none of use knew English when we started school, we had to learn it\". She explains that her younger sister already knew a little bit of English when they started school but she didn't. Henry Gerbrandt thinks that he knew English perhaps because of his mother, he can't remember that he learnt it. He already knew the school book used by his sisters. It was about Tom Tinker and his cat. Susan Gerbrandt also remembers it. The younger siblings already knew what the older ones had learnt at school because it was repeated at home. The younger siblings knew those things by heart: \"Education was so rare, and I guess we were eager and greedy to learn.\"\nSusan Gerbrandt recalls that they spoke only Low German at home. Henry Gerbrandt ask the interviewers if they have learnt Low German. The interviewer says no, she can understand it a little bit. Susan Gerbrandt says \"you're both from the 20s\" (descendants of Mennonites who came to Canada in the 1920s). They say that their families are post-WWII immigrants. Susan Gerbrandt says: \"even post, ok, so your people would have spoken the High German rather to their children. Even those from the 20s, some of them did, wanted the children to learn High German\". Susan Gerbrandt says none of the Mennonites who came in the 1870s (or their descendants) would have attempted to speak High German to their children. For them, High German was \"up there, whatever, big people, not humble\". However, the preacher at church spoke High German \"but nobody else would speak anything than Low German to each other\". The service was in High German. Asked if she could understand High German, Susan Gerbrandt says no.\n\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1283.0,1574.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: conversation experience of father, Sunday school, baptism","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1574.0,1804.0976"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471/index/79815/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that she never went to church. Her family didn't go to church. When she was five, her father had a \"traumatic conversion experience\". He was \"quite worldly whatever that means, he drank - not an alcoholic but he didn't live Christian\". Her parents went to church before that. After his conversion experience, her father immediately started Sunday school, he was concerned about neighbourhood children. He went from neighbour to neighbour and explained to them (that was very new) that he wanted to tell the children the bible stories. He invited the children to his place. That's how her father \"gathered the neighbourhood children\". Susan Gerbrandt grew up with Sunday school, and at age 16, she started to teach herself. Sunday school never took place in church, later it was moved to school. She was not a churchgoer before her marriage. When she wanted to get baptized, someone had to take her to church so that she could attend the catechism class for 5-6 weeks. She didn't get to know the church people because the classed took place separately, and she certainly didn't get to know young people in church.\nThe interviewer asks if her father was influenced by American evangelists. Susan Gerbrandt says no: \"Where he got this from I don't know.\" He had a big accident, following two accident before. It was all farm accidents. She corrects herself: Her father had had one accident before. Her father had heard people superstitiously talking that one would die in the third accident. Susan Gerbrandt still remembers her father lying in bed after this second accident (she doesn't know exactly what had happened to him). It was in summer, they were living in the summer kitchen but her mother had to go in again and again. Her father was experiencing \"Seelenangst\" (mental agony), and her mother had to pray with him. Her mother was very Christian. When her father recovered, he became a different person. Susan Gerbrandt remembers that one Sunday morning, her sister Tina and she were playing outside, and they had new shoes without having begged for them. They discussed it: \"What happened to dad, he is so nice to us.\"\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133471#t=1574.0,1804.0976"}]}]},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 4 of 4 - 2005-091-4149.wav"]},"duration":1992.78295,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/133/472/small/audio-default.png?1640663973","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/content/4/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-ualberta.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/133/472/original/2005-091-4149.wav?1661168652","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1992.78295,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Part 4 [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: father's conversation experience","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=0.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt continues to talk about her father's conversation experience. She didn't understand what had happened to him, only later she discovered what had happened, some of it even after her mother had died. Her father would tell her how he and her mother had prayed and struggled. She thinks that there were no ministers of the Sommerfeld church involved. He had not been a regular drinker before but every two or three weeks, Saturday nights, he would go to the Plum Coulee hotel and drink. One of the ministers observed that her father didn't go drinking anymore, and the minister had \"enjoyed that drinking fellowship\". Susan Gerbrandt doesn't say that all ministers were like that but that's the kind of ministers her father knew. Her father had not any help except for his mother who was \"a very staunch Christian\". They didn't use the vocabulary that one uses now: \"It wasn't talked about it, it was lived\". Her father started Sunday school, and Sunday evenings, her parents would go visiting. Her father held services for other couples but then they wouldn't dare to call it service, that would be \"überheblich\" (arrogant): \"considering himself the opposite of humble, what is the word?\" The interviewer says \"superior\". From that time on, her father \"talked freely, and mum was a very happy person of course\". Her mother took the little children into the other room. Her father told the children bible stories, he read a lot. Later, her father got together with referent Schulz who was the bishop of the Bergthaler church, and he helped her father very much. Her father would sit and read the bible and ask questions. Her father was \"self-taught\", later he was elected as minister.\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=0.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: family picture with grandfather, wearing caps","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=180.0,413.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt asks the interviewer: \"What culture do you see in this picture?\" He explains that the boys have caps. Even today one sees that at a funeral. Men had caps or hats outside, women didn't, they went bareheaded. He is not on that picture but his sister Mary is, as are his younger siblings. The picture was taken between 1927 and 1932. His grandmother is not on the picture, his grandfather is: His grandmother died in 1927, his grandfather in 1932. Asked why the boys wore caps, Henry Gerbrandt says that he doesn't know, there is no religious reason. He says: \"It's culture.\" His cousins are also on the picture. Asked why he is not on the picture, he says that he didn't know when they would take a picture. His grandfather lived 18 miles away from their place. The picture was taken at his grandfather's house.\nHis grandfather farmed in the Lowe Farm area from 1889 to 1917, then he moved to Altona (he retired). He wasn't so old yet but he had farmed well, sold his farm, and put his money into the \"Waisenamt\" (Mennonite bank). When the Waisenamt went bankrupt, his grandfather lost all his money. (Henry Gerbrandt laughs.): \"That's how his life was.\" All of Henry Gerbrandt's grandparents came from Ukraine. They were part of the Bergthal village but not the church. He adds: the Bergthal Colony consisting of five villages. \n\n\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=180.0,413.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: triple wedding, preparations","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=413.0,936.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt explains that her sister Margret and she already planned in winter their respective weddings because both were engaged. They thought about a double wedding but then they decided that they wanted \"full attention\". Margret got married in June, and their wedding was planned in August (1944). Before that, both her sisters Tina and Nettie also wanted to get married without setting a date long ahead of time. Nettie and her future husband George wanted to go to Norway House to teach, and Tina wanted to get married too that summer. Susan Gerbrandt's father said that he wouldn't make three more weddings that summer. (The interviewer laughs.) Her father said that Susan Gerbrandt's sister also had to take the date Susan and Henry had decided. That's why three sisters married together. Her sisters married two cousins, so a lot of relatives were the same. There was no church big enough, so her father and \"second mother\" rented a big church tent, so they were married in the tent beside the house on their yard. It was a big wedding, and a lot of people who were not invited heard about that wedding. Even a few years ago, people told her that they were at their wedding: \"We heard about it and had to come and see that.\" (The interviewer laughs.) The yard was full of people. They had borrowed big planks for benches, and people ate there in the tent. Suan Gerbrandt herself had baked cookies, they presented them as if they had been bought in a store \"but how fresh they were that you can guess but that didn't matter.\" They had cookies and sugar cubes which was always a must. She had also baked a lot of buns. For weddings, the neighbourhood came together, and they would make big piles of dough. The bowls of bun dough was taken to other people in the community to bake the buns. They weren't baked all at one place. Henry Gerbrandt intervenes: \"Don't forget the cheese.\" Susan Gerbrandt continues: Her father had \"strange connections\" in Winnipeg with Jewish jobbers in the North End where \"cheap stuff was sold\". They went to Winnipeg for other things and were sent to that place for cheese. At that time, there were coupons and they could \"only buy so and so much\". Her father had ordered a big role of cheese, they packaged it. They \"of course\" didn't have a car, so they went on the bus with that cheese. It was old cheese and smelt. People wondered where they could buy that cheese because people could buy only a little bit. When her father saw the cheese, he said: \"You can't serve that old cheese to Mennonites.\" Susan Gerbrandt recalls that the cheese was a delicacy, much more worth than newer cheese but Mennonite people didn't like this kind of cheese. So they took the cheese to a store in Lowe Farm, to Rosner's, \"a Jewish store\". They were \"just too happy\" to take that cheese and gave them cheaper cheese instead. She doesn't know whether they gave money to her father. That was all they had at their wedding, \"and coffee of course\".\nSusan Gerbrandt recalls that the minister went from one couple to the other. Later, some people made fun of them and asked: \"When did you decide to get married?\" Her sister Tina was the first one (she is not sure, she doesn't remember exactly). The answer was: \"When I heard you said yes and nobody fell over, I said yes too.\"\nSusan Gerbrandt made all three wedding dresses. (The interviewer says \"wow\".) She also made the wedding dresses for her daughters. The interviewer ask what her sisters did for this wedding, \"it sounds like you did everything\". Susan Gerbrandt says no, she didn't do everything but \"I was in charge, let's put it that way.\" Her father said: \"It isn't for everyone to take over.\" It just wasn't the thing of her sisters to take over. All her younger sisters helped. Everyone worked on the farm but she doesn't know if they had their \"specific chores\".\nLooking at the wedding picture, the interviewer says that it looks like it was a beautiful day. Susan Gerbrandt agrees. There was only one outside toilet, and there was a line for the toilet. The brides went downstairs into the basement, there was a pail. (Susan Gerbrandt and the interviewers are laughing.) Henry Gerbrandt continues: During the night, there was a rain storm, and the tent was lying down. They had to put a new rope into those poles. He, Frank and Ab (his brother-in-laws) had to work very hard to reset the tent. He transpired, but at that time, \"the noses were not so sensitive\". (The interviewer bursts out laughing.) Now, their church tells people not to wear anything scented because people are allergic. At that time, no-one was allergic.\n\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=413.0,936.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: Germans in WWII, Victory Day in Toronto, riots","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=936.0,1071.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewer asks if the Gerbrandts experienced any kind of discrimination as German-speaking people during WWII. Susan Gerbrandt says \"yes, however, where we lived, there weren't that many\" non-Germans. When they went to Lowe Farm and met people that were not Mennonites, they would be careful not to speak German. Her younger sisters didn't want to have anything to do with German: \"Of course at home\", they only spoke Low German. In public, they spoke English \"because people were very sensitive to that.\" She says that \"nothing big happened here\" because they were mostly Mennonites in their area. On D-Day, she corrects herself: on Victory Day, they were in Toronto. They studied in Toronto the first year they were married. They studied at the \"Missionary Medical Institute\" (Missionary Health Institute). It was a medical school, and she was together with the matron in Grace Hospital downstairs, and it was in one of these old buildings with windows high up there. They heard noise outside, and the matron and she went to the window and looked out. There were cars with streamers, and shouting. They were testing blood at that time, and then they went upstairs to see what's going on. It was a very big day in Toronto, everything was closed, people tried to board up all the stores \"because so much rioting was going on\". The interviewer is stunned: \"Rioting?\" Susan Gerbrandt says: \"That's what people are when they're exuberant.\" Later, they went downtown, and people were hurrying with boards to board up their windows: \"They were all smashed if this wasn't the case. People are just out of their mind then.\"\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=936.0,1071.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: attitudes of Mennonites towards Hitler","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1071.0,1177.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that when he taught school, he experienced discrimination from the department of education. A government official told him that he could shoot people right now. In the district the taught, \"they were so pro-German, I think that's why they sent me there, to check whether I was a Nazi but I never went for that. We were German but not pro-German, not pro-Nazi. That was a totally different thing. And some people could not differentiate between the two but the government officials were good.\" He states that the government officials could differentiate. The \"people of the 1920s\" (interwar immigrants) had more difficulties, they had experienced Germany in a different way, \"and some of them were pro-Hitler. That wasn't our problem.\" During threshing time, he worked with immigrants from the 1920s, \"and they were so pro-Hitler, and that was offensive but that wasn't our problem.\" Henry Gerbrandt thinks that the government officials were \"generally understanding\". \n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1071.0,1177.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: Mennonites during WWI","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1177.0,1276.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt is asked about discrimination during WWI. He was born during the war, in 1915. His father was a conscientious objector in WWI and worked on a farm, it was \"no problem\". His mother came from Lowe Farm, and \"there were all kinds of stories\". His mother's brother came with horse and buggy to their place to hide. Henry Gerbrandt supposes that he had not reported, had not registered. But there were also \"Mennonite boys that wanted to the army. They were worse than the English people. That was also in the Second World War.\" Asked why they were worse, Henry Gerbrandt says that \"they looked down on the COs (conscientious objectors) more than the English people did. English people were very tolerant people.\" The non-English who were in the army were more offensive to the Mennonites.\n\n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1177.0,1276.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt: not talking about the past","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1276.0,1329.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt intervenes: Her parents talked very little about this time, they talked very little about the past. She often wondered why their parents didn't tell them more about their growing up, about Russia. Her grandmother who was 11 when they came from Russia did never tell anything. She was very close with her grandmother, and she was already married when she died. At their ordination, there was an additional chair, and they brought her grandmother in, and she was so pleased. No-one ever talked about the past: \"Nowadays, everybody is interested in history but they weren't, that's past.\"","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1276.0,1329.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt: Mennonites serving in the army, conscientious objectors","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1329.0,1467.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Henry Gerbrandt recalls that they have a friend, Jake Wienes (?), he came from the Hershey (?) church. One Sunday morning, an aeroplane buzzed the church during worship. Someone said that it was a boy from their district who is in the army. It was reported, \"the guy was grounded\", he lost his flying licence because of this incident. That was in the Altona area too: \"Some of the boy that went into the army were harder on the COs (conscientious objectors) than the English people were.\"\nTheir church, together with other churches, had the position that \"if you went into the army, you put your membership into jeopardy. That was on hold until they came back. When they came back, they had to declare themselves as Mennonite conscientious objectors.\" Otherwise, they lost membership. Henry Gerbrandt say that \"today, we don't have war, we don't know how the people feel\". He states that \"there is a lot of tolerance today\". He doesn't know what the \"Mennonite persuasion\" would do \"if we had a war and had a great need for men\". ","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1329.0,1467.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan and Henry Gerbrandt: interviewer's family history","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1467.0,1582.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan Gerbrandt recalls that the first Mennonite migrants developed the swamps and the stony land, just like later in Paraguay \"or wherever the Mennonites go, the government sees it that they are an asset to the country, they produce.\" She states that that helps the government to be \"kind\" in other areas in exchange, even if \"it was a bit against their rules\".\nHenry Gerbrandt asks the interviewer if her father came from Paraguay. She says from Brazil. Henry Gerbrandt asks her how long the family was there. The interviewer says that her father was born there and he came to Canada just before he turned 18 in 1970. Susan Gerbrandt asks if her father \"actually grew up in Brazil\", the interviewer says yes, \"in a very Mennonite community down there. Her father's parents came to Brazil after the war, \"from Russia, the Ukraine\". Susan Gerbrandt says: \"You're a Thiessen\". Her son-in-law is a Thiessen from North Kildonan, Manitoba. His father is called Jake Thiessen but he and his wife moved to BC years ago. She wonders if the interviewer could be related to her son-in-law. The interviewer states that she doesn't have many Thiessen relatives. Susan Gerbrandt recalls that her son-in-laws parents spent some time in Paraguay but soon came back to Canada. Susan Gerbrandt says about the interview that she is sure that the interviewers have already more material than they can use.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1467.0,1582.0"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Susan and Henry Gerbrandt: identity, contacts to non-Mennonites","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1582.0,1992.78295"},{"id":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472/index/79816/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The interviewer asks about the Gerbrandts' cultural identity. Susan Gerbrandt says that they have been more with non-Mennonites that some of their families. Now that they are older, they identify a little bit more with Mennonite culture but she thinks that they were more with non-Mennonites, \"don't we?\" Henry Gerbrandt continues: \"We are classified with the Mennonite culture. We like the food, we like the church services, we like the language, we like all that. At the same time, we have been out of the Mennonite culture for quite a bit.\" He thinks that he and his wife are identifying themselves less Mennonite \"than the community does. The community classifies us culturally.\" Now, they feel more Mennonite.\nSusan Gerbrandt says that she feels \"at ease\" with non-Mennonites. They have a friend who was a British war bride, they still visit her, she was their neighbour, \"and we feel very close to her and good. So we probably more than most of our siblings, would feel quite ok with non-Mennonites too.\"\nHenry Gerbrandt says that they don't have to be ashamed of the Mennonite culture. He recalls that he worked on a Scottish farm as a 17-year-old: \"They had so many things culturally that to me it was offensive.\" Susan Gerbrandt continues: \"Christian values without the word Christian with wasn't used was very much in our background culture: The values we later called Christian.\" She states that \"our Christian values had been our culture too very much\".\nHenry Gerbrandt recalls that he felt out of place in a \"very militaristic\" church. One of his teachers at the institute was a Baptist minister, and his son joined the army and became a pilot, a bomber. The minister said before his son went overseas, he put his hand onto his son's head, blessed him and prayed that every bomb his son would throw would kill as many Germans as possible: \"Now, you know what it does to your feelings, not only faith-wise but culturally, it was a totally different culture.\" Once, he went to Massey Hall (in Toronto) to a big gathering, there were about 7,000 soldiers in there, and the speaker was general Allenby from England. The speaker spoke about prayers, and then he talked about how they threw bombs, he was totally in the killing and so on, \"like Billy Graham\". Henry Gerbrandt says that he had a battle with Billy Graham. \n","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://ualberta.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1776/collection_resources/58856/file/133472#t=1582.0,1992.78295"}]}]}]}