Tag Archives: this hidden thing
There is Winnipeg Mennonite Fiction!
He got it wrong! In March I took a course called Winnipeg Fact and Fiction from Roland Penner octogenarian story-teller extraordinaire. One class was about the contributions immigrant families have made to the city. Penner was right in asserting that immigrants and their children helped put Winnipeg on the map. Just look at people like ………….
Manitoba Theatre Centre founder John Hirsch who was a war orphan from Hungary
Sculptor Leo Mol who came to Canada from Ukraine in 1948
Politician Stanley Knowles who immigrated to Canada from Los Angeles with his parents in the early 1900s. Intrepid war hero William Stephenson, Winnipeg's own James Bond, whose parents were immigrants from Iceland and Scotland.
Comedian David Steinberg born in Winnipeg to Romanian immigrant parents.
The purpose of the course Winnipeg Fact and Fiction was to introduce a topic about Winnipeg history and then suggest one or two companion novels that might shed an interesting perspective on that theme. Our teacher Roland Penner got it wrong when he recommended Fredelle Maynard's book Raisins and Almonds as his top fiction pick reflecting the Winnipeg immigrant experience.
Raisins and Almonds tells the story of a young girl growing up on the Canadian prairies as the child of Jewish immigrants from Russia. The first problem I have with Roland Penner choosing this book is that it's not fiction, but Maynard's memoirs. Secondly, although there are a some pages in the book devoted to life in Winnipeg the majority of the stories are set in the small Canadian prairie towns where Fredelle's family moved in hopes of finding one where her father's mercantile business would be successful.
Someone in the class asked Roland if he could recommend fiction books that would represent the Mennonite immigrant experience in Winnipeg and he said there weren't any. He claimed since Mennonites settled primarily in the rural areas of Manitoba, if there was any fiction about their immigrant experience it wouldn't be set in Winnipeg. He was wrong.
Dora Dueck's novel This Hidden Thing, winner of last year's McNally Robinison Book of the Year award, is definitely fiction and is set almost solely in Winnipeg. It tells the story of young Mennonite girls who came to live in Winnipeg to work as maids in the homes of wealthy people in order to help pay the money their families owed to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR had financed loans to make it possible for Mennonites to come to Canada from Ukraine. Maria, the main character in Dueck's novel, spends almost her entire life in Winnipeg after immigrating from Ukraine as a teenager.
Penner is also wrong when he says there weren't many Mennonite immigrants in Winnipeg. By the 1920's six Mennonite churches had already been established in the city and by the 1950's there were 7000 Mennonites living in Winnipeg.
What next? I'd like to find out if there are any other novels set primarily in Winnipeg that reflect the experience of Mennonite immigrants.
Filed under Books, History, Religion, Winnipeg
Tagged as dora dueck, famous winnipeg immigrants, fredelle maynard, john hirsch, leo mol, raisins and almonds, Roland Penner, stanley knowles, this hidden thing, william stephenson, winnipeg fact and fiction, winnipeg immigrant experience