Photo provided by the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies.
A group of children from Orchard Park Bible Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., carry signs celebrating the 200th birthday of Sunday school as Kathy and Alfred Guenther present keepsakes to the children. In 1780, Robert Raikes started Sunday school in Gloucester, England, as a way to teach lower-class children morals and religion.
Photo: Mennonite Heritage Centre/Mennonite Archival Image Database
Lenore Mendes of Guatemala addresses Mennonite World Conference 12 in Winnipeg in 1990. She thought she would be speaking to a few hundred people, but was surprised to see thousands. The Winnipeg gathering was the biggest to date with 13,000 registrants. Her sermon in Winnipeg was an important stepping stone to her election to the Executive Committee of MWC.
Photo: Mennonite Heritage Centre/Mennonite Archival Image Database
A group of 18 young men and women travel in the back of a truck on their way a Sängerfest or song festival in the Didsbury, Alberta, area in 1934. No seatbelts used here! Song festivals were popular in Mennonite circles as a way of gathering to see old friends, enjoy singing four-part harmony music, and a way for young men and women to meet in controlled environments.
In 1962, Canada hosted the Mennonite World Conference for the first time. Twelve thousand delegates attended; 6,000 of these were billeted in local homes. Historian T.D.
The historic District of Niagara included what is roughly the whole of the Niagara Peninsula.
The previous article, “Landscapes of war, a people of peace,” June 25, page 12, noted the challenge of identifying “the Mennonite experience” in the War of 1812, and the fact that the war was significant as the first testing of conscientious objection in Canada.
Jonathan Seiling, right, consults with Carol Penner, pastor of The First Mennonite Church, Vineland, Ont. on a recent historic tour. (Photo by Melissa Seiling)
The War of 1812 is important to commemorate for many reasons. As the only defensive war fought on Canadian soil in the last two centuries, it was also the first testing of the historic peace churches' position of conscientious objection in Canadian history.
Fred Ritchie reads a peace book to great-grandson, Simon Clark. (Photo courtesy of Jake Buhler)
Charlie Clark, who grew up in the United Church tradition, listened carefully to the stories of his beloved Grandpa Ritchie on his fruit orchard in Naramata, B.C. The stories came from a gentle man who had seen war up close and who believed there was a better way to solving problems.
In addition to the usual Assembly 2011 activities, local organizers have planned a number of tours of Waterloo Region, including:
A 1797 Conestoga wagon, refitted with rubber tires, travels from Lancaster, Pa., to Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., in 1952 to mark the centennial of Waterloo County. (File photo by David Hunsberger, Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
A cairn erected at The First Mennonite Church in Vineland in 1986 marks the bicentennial celebrations of the Mennonites’ arrival in Canada. (www.gameo.org photo)
The homestead of Daniel and Veronica (Schneider) Martin (married April 8, 1823) at Wagner's Corners (on the west side of Weber St.) in what is now the north end of Waterloo, Ont. (Mennonite Archives of Ontario photo)
Russian Mennonite immigrants walking up Erb St. in Waterloo, Ont., from the railway siding in downtown Waterloo toward Erb St. Mennonite Church, in 1924. (Mennonite Archives of Ontario photo)
It is 1786. The first Swiss Mennonites have just arrived in Ontario, having travelled from Pennsylvania in Conestoga wagons. They crossed the mighty Niagara River by taking the wheels off their wagons, sealing the wagon boxes to make boats, and then floating across. Cattle and horses swam.
