Excerpts: Heinrichs of Halbstadt #

While the past needs to be re-examined and revisionist historians often shed new perspectives on events, we need to inform our assumptions on reliable sources and the stature of authority, remaining wary of motive, agenda and insidious intent. Events should be discussed, debated, re-evaluated and re-assessed, but established facts should never be denied. Respectable and responsible institutions base their conclusions on grounded evidence, do not “guess the facts” rather forensically investigate all contested claims and assertions by testing conflicting claims to validate their findings.

Every one owns the facts of their own life. Our extended family has a copyright on the facts to our narrative, in this book which became the main exhibit in the court case, yet was totally ignored with sinister intent.

Since the 1960’s ordinary people have begun to document their family origins. Our family historians have documented a number of invaluable primary and secondary documents of material evidence that refute the assumptions, claims and conclusions posited by a corrupt Manitoba Family Court. It is my contention that this document is the most reliable source of material evidence to gain a grounded and realistic backdrop to understanding our family narrative because it has no other motive than to chronicle of family narrative – except of course to help us understand who we are. It gains its credibility because though collegial, the writers wrote independently in isolation. It is the intersection of individual reminisces that reinforces reality.

The earliest photo of the descendants of Jacob Heinrichs was taken in 1915.

The oldest living members of the 7 families, the children and immediate descendants of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Heinrichs who came to Canada in 1874, gathered for their first reunion in the church at Halbstadt, Man. Studying family statistics are, l-r: W. W.Heinrichs, Mrs. A. D. H. Friesen, C. P. Heinrichs, Mrs. J. Heinrichs, P. C. Heinrichs, Mrs. John Harder and J. A.Toews. Mrs. John Harder at the far right 4 others who are not identified. The total number of descendants in this family, living and dead, was estimated at 1,174. [link] (https://archives.mhsc.ca/index.php/used-in-cm-4-35-3-oldest-living-members)

A harmonious collective and collaborative effort by all Heinrichs’ families, Lorraine Plett (Publisher), Myrtle Butts, Tina Braun, Viola Siemens, Irwin Hoffman and Katherine Martens came up with a widely representative and well-presented book called Heinrichs of Halbstadt (1993) only after countless interviews and many years of exhaustive and rigorous research.

In order to gain some perspective and gather primary material, a distinguished researcher and writer, Kathy Martens painstakingly conducted interviews with the older members of the Heinrichs family to glean valuable information in danger of being lost. It is noteworthy that she had no intention of interviewing Uncle Jake since he was more contemporary. He requested to be interviewed. Just as well.

It is surprising how forthright, candid and upfront he was. It contains many revealing admissions that refute the court’s conclusions, especially the “close bond” fanciful assumption. . As well, private letters and other material substantive sources form an archival mother lode of primary, secondary and tertiary, documentary hard evidence, unmotivated by ulterior agendas, except to crystallise our experiences by recording and chronicling our family heritage.

By the narrow framing of evidence, the court appears to be oblivious of this context or perspective and have little sense of her real audience; people who grew up with Aunt Ann and Uncle Jake and have a more grounded perspective of all persons, events and situations.

This unwarranted presumption of piercing insights and solipsistic perception beyond the powers of active participants, into family dynamics illustrates how inappropriate it is for people in ivory towers to make judgements on us mere mortals unless they are willing to avail themselves of all the facts.

As a family we are entitled to take steps to vindicate our reputation and provide some truth to the matters the courts deliberately and purposely misconstrued.

(Our) mother, Susan Heinrichs, was at first reluctant to cooperate with the recording of the family narrative because it might reveal aspects of the family better not disclosed – “why should be air our dirty linen in public”.

Eventually she was persuaded to participate. Others too warned against telling all and attempted to have the book redacted, censured or sanitised.

One reviewer described the exercise as a “warts and all” candid exposure of a family’s history.

Some general impressions from the book: #

The book provides a stark contrast on how children were raised then and now. Grandfather Wilhelm Heinrichs was a larger than life figure in the community, extremely progressive (one of the first to own a car by 1908, a phonograph and radio), a bit worldly (played the stock market), openly brewed and drank beer, lived on the edge of the church but also acutely and protectively conscious of what people thought about his family. He was an extremely generous host; there are many pictures that illustrate his devotion to a large extended family. He seems to be all inclusive; enjoying having them all around him. “Alla tope” is a low German expression familiar to all of us - - it translates into “all together” – an inclusiveness that permeates most of our family relationships. A common thread through the book is how generous, supportive and dutiful most family members are.

Unfortunately, there are more complicated influences. On the positive side, Mrs Bennet of Jane Austen fame was no match for Maria Heinrichs when it came to dressing her three eldest daughters to attract men. Curling their hair was considered worldliness. A seamstress came in twice a year to make sure they were elegantly dressed – both taboos in conservative Mennonite circles. By the time the youngest, Aunt Anne, needed fashionable clothes, Eaton’s Mail-order catalogue had to do.

However, other recurring references indicate a hard-nosed uncompromising and mean-spirited disposition, when it attracted the wrong sort of man. Fiercely protective of and selective for all her children, they considered it their right to reject unwanted suitors. When one daughter, began a relationship with one of the hired men, Grandmother and Grandfather ensured that he was sent away to B.C. When Helen married a Lutheran in 1928, Grandma and Grandpa demonstrated their displeasure by not attending the wedding in Emerson and shunning any social contact with the young couple.
Our Grandmother made no secret of her reluctance to have children blaming the lack of contraception. She deplored large families. (Katherine Martens Pg. 22.)

Our mother sensed some of her siblings grew up feeling unwanted and so when she produced 15 children, she made sure each of us felt loved and valued.

Our Grandparents’ third son David, born in 1900, with 11 children. His son, Walter Heinrichs, recounts some ugly disputes between his father and Grandmother, where she:

“started to give him a tongue lashing like you wouldn’t believe…. all my father could say was uh huh. She told him to stay out of her yard and to keep his damn kids out also. Needless to say, I was devastated and never again set foot in her house." Pg. 102.

We should not judge as this was in the context of the times.

My mother, Susan commented on an indirect negativity and her strict expectations:

“if your Dad sends you to that field you obey, that is all there is to it”.

Obviously, Bob Dylan’s “Your children are beyond your command”, did not come into effect until our parents introduced it in the 1920’s.

We must be careful not to judge our ancestors by our standards.

Aunt Anne Ogilvie features in many of the family contributions. The picture depicted by Irene (Siemens) Stobbe on Aunt Anne is especially revealing:

She was an extremely generous person. If you admired her teapot, she would want to give it to you, so I had to be careful what I said. I found her to be very fond of children and took a great interest in all her nieces and nephews. When we moved to Calgary, Anne and Fred and I took the chairlift to the top of Mount Norquay. She enjoyed our three toddlers very much. Page 182. (Top right column)

Our grandfather’s sons, especially Uncle Ben and Uncle Jake were anti-establishment iconoclasts - sceptics; given to cynicism and a healthy disrespect for vaunted authority. As such they had a profound contrary influence on all of us.

Relevant observations about our ancestors: #

Uncle Ben Heinrichs (page 28)

(My father) …had taught me how to drive the car. He boxed my ears if I didn’t know how to drive it when I was seven or nine years old, I forget, that was nothing to him.

Submitted by Kathy (Klassen) Martens

At fifteen (1917) our mother was out ploughing the field when her father came to see her and boxed her ears without explanation. Several months later her mother told (our) mother why she had been punished. A group of Summerfelder men, including the elder, had visited Mother’s school. When Mother passed them, she had smiled at them in a friendly fashion. They interpreted the smile of a young girl as a sign of disrespect, for young girls were expected to be modest and demure.

MEMORIES IN ADULDHOOD (Page 36) #

Submitted by William Klassen

In retrospect, who can say what we owe to whom? What indeed is our heritage? Mother’s care for her brothers and sisters was always very deep. She welcomed them as visitors and always spoke highly of them.

I especially remember Uncle Fred Ogilvie and how much Mother and Father spoke in appreciation of him even though we all knew he was not a Mennonite. I recall his visit to the University of Manitoba when I was teaching there and his encouragement he gave me then of the work I was doing. He appreciated the value of teaching religion outside of a church setting. I would like to ask Aunt Anna many questions. She carries many secrets.

We all live with a heritage far richer and perhaps far more ambiguous than we realize….

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD (Page 37) #

Submitted by Elsa (Klassen) Neufeld

Soon after my sixth birthday our family moved from Halbstadt, where we were surrounded by relatives, to Homewood where during my school years I keenly felt the lack of cousins….

In August of that summer my parents drove to Halbstadt for a visit. I was to stay over for a two week holiday…

I spent most of the day with Aunt Anne, a beautiful brown-eyed young woman. As we shelled peas or cleaned fruit she grew weary of my incessant chatter. She invented various schemes to achieve quietness. She said, “Let’s see if we can be quiet for a few minutes” or “Let’s see who can be quiet the longest.” I know I tried but I never succeeded.

As I began writing down these memories I was able to place the events of 1938 in perspective. We moved to Homewood in early spring. Within months Grandfather Heinrichs had died accidentally. July 23 my sister Edith was born and in mid August I was left at Grandmother’s house. Was my visit to be a distraction for Grandmother, Uncle Jake and Aunt Anne in their sorrow?

In 1979, Elsa writes to Aunt Anne’s Psychiatrist and receives a comprehensive diagnosis and pessimistic prognosis. This is strong evidence of enduring, affectionate involvement. CHAPTER EIGHT (Page 181 – 184)

Family of Fred and (Heinrichs) Ogilves #

Anna Heinrichs married July 1945 to: Fred F. Ogilvie 28 May 1919 to 16 Dec 1978

ANNA (HEINRICHS) OGILVIE

Submitted by Irene (Siemens) Stobbe #

Anna was born 06 February 1919 at home in Halbstadt, Manitoba. She was born a twin to Jacob. She grew up on the Heinrichs family farm and attended the Halbstadt grade school; then attended the Mennonite Collegiate Institute (MCI) from approximately 1935-1938. She was living with her parents and was on a car trip destined for Ontario when the car accident killed her father. She went to work in the city of Winnipeg as a nurse’s aide. There she met Fred Ogilvie in Winnipeg and was married to him in July 1945. Anne and Fred bought a little house in East Kildonan where they lived until Fred’s death in December 1978. Anne developed a mental illness diagnosed as schizo phrenia, “a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with environment and by disintegration of personality,” in the early 50’s for which she was periodically hospitalized. When her husband died she spent a very short time with her twin brother’s family and since then has been in various institutions.

Anne had an interest in film and theatre, especially musical theatre. In the late 40’s when I was at the university she would frequently invite me to see a movie or go to an operetta with her. She would also invite me for Sunday dinner and she cooked a lovely meal. She was an extremely generous person. If you admired her teapot she would want to give it to you, so I had to be careful what I said. I found her to be very fond of children and took a great interest in all her nieces and nephews. When we moved to Calgary, Anne and Fred and I took the chairlift to the top of Mount Norquay. She enjoyed our three toddlers very much.

Of her earlier life I remember her visits to our farm on a Sunday afternoon. She would be dressed very smartly, dark suit, white blouse, dress shoes and well-cut, simple hair style. She was always very quiet and did not enter conversations easily. In recent years I have visited Anne in the Altona Personal Care Home. She always has a smile, but conversation is limited.

Letters Anne (Heinrichs) Ogilvie wrote between 1935 and 1951. #

Dear Ben, Please will you look in my clothes closet on the top board for my sewing note books. There are quite a few. Send me the one with the white cover and with samples in it. And there are a few more books one is the first year book arid second. They are all notes in there and also patches show. I think I put it all in one pile. Send me everything that you find there about sewing. Yours affectionately, Annie

There is other solid evidence that her closest male sibling bond was with Ben, six years older. She asks him to farm her 80 acres of land for her which he does until he moves away in 1951. He eventually moves to Winnipeg and is on hand to take her in and support her when her husband has a heart attack. The reason she returns to Southern Manitoba is because Uncle Ben and Aunt Tien plan to retire there.

Hello Viola, It seems a long time ago when we got your letter. We have been very busy so I didn’t get around to answering your letter. But now it seems to (be) slacking down and I am really glad. Maybe I will get time to do some sewing and finish some things up I started. Well your folks were in last week. I didn’t see them. Bill Heinrichs was here, so was Jake, Mr. and Mrs. David Heinrichs and Mrs. Hoffman. Mrs. Hoffman is going to have an operation next month. So, you are very busy studying. I certainly wish you all the luck. I was going to go and listen to Dyson Carter today but it took so long until I got everything done. I didn’t get away. Fred is on nites so [ to catch up to a lot of work when he isn’t around. When he is around it is impossible but I don’t have to complain. I really like married life a lot better than I expected. Fred’s sister Mary is through with her course, she has been home for two weeks and was supposed to be in for her exam. She sure is a funny kid.

I got a new coat a few weeks ago. It looks alright; I hope it will wear alright. Do you expect to come back next spring or do you intend to stay until you are through? Well be sure it (to) absurd (absorb) all you can. I certainly am sorry I haven’t good (got) my full Grade XII. You wanted to know Mary and Bill’s address. Well they both will be home for Christmas so it will be Box 25, RR1, Portage La Prairie Hoping to hearing from you sometime. So long, Anne Ogilvie 183 (a) November 04, 1951

Dear Viola,

How are you Viola. It seems a long time since we saw you last. You were not able to farm very long when you got sent back to school. How do you find school out there? Did Paul get top marks at school?

Don’t see Irene or Edith very often. They are very busy at school. I was expecting Irene to call today. Have some snaps we took of the house that turned out fairly well. I was suggesting that we have some made and send you some.

Hear you are kept very busy out there. I could never think of any other way than busy. I keep busy most of the time. Nobody to chase me around so I do housework and have some knitting or hand work around the place. Did very little this year or summer. The days and weeks slip by and I didn’t get some of my handwork out of the road. Have some remodelling to do before Christmas. Hope I’ll get it out of the road long before Christmas.

I read part of your letter the last time I was up at your mother and dad’s place. It certainly is a very nice place that (you) got out there. Very neat, and cosy and lots of room.

How long are you staying out there? Will Paul be able to complete his course out there?

Do you intend to come back to Canada or should I say Manitoba? 183

That is were (where) we spend most of our time. During the week at work and on Sundays we spent a lot of time at his dad’s at Oakland or we got out home to Jake and Mary’s and Hoffman’s. Mrs. Hoffman and family had a lot of crab apples in the garden. I have never seen anything like it. They have about two dozen trees and they are loaded. Mrs. Hoffman gave us some crabs and I made apple sauce. It turned out very good.

How do you like it out there, are the people very sociable or don’t they bother much with one another. That’s the case around here. I am kind of glad because we just got together as a family at home occasionally and didn’t get a training in being sociable to strangers. Running out of paper.. .Stop.

So long, Anne

There is further evidence that Aunt Anne had a close relationship with her sister Helen, 14 years older. When Uncle Ben can no longer rent her land, she asks Aunt Helen’s Hoffman family to do so. They do so for nine years until they too move away and it is finally left to her twin brother to take it over.

A TRIBUTE TO AUNT ANNE (HEINRICHS) OGILVIE #

Submitted by Susanna Klassen

The 1992 Heinrichs family gathering prompted many reminiscences about the car accident that caused my grandfather, William Heinrichs’ death. The version of the story I have heard the most often is that Aunt Anne had tried to turn the steering wheel to prevent the car from veering off the bridge.

This summer my daughter Pamela and I had an opportunity to visit Aunt Anne at the Salem Home in Winkler. My interest in how Aunt Anne has experienced her life has increased as I grow older and have more time and interest to reflect on my heritage. Aunt Anne told me she didn’t want to tell her life story. She said, “I remember it and I don’t want to talk about it.”

My childhood memory of Aunt Anne is that she was one of the many aunts that I admired and looked up to as a role model. I wanted to dress nicely as she did and have a house in the city. I remember a china cabinet in her home that had beautiful dishes in it. I have often wondered what caused her to retreat from life and live in institutions. After my visit with Aunt Anne my sister Kathy and I had an impromptu visit with Sara Heinrichs, mother’s cousin. She told us that she had been a good friend of Aunt Anne and described her as a lively, vivacious, intelligent young woman with a strong trust in God. She said she would never forget how Aunt Anne had told her the story about the car accident. This is her story, written in my words.

When the car that Grandpa was driving had a tire blowout it veered onto the edge of the bridge and perched precipitously at the edge. Anne, who was the only person able to respond, climbed over her brother Jake to get out of the car. She remembered that there was a rope in the car trunk and took it out. She then tied it to the car and began to pull it across the road away from the edge of the bridge. This also stopped the traffic and a passerby called for the ambulance. Had Anne not had her wits about her at that time every one in the car could have died.

After hearing this story, I felt inspired by the courage and quick thinking that Aunt Anne showed on that day. I wished that I could hear the story from Aunt Anne and I realized that she is indeed an unsung hero in the Heinrichs family.

Aunt Anne, I would still like to hear about your life from your lips and your voice. I am sure you have much to tell us, the next generation.

Edith Siemen’s recollections: #

Katherine Martens record gleaned from Edith Siemens in a telephone call.

Anne married Fred in 1945. Shortly after Anne and Fred Ogilvie were married Anne’s oldest sister Marie, (Siemens) sensed that things were not going well there and she decided To have her daughter Edith spend a week or so with Ann and Fred. Edith was charged specifically with telling her mother what was going on.

At the Ogilvie house. Edith was about 11 or 12 so this was in 1946 - 47 or thereabouts.

Edith described the week she spent there as very scary. Anne had decided that all the doors should be taken off their hinges, and asked Fred to do so. Apparently, he had done so as doors were leaning against the wall and during the day Anne busied herself with trying to remove all the doors off kitchen cabinets.

Fred worked shifts sometimes day, sometimes nights, and Edith remembers being awakened by their loud voices when he came off the night shift. She says she was afraid of both of them, and often thought of ways she could return to Altona and home, but as she did not know her way around Winnipeg the possibility of getting on a bus back to Altona was not an option.

When her parents finally came for her about a week later she was exhausted and slept all the way home in the car.

Later her mother, Marie, was often heard to say, “I’d go crazy too if I had to live with Fred!”

Anne’s Siblings: #

Wilhelm 1898 21 years older Died: 1973 David 1900 19 years older 1996 Maria 1901 18 years older 1969 Susanna 1902 17 years older 1989 Helena 1905 14 years older 1990 Ben 1913 6 years older 2004 Jake 1919 Twin 1993 Fred Ogilvie Husband 1978 16.12 Anne 1919 2009

When the Will was signed in October 1980, Aunt Anne had five surviving siblings and 56 nieces and nephews. There is overwhelming evidence that Aunt Marie Siemens moved to Winnipeg and was on call for her throughout the fifties and the sixties.

Susan Klassen attended her needs throughout the seventies and early eighties.

A letter to Kathy Martens on sabbatical in Germany, written on 11 December 1974 corroborates this fact. she writes:

“I feel we will have a bar (maybe meaning “bare”) Christmas. It feels empty to go to Winnipeg.. Bill is very busy. My sister Anne has been sick so we went them sever(al) times.” (Or seven?)

When Fred died, Aunt Anne was taken care of by her brother Ben living in Winnipeg, and after the funeral she stayed with her sister Susan in Carman and then her brother Ben in Winnipeg for two weeks then her brother Jake in Halbstadt before admission to Eden Mental Health and entering a nursing home. This counters the claim that Uncle Jake was the sole or even principal care giver before the mid eighties. Yet he fails to consult or even inform them of the Will until years later.

Here is a letter sent by our Mother, Susan Heinrichs Klassen to Viola Siemens Andreas on December 22. 1978 (shortly after Fred Ogilvie’s funeral).

Dear Viola,

Thank you for your letters of July 5. I had a rauf (rough) summer. I did not have any interest in going anywhere. And Ana, my sister, problems got worse, maybe it depressed me tow (too).

I thought I let you know that Anna’s husband passed on the 16 Dec. at half past 3 in the afternoon. He had a severe heart attack he was in the hospital for about 10 days. His funeral was on the 19th. It was very snows, the storm wasn’t so bad. But you never know how it will turn out.

Anna didn’t make a big fuss, she just said its too bad he died when Fred’s brother Bill told her she left the house and said she didn’t want to come back there. Fred’s brother he should sell the house with everything in it. She is staying with Ben and Tina until after Christmas.

We are having our Christmas gathering on Sunday.

So with best wishes and I hope you can read this letter.

Mr. and Mrs David Klassen

Peer Nephews and Nieces: #

Uncle Jake and Aunt Anne - Born 1919 Feb. Died: 1992, 2009 Arnold Heinrichs 1920 May 1990 Tina Heinrichs 1920 Nov. Otto Heinrichs 1921 June 1988 Anna (Klassen) Hiebert 1921 August 2003 Viola Siemens 1923 May 2003 Henrietta (Klassen) Driedger 1923 January 2011 Irene Siemens 1930, February

The fact that Aunt Anne evidently maintained close relationships with both her siblings and her peer Nieces, makes Warren Heinrichs claim as sole beneficiary rather weak or non-existent. The court does not even attempt to justify his prior claim over his more deserving cousins. He was born in 1957, the same year she was first admitted to a mental institution.

Court Testimony (Excerpts) #

Warren Heinrichs’ Testimony: born the year Aunt Ann was first admitted to Selkirk. Vol 3 Pg. 7 Trial transcripts:

Q: ….how would you describe her condition?

A: “Pretty straight faced, but other than that. I didn’t know any, anything other than normal.”

Q: Did you know she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at some point?

A: “I believe I was told that in my late teens and I was actually surprised”.

This too is disingenuous; The court has heard that Aunt Ann has displayed symptoms of Schizophrenia since the early 1950’s, before he was born, was committed to Selkirk Mental Institution in 1957, the year he was born, been an outpatient of the Health Services continuously, cared for at least twice in Eden Mental Health Clinic, exhibits severe bizarre behaviour - All material evidence indicates that as the purported testator, she displayed clear indications of severe schizophrenia from the early fifties, estrangement from her extended family by the sixties, developed mutism from the seventies, totally reclusive by the eighties and yet the ultimate beneficiary openly claims, under oath, that she was completely normal throughout.

– yet Warren is “surprised”. Where has he been? Has he ever actually met her?

[25] The Court’s take: “ He (Warren) did not know that Ann had schizophrenia until he was in his teens” - is also an extraordinary interpretation of the above. His present position appears to consider her as perfectly normal at all times.

The portrayal of Aunt Anne as a warm, generous and inclusive family member is a strong indication the Will is out of character.

William Klassen’s contribution ( ll. 80 – 90) indicates what we all suspected, she had been incapable of coherent cogent discussion from about the late sixties. When I saw her in 1962, Aunt Anne took a great interest in my pending career in teaching, but appeared rambling and confused; she kept insisting she “had no money”. At that time my mother claimed they were well off, but Aunt Anne would will all her money to her cats.

When I next saw her after the death of our Aunt Marie in 1969, you could tell Aunt Ann was retreating into her shell as she took little interest in us.

In 1979 Ernst Klassen was working up in Telegraph Creek and came home for Christmas at Carman. He writes:

Shortly after Christmas I accompanied mom and dad to Halbstadt for a family gathering at Uncle Jake’s house. Aunt Ann was there. During the three to four hours we were there she said not a word other than a yes or no. She acknowledged none of her siblings except she had this empty smile on her face. (not the “Mona Lisa Smile”) Ten months later a window of clarity opened and she went to Winnipeg to write her will without any assistance from her brother, he was not even in the room. What an amazing event!

When I, Charles Klassen, visited her with my family, in January 1981, four months after putatively making her Will, she appeared to be totally out of it, withdrawn, utterly disconnected from reality – virtually comatose. There was not even a flicker of interest in me, my wife or our three children. She mutely acknowledged my mother’s presence, - that is all. It stretches my imagination beyond its breaking point to accept that she could walk into an office without alarm bells going off – paramedics and ambulances called. Yet the court assumes “testamentary capacity”. Charles Klassen, Sydney, Australia, April 30th 2013.

Erdman Klassen: Whether or not Aunt Anne was considered capable of making decisions is based on the fact that she was “talkative” and “smiling”. These behaviors are not considered definitive evidence of capacity. Yes, she made her own decisions but they were generally not made in her own best interest. To refuse to look after her teeth, to refuse to buy clothes for herself and to refuse to talk about her own life experience were not decisions that were in her own best interest. (Susanna)

The fact that both Ann and Jake had unresolved issues about this event raises all kinds of possible influences that will always be a mystery.

Marie Dyck: Also we had a guest book in aunt Anne’s room put there by Kathy I think and our names were in there quite regularly. This book has very conveniently disappeared.

Of the 56 nephews and nieces. At least 6 have passed away since the action was launched, many of the rest of us are in the mid eighties and do not have the energy or resources to pursue this matter any further.

The court’s determinations are based on at least five unfounded determinations. We look at the main critical one.

1. The “close bond” motif

The “close bond” motif together with “the others had little to do with their aunt” becomes the prevailing theme, a mantra, running throughout the judgement and becomes a recurring premise underpinning the conclusions and final verdict – yet it has no substance in fact. The “close bond” mantra begins as an unexamined supposition and effortlessly morphs into an irrefutable premise. The only evidence we have for the “close bond motif” is that the Learned Honourable Justice avers it – several times – perhaps managing to convince herself of its efficacy.

The “perhaps” is simply not good enough. It is a leap into the void; an unexamined and uncritical assumption that is insupportable and cannot be sustained.
The facts indicate a sibling who took advantage of his sister’s vulnerability, resulting in unjust enrichment and breach of fiduciary duty.

The supposition that she did not have a similar bond with her older siblings comes as a great shock to all of us – perhaps our memories are failing faster than we thought. However luckily, there is such a towering mountain of compelling documentary and factual evidence to the contrary to support our convictions.

Because the learned Honourable Justice has failed to undertake “reasonable efforts” to ensure that factual material she uses as “supportable” evidence as being accurate” she spends much of the time floundering in the dark. Instead of turning on the overhead lights, the learned Honourable Justice prefers to search for meaning and direction with a tiny spotlight. As a consequence valuable information is overlooked and much of her bumbling, wantonly treads on precious, hallow and sacred memories; treasured reputations of parents, uncles, aunts, uncles and siblings.

As the Jason Hyra and Ostrowski cases illustrate, Greenberg develops form - she indulges in trampling on vulnerable people’s rights.

Tributes to D.D. & Susan Klassen #

Whenever the Klassens get together we evoke the lost Eden of our youth. Like other writers removed from birthplaces, we all relive the (imagined, reappropriated) past, when, as one of fifteen children of relatively well-to-do parents, we enjoyed the comfort and support of each other in that special sacred site, a farmyard seven miles northeast of Homewood, Manitoba, Canada.

I will always feel an ache in the chest when I visit our homesite The legacy of life in Homewood is especially powerful and poignant.

The essence of that experience, for me, is of closeness and community. It’s why we are so protective—romantic—about our childhoods.

Because we loved growing up in such a supportive family and community. It’s painful for me to excavate the politics of the experience, because I had such a wonderful childhood, surrounded by people who, despite their passing, are still present in my thoughts and dreams.

Our childhoods last a life time and where we were born too. You may take us out of the province, but you can’t take the province out of us.

We are extremely fortunate that our sister Kathy Martens researched and recorded our heritage is several books, All in a Row, the Klassens of Homewood, The Heinrichs of Halbstadt, and The Klassens of Halbstadt.

Another book, Adventures in Faith by Henry J Gerbrandt, 1970, D.W. Friesen, quoting a junior minister and his wife comparing a visit by our parents to a visit by angels, is counterpoised by the author, Gerbrandt, later suggesting they had feet of clay due to their vehement opposition to Pentecostalism.

When Mark Twain observed how his father had learned so much between his age of 14 to 21, I have to confess it took me until I was forty before I realised my parents were worth idolising. I do that with due consideration of what others have said of them.

All my siblings have expressed appreciation of how our parents represented ideal role models.

All inlaws demonstrated a similar high regard. One sister-in-law, commented on how when she became pregnant at 17 and her mother threw her out for disgracing the family, our mother and father welcomed her into their house until they got married.

Harry Schellengberg, a life long friend, began his teaching career at Hopeland School in 1959, and continued to express his great admiration for our parents. Three times during his last six months before he died, he recounted his great regard.

Mother too, has a number of recorded tributes to her mothering skills. She embodied amazing positive and resilient attitudes despite disappointing behaviour from her 15 children.

As I demonstrate below, it was their invaluable contributions to education and their stellar modelling of parenting skills that highly impress me today.

Our parents, David and Susan Klassen (nee Heinrichs) were close neighbours in Halbstadt, and married in 1920, at 18 and 17, siring 15 children, nine boys and six girls.

When they married in a Bergthaler after church service, some of father’s siblings refused to attend as they all belonged to a more conservative Summerfelder Church which had broken away in 1893. On his death bed, a brother suggested father’s cancer was caused by his abandoning the Summerfelder Church. He later apologised to Ed.

Education was limited to our parents, both leaving school early. Later they supported the teacher training school called the Mennonite Collegiate in Gretna, causing another rift between Dad’s Summerfelder Church and Mother’s Bergthaler. They were determined to support all their children who wanted an education.

The Heinrichs of Halbstadt book describes a deeply patriarchal household often associated with traditional Eastern European families, especially with a Russian heritage. It was a pattern almost impossible to sustain in the Canadian context, as early-twentieth-century Mennonite scholars point out.

Parents regarded disobedience and disrespect on the part of their children as a problem. Deviations from the customs, the traditions and norms of conduct of the group constituted a serious problem.'

Family history can reveal a capacity for carrying its inherited myths—and new ones that it goes on generating—into a kind of magic carpet.

Ultimately, it’s a tale about the connection between storytelling and history, and the ramifications of the narratives we’re bequeathed by our families, our communities, and our culture. The fact that All In A Row and Heinrichs of Halbstadt merely compile the individual narratives of single members writing independently makes it easier to find credible patterns that confirm each other.

Even adult children were expected to conform regarding marriage. Fiercely protective of and selective for all their children, our grandparents considered it their right to reject unwanted suitors. When one of the daughters began a relationship with a Russian hired man, Grandmother and Grandfather ruthlessly ensured that he was sent away to B.C, leaving her with life long distress. When another, Helen, married a Lutheran in 1928, Grandma and Grandpa demonstrated their displeasure by not attending the wedding in Emerson and shunning any social contact with the young couple.

Our parents had four of their children marry non-Mennonites without any demur.

The Heinrichs were far from orthodox, illustrated by the fact that parents were confused about how they could preserve their standing in the ethnic community and among their kin, as well as their own self-respect, as they watched their children adapt to the requirements of the new world to which they had brought them.

Immigrants had crossed the ocean to survive and, if possible, to succeed, but not necessarily to change. Their ethnic lives in Canada, including newspapers, food stores, (often linked to their hometowns), were a buffer meant to shield them from the overwhelming threat of change. Above all the family itself was meant to shield immigrants by providing them with the economic and emotional support of their primary attachments.

Their children brought change straight into the heart of the family. Immigrants tried to maintain the common good of the family as a governing principle and a means for cultural continuity, but changing their personal habits, their language, and ‘individualizing’ their goals was what Canada was all about for the young.

The threat to parenting authority in Canada strained the first and second generation immigrant households especially because fathers lost the brace of institutional supports that once undergirded their authority. Educational institutions failed to capitulate to the incontestable logic of the situation and assumed the father role after the Canadian mode, converting themselves from the patriarch to something more like ‘first among equals?’

The evidence from the newer ethnic groups … is that some fathers and religious institutions reassert their authority through direct controls with even greater vigor than before.’

They were reinforcing Sigmund Freud’s similar observations about turn-of-the-century Vienna:

‘Even in our middle class families, fathers as a rule inclined to refuse their sons independence and the means necessary to secure it, … foster the germ of the growth of hostility which is inherent in the relation …. In our society today fathers are apt to cling desperately to what is left of a now sadly antiquated potestas patris familias.’ Even European patriarchy was beginning to erode.

The Canadian challenge to what was left of it was a further irritant in a difficult situation; all the more so when the resistance to authority came from daughters. The challenge to paternal authority thus often resulted in more rigid attempts at enforcement, as appears to have been the case in the Heinrichs family.

Mennonite parents were sensitive to the ways in which schooling in Canada ultimately undermined their authority, and they resented how Canadian authorities hoodwinked us and then reneged on their promises of separate schools.

Canadian children upended our once un­questioned expectations about obedience and quiet subordination. ‘Children listened to their elders,’ Good teachers devoted themselves to finding ways of educating second-generation high school students without causing disrespect to their immigrant parents, but found that this attitude was difficult to sustain in Canada. Elmer Reichart from Rosthern was an outstanding example.

When Elsa, the seventh child, bought some expensive high heels, our Father objected and peremptorily threw them up a tree in the front yard, scratching the polish. Elsa appeared to acquiesce, in good humour.

It was Schaefer’s first year, with his wife terminally ill and Elsa appears to have a caring relationship with him which carries through her time at the MCI. She challenges many of his rigid policies; winning major concessions especially with dress codes. There is evidence of our father supporting her. Elsa also questions the attempts to interfere with couples skating and chides the boys for being “such scaredy cats”.

While she appears to feel deep empathy with Schaefer while his first wife is dying and after her death, Elsa is not hesitant later, when Schaefer marries a stylish lady, to question his decisions. Schaefer insists that the girls must wear their school uniforms for all social functions, Elsa suggests he go home and get his new wife’s opinion. Next day Schaefer accedes to their request to wear mufti for social events.

Elsa was an early feminist activist, not hesitant in a spirited challenge to authority. She had many stouches with the Principal, Altester Paul Schaefer, over dress regulations, wearing slacks for skating and dressing up for special occasions.

D.D. Klassen, the second son of a family that broke away from the Bergthaler Church in 1893 over education, attributes his religious commitments to his mother. He describes a carefree joyous insular childhood without cars, radios, televisions or phones. He endured life long regrets that his parents discouraged higher education and ridiculed Heinrich and Benjamin Ewart, outstanding leaders in establishing the Mennonite Collegiate Institute.

Perhaps as a reaction, he eventually became good friends with the Ewarts and a critical supporter of the MCI.

The Mennonite community is riven by the various factions. The most prominent is the ones between the Russlanders and the Canadians. The Russlanders arrived from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and were more educated, traditional and authoritarian in outlook. The Canadian Mennonites had arrived in the 1870’s were more progressive and democratic in outlook. There were intense ideological disputes between the two.

On the question of the MCI. What upsets all of us, including our Dad, was the direction that Mr Peters and Schaefer were taking the school. Benjamin Ewart had a great vision for a broadly based school that encompassed all Mennonites and even non-Mennonites.

The Ewarts enlisted our father (who was only 32 years old) to help him unite the various factions. To a large extent father was at first successful, however it was Schaefer (and perhaps Peters) who did the most damage to the school by narrowing its base and its focus and there was a long power struggle between the board and the Russian teachers.

This was best illustrated when there was a meeting regarding a move of the school to a more centralised area like Winkler. There is compelling evidence that Schaefer stacked the meeting with Blumenorter delegates and the MCI never ever recovered from that.

Schaefer obviously took his frustration with father out by personal attacks on his children and grandchildren. One summer I asked each of our brothers and sisters about their experiences with him and each one immediately quoted a sentence of verbal abuse from Schaefer.

We can’t judge him by today’s standards but he claimed to be an expert on pedagogy and even then, this was not a recommended approach.

Perhaps the best example is Paul. Ernst reminded me of this exchange – loosely translated from German;

Schaefer: “You are a useless “Bengal” who hasn’t been brought up properly.”

Paul, angrily: “Mr Schaefer, you can say anything you like about me, but once you criticise my father – you have gone too far.”

Apparently, Schaefer backed off.

Kathy writes in All in a Row, regarding Bill:

While attending the MCI boarding school Bill stood up for his roommate whom he felt was being treated disrespectfully by the teacher. Instead, Bill was considered to be disrespectful towards the teacher and was expelled from school.

When father, who was the chairman of the board went to the next meeting he told the board that his son had done what they had lacked the courage to do. Namely, to tell this teacher, who was also the principal, that he must treat his students with respect. (p64-65)

This is further evidence of tension between our father, D.D. Klassen, as Chairman of the Board and the staff at the Mennonite Collegiate. The dominant mindset of the staff was authoritarian, traditional and resistant to change.

Father had been selected by the progressive elements, the Ewart brothers from Kansas, in 1932, as an intermediary, to bridge the gulf between the conservatives and the more liberal. His calm, conciliatory and mediating style of consensus was vital as the warring factions were each deeply entrenched.

Our father always felt somewhat overwhelmed but never intimidated by better educated people. The Board took a strong stance on more progressive theories of education and social issues. They tended to advocate more relaxed codes of dress and fostering mutual respect between teachers and students.

While eleven of the 15 children attended the MCI, only four graduated. Elsa was the second female from the family to attend.

My decision not to ever return to the MCI after one year of grade 9 was resolved after how they treated my older sister, Susanna. She together with 3 other girls, including Hildegard, Gert’s sister, had broken some rule.

Seven teachers interrogated these girls for a whole weekend, and finally when they had broken their spirits they were forced to confess and apologise to a special assembly of the whole school – maybe the teachers learned their tactics from Stalin. When I saw my big sister distressed on stage – I made the decision that these teachers were the enemy of human decency and dignity. I was never coming back!

Diane Hiebert also tells of how Schaefer demeaned her in front of the whole class – which she claims was because she was Dad’s granddaughter.

Evidence of father’s extreme frustration is that he allowed John first (in 1959) and me later to go to Rosthern for Year 12. This hurt Schaefer, but not enough to learn anything. ( He wrote me a long hand written German letter in 1961, begging me to come back to the MCI)

As the leading teachers were Russian trained, their outlook was more regimental, authoritarian and implacable. When father arranged a meeting of all the teachers from Leamington Ontario, Rosthern Saskatchewan and the MCI to be held in Winnipeg, Schaefer refused to attend saying: “We have nothing to learn from those schools”. He stands condemned by his own words.

Yet Schaefer’s name is commemorated at the school, despite the fact that he held it back from reaching its full potential. If you want to tell a big lie you make it a big one, repeat it often enough and commemorate it. (Nietzsche)

Henry Gerbrandt reports of many attempts to write a constitution for the Bergthaler Church began in 1929. Bishop David Schultz appears to be the main obstacle as he continued to advocate for central control by the Lehrdienst. Drafts were presented from 1936 through to 1958 with resolution.

In May 17th 1958, a robust meeting heard various papers from J.M. Pauls, H.J. Gerbrandt, Frank H. Epp, D.D. Klassen and J. E. Stobbe. A spirited discussion prevailed, one observer commentating: “It was a terrific experience”, answered by Elder Schultz, “This has been the darkest day of my life”.

Clinging desperately to his power, the meeting acquiesced to his demands for the status quo. Constitution writing continued without progress, when D.D. Klassen in frustration attempted to resign – not accepted. Finally, by 1962, Ernest Wiebe and J.F. Pauls presented a constitution, accepted in principle without a ballot, which limited the leader’s time in office and devolved the final authority to local churches. By 1969, a legal constitution gave authorisation to all leading ministers to be fully ordained and serve as elders serving communion. Schultz’s tenacious grip on power had finally been wrested.

The superior class difference was perceived by the Russlander and needs to be seen for what it was. It was our Dad, and others, who participated in successfully negotiating the Reiseschult (travel debts) between the Canadier and the Russlander, who objected to paying back their debts to the people they saw as inferior uneducated peasants.

Nurturing a family.

Father’s mother was renown for her love of children and spoiling her grandchildren, in contrast to our maternal grandmother.

Both grandfathers had a habit of gently teasing their grandchildren.

Our mother (Susan Klassen) sensed, due to their negative upbringing, some of her siblings grew up feeling unwanted and so when she produced 15 children, she made sure each of us felt loved and valued.

When one erred, as we all did, and shunning was suggested, her immediate response was, “that’s not how we do things in this family".

The Klassens are sometimes depicted as arrogant. This has some basis; not everyone thought of us as highly as we did; however we were merely extremely confident, imbued by supportive parenting - we were all encouraged to believe in ourselves, think for ourselves and to speak out against abuse of power and injustices. Our father encouraged divergent views, but we all became painfully aware of our limitations. Our Mother expressed her practical views in a bold forthright manner, whenever father became too verbose.

My brother Bill’s comments on our parent’s practice of tolerance – from Roots in Manitoba Mud.

Most important in this connection was the attitude conveyed about other people not in our cultural group: the “English” living around us, the salesmen from Winnipeg who, came to barter their fruit for our chickens and especially other branches of the Mennonite church who denied us fellowship. While the differences between us and “them” were never glossed over, they were not allowed to get out of proportion and within the family circle our parents never tolerated disparaging or demeaning comments about other people or groups.

Our criticism of church leaders and their actions were never supported by the parents and, although it was obvious to us that they could not be blind to gross incompetence or the blatant misuse of power in the church, such critical judgments on our part never found any resonance.

Father’s allegiance to the church was never blind, but it was total. He believed that it could change and that it could improve but that talking about people’s weaknesses behind their backs or thinking of others as worth less than yourself was wrong. Such tolerance, born not of indifference to others but from a profound respect for others, is surely a gracious legacy if it becomes one of the enduring strands in the fabric of life.

With ten children born in Halbstadt, the biggest change was the move to Homewood in 1938.

Father patiently dealt with a number of hard line neighbours whose unforgiving piety lumbered them with rebellious children. We don’t know how he responded to them, but his and our mother’s contrasting example must of had some moderating effect.

The longer we live, the more our parents stature grows. My oldest surviving sister, Marie Dyck, at 95, had a sharp memory. She once told me it was because as she wasn’t educated, it’s never been used. I wasn’t taken in. She has been a fount of information of our forbears, especially our parents. She has a high regard for our father and our incredible mother, maintaining that despite the fact that our mother gave birth to 15 children, she never heard her complain about any one of them.

A large family was an extreme embarrassment to the older members. In 1940, when the number stood at 12, six girls and six boys, the three oldest boys assured father that no more were needed. Father simply asked them which one did not wish to be a member. Then three more boys were born. Our parents and sisters made sure each of them was loved and cared for.

How they managed to clothe and feed all of us truly amazes me. When I look at early family photos - we are all well dressed - I don’t remember how. We also ate well and educated at great expense. Whenever father went to town, he sold eggs, butter and milk and only bought flour and sugar in bulk. His aim was to come home with more money than before he went. We also sold pigs and calves to the abattoirs in St Boniface.

When one erred, as we all did, if there was talk of disowning, shunning or ostracism, Mother sharply rebuked us by saying:

“that’s not how we do things in our family”.

There was never any doubt that all of her family were the front and center of her life. Her inexhaustible pleasure in mothering us was evident in the long days she spent seeding, collecting and preserving food during the summer to provide for the long winter months spent making clothing and mending socks. The simple logistics of feeding and clothing such a large family was accomplished by delegating it to the older ones but demanding everyone carried their weight.

As boys we played with our stone people and cast off toys behind one of the granaries. When Mother called out to us to help in the garden, we couldn’t hear her. When we were sprung, her refrain was “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”. This explains our guilt complexes and protestant work ethic.

One of our jobs was to pull out weeds by hand. This too left us with life long habits. Recently a guide in a National Park threatened me with a fine for reaching down and pulling up a noxious weed. Modern mindsets feel everything should be allowed to compete. Similar policies prevail in governments where good people are expected to compete with toxic ones.

Family archives contain many tributes to both D.D. and Susan Klassen. One junior Minister, compares a recent visit by them as being visited by angels. Henry Gerbrandt, however in assessing father’s sharp criticisms of Pentecostals, as indicating a deity with feet of clay.

Another cousin, writing to our Mother on her eighth birthday in 1982, writes:

Today I feel I am being honoured by being asked to address you on your 80th birthday .

Is it my Friesen connection that occasioned this?

At age 80, you Susan, have a rich past to reflect on. In Psalm 90, verse 10 we read:

“The years of our life are three score and ten or even by reason of strength, fourscore; yet their span is but toil and trouble.”

My mind boggles when I think of the content of your life. Married young, to an equally young farmer who soon became an unsalaried minister, who remained a scholar all his days, and then the children came, 15 of them in fairly quick succession, and there was all that parenting for both of you to do. I am sure they went through all the ages and stages of development by turn. Oh for the wisdom of Soloman!

Imagine preparing meals for 17 three times a day, feeding and clothing and the household budget and management problems. Every pastor’s wife shares the pastoral ministries of her husband. You come out of all that looking really fine. We all pass through those 4 stages of life: childhood, youth, middle age, and looking very good!

You have by sheer necessity, developed a vast understanding of the human condition, and a great deal of practical wisdom! I herewith pronounce you WOMAN OF THE YEAR!

Now I want to say something to both of you. You could not have accomplished what you did or become what you have become without each other, or without your gifted children.

Dona Harvey has sometimes told me that a family gathering at your house remains an exhilarating and rich experience for her.

Recently our Lt Governor, Pearl McGonigal in an address to the Canadian Club said:

What you are, is God’s gift to you. What you become, is your humble gift to God.

For you two, I would like to change the tense and say:

What you were, was God’s gift to you. What you have become, is your humble gift to God and to the community you have served all your days.

GOD BLESS YOU BOTH AND KEEP YOU, MAKE HIS LIGHT TO SHINE UPON YOU, AND GIVE YOU HIS PEACE.

Our brother Bill wrote about our Mother at Victor’s (last of 15 children) wedding reception when she asked for the mike. “It was the only time in my life she had spoken in public".

She said:

“There have been many jokes here today about the size of our family; that it is too big, that maybe we shouldn’t have had so many. I just want to say that I am not sorry about what happened in our life – sure we had some bad times and our difficult times when the crops failed. But if I had a chance, I would do it all over again just as we did it for my large family has always been a deep joy for me”.

Bill added:

You can be sure we all honored her with a standing ovation on that day!

Both parents went out of their way to mould a large sprawling family that cared for each other. As in most virtual cross generational families the older siblings developed their parenting skills by practising on their younger ones. To avoid any future strife or ill will, instead of passing on the family farm to one member, it was sold at auction and all common property dispensed equitably by Will. None of us can forget the fairness and equity of all that left over bric-a-brac gathered in Marie Dyck’s garage at the 1990 family gathering where we drew lots, and were allowed to freely pick, choose and swap family keepsakes. Five yearly family gatherings, celebrating our parents wedding anniversary, have been held since 1970.

In 2025, Victor Klassen at 80, the youngest of 15, staged an Art Exhibition at the CMU.

In a radio interview, Victor acknowledged father’s contribution as a founding member of the board of the University and growing up in a home of unconditional and enduring love.

One of his works, a sculpture of a mother, father and child was donated by the family as a lasting tribute to our parents. No doubt he will carve another 14 children in our likeness to complete the project.

By Charles Klassen # 13.