Constantinoplers

About the Book

This collection of stories tells about the beginning of Mennonite settlements in Russia, in the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds. And how the Mennonites were able to buy up land and become self-sufficient landowners. They became quite wealthy, building their villages, Khutors (estates), schools and churches.

The Russian peasants gladly became their helpers in the fields as well as in their households.

Most Mennonites in Russia lived in villages which were laid out according to detailed plans.

For many years they lived happy lives...teaching their children German and the Bible. And they did not realize how much the peasants resented their presence though the workers had been well-treated and had been allowed to go to their Mennonite schools and were fed the same food as the Mennonite families.

But the good life did not last. After Catharine the Great's demise their privileges were progressively negated. In about 1860, when reforms were passed into laws, many Mennonites decided to emigrate to North America. (About 18,000).

Two thirds of them stayed and became richer...building bigger homes and beginning new ventures in the cities: stores, flour mills, farm equipment manufacturing factories.

The undercurrent of malcontent continued to be felt and the 1905 Revolt of the Peasants happened but the Mennonites did not leave...after all, the Tsar put down the uprising and 'all would be well again.'

Well, 'all was never well again'. First came WWI , then the Revolution and finally Civil War.

Some Mennonites got into the fray: First, some of them joined the Alternative Services but when the Bolsheviks took over the country some of their young men decided to join the White Army: They wanted to clear the country of the revolutionaries. Their stories tell about the many hardships they experienced as they fought the Germans, Poles and Romanians. The stories about those frightful times are told here by the men themselves.

About the Author

The author was born in 1927 in Hafford Hospital, about ten miles from Speers, Saskatchewan, her hometown. Ten years of her schooling took place in Keystone, a one-room prairie school, about four miles from her farm-home. In summer her sister and she travelled with a horse and buggy; in winter they went by horse-drawn sleigh.

In 1942, the author attended high school at the German-English Academy in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, now called Rosthern Junior College, graduating in 1945. Many years later she earned her Bachelor of Education from the University of Victoria and taught in an elementary school in Dawson Creek, British Columbia.

Her parents were both born in Tsarist Russia. After the Bolschevik takeover her mother's parents experienced horrendous times, including the famine of the 1920s; only the MCC care packages saved them from starvation. Her paternal grandparents were driven from their estate and Grandfather was put into prison where he died. Life was hard for Grandma Epp and her children. Their son Cornelius (the author's father) joined the White Army and fled Russia for Canada after the White Army was defeated.

Several other Mennonite families from Russia also lived near her home; they had had the same experiences as her parents did so there was always talk about the cruelties and murders in Russia. Few explanations were made to the children. This left the children very curious about their parents' past.

Now at last these stories tell of the happenings in the 'old country.'

The author and her husband are retired and live in Kelowna, British Columbia.