The following story is told by the builder of the marker, John Wiens. The marker was constructed in the year 2000.
The Stones
The story of the stones is not a singular story; it is a plural story. The historical marker has as many stories in it as it has stones, perhaps many more.
What are field stones? Anybody who has a field with field stones in it will tell you that field stones are a nuisance and an aggravation. Yet, the Essex and Kent Mennonite Historical Association chose to tell the stories of our people with field stones, giving them a special place in the marker.
The stones are symbolic of who we are. Who are we? Is it to live in a very special place, in this great Land that we call ours, to live in the rich and fertile counties of Essex and Kent? It has been said that our’s (Canada) is the best country in the World to live in. It is truly God’s goodness and grace that we have this privilege.
A year and a half ago, we decided to collect stones for the marker. We thought that it would be a way to raise money. As the stones came in, we reasoned, the funds for the structure would also come in. Well the stones came in, but the money did not. Perhaps there was a good reason: the timing was not right. The U.M.E.I. was collecting funds for the new chapel addition, the MCC Meat Canner was in need of funds for its first venture here in Leamington, and MCC was collecting money and other items of need to aid the victims suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Central America. The building of the marker was shelved until we also had the funding in place.
Well, the money did come in. Early in spring the funding was there. However when we looked for the stones that we had so carefully collected and stock piled in the back yard of the Mennonite Home, they had vanished. Someone had found them, and seen them for what they were; simple fieldstones, a nuisance and an aggravation. The stones were disposed of, to a place from where they could not be retrieved. The stones were gone!
But these stones too, tell a part of the story of our people.
In the mid-Twenties, some seventy five years ago when our parents and grand parents had escaped from the severely oppressive regime of the Soviets, and again in the Forties when others had fled with the retreating German armies, not all of our people were as fortunate. Many of those staying behind were exiled to banishment in Siberian labor camps. Others were unjustly sentenced to face Stalin’s firing squads. They, like the lost stones, now are gone.
A few years ago, my wife Edith and I went to Germany to visit our cousins who had just come out of Russia. (They were the children of our parents’ siblings, whose terrible fate it was to remain behind the Iron Curtain seventy five years ago). When we asked them what their lives had been like, under the Soviets and even after, they signed a simple thumbs down answer. It was their way of indicating an extremely oppressive regime, under a government that enslaved them and did not allow them any individual rights or freedoms. It made us realize how fortunate we really are, living in this country.
The Essex Kent Mennonite Historical Association would like the Mennonite Historical Marker to represent all of the area Mennonite Churches: the first United Mennonite Churches, the Mennonite Brethren Church, the Faith, Harrow and Windsor Mennonite Churches, the Old Colony and Mennonite Mission Churches as well as all the other later established Mennonite churches. At this time a total of twenty five churches.
Members from many of these churches have their stones in this marker. As these stones were being collected for a second time and being brought to the site, and as I was working with them, I realized that they were much more than ordinary field stones. They originated from a vast variety of places, from different countries, and even from different continents, like those that were brought the Ukraine the old homeland in Russia, and also from Mexico, stones from Kansas, Arizona and other U.S. states. I was given stones that were picked up in Naniamo B.C.and Montreal River, where local young men served in C.O. camps during the last great war. There are stones in this structure from Pelee Island and from many local farms. Some stones were retrieved from residential flower beds and stones that served as paper weights.
If you observe the structure carefully you will notice some graffiti on its side. It is not the art of a local villain. It is graffiti that at one time adorned the infamous Berlin Wall; a piece of concrete, in the marker that symbolizes; oppression and freedom.
As I was fitting these stones together, I picked up a stone that had a deep gouge across it. I rejected it. Then I had second thoughts. I picked it up again. There was a story in that stone, perhaps not a good one but still that stone, like so many others, had a story. At some point in time in its history a piece of farm equipment must have scraped across it, with a loud screeching sound I imagine, accompanied by the sound that came from the owner of the farm implement, also not too quiet.
Each time a stone was left at the site of the marker, the one who brought it probably also had a story to go along with it. As I was doing the masonry work I overheard two retired farmers, sitting on a nearby park bench, reminiscing about the early days. I am not sure whether were they complaining or bragging about how hard they had worked, and how they and their families had to save and scrounge for every penny to meet the payments on their heavily mortgaged farms, and at the same time pay the “Reise Schuld” (the travel debts owed to the C.P.R.). Of course, they made it, and so did the rest of us.
I heard stories of Mexico: about crop failures, poverty, and hardships suffered in that country, about traveling across Mexico and the U.S. with large families, in beat up old pickup trucks, and making new beginnings here in Canada.
I also heard wonderful stories of family bonds, of community and friendships, of growing up at home with sisters and brothers, of traveling and wonderful family vacations and bringing stones back as souvenirs that now are in the marker.
The graphics on the head stone, depict “The Dawning of a New Day.”
The dawning of a new day, is what the emigrants anticipated as they settled into their new homeland in Essex and Kent counties and on Pelee Island.
Today, in the year 2000, we know that the new day they were looking forward to turned out to be a very beautiful day, not only because on this very day the weather is fair and pleasant, but because it is a day of peace, a day of freedom and prosperity, and a day of God’s blessings richly poured over our people.
We have much to be thankful for to God and to Country.
