Resource Leaders: 2004
Mennonite Heritage Cruise
Paul Toews and Rudy
Friesen are founding & continuing leaders of the cruise
Additional Resource Leaders: Alan Peters is the leading Mennonite genealogist
Plant scientist John Martens returns as Resource
Leader as does Wilmer Harms
Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe is a guest resource leader
A
powerhouse quartet of musicians returns on this Molochna Bicentennial
Cruise
Rudy Friesen in the Mennonite Villages - 1996
- a gathering of serious reseachers
(link to Rudy's Web Site)
The two Wiebe brothers (left)
helped their historian sister Leona (Gislason) to the definitive
Rueckenau history, Medical Doctor & genealogist Tim Janzen
(just right of Friesen) has since significantly added to the Mennonite
archival record in Crimea and other places.
Rudy Friesen is a practising architect in
Winnipeg. His parents immigrated to Canada from Russia in 1926. He
received his architectural training at the University of Manitoba and
has been active in numerous
professional organizations.
Rudy Friesen is the author of the
popular 1996 Mennonite book, INTO THE PAST: Buildings of the Mennonite
Commonwealth, now out of print. A new version of the book is eagerly
awaited for Spring,
2004. He has written over a hundred articles on Russian
Mennonite architecture and visits to the area for Der Bote. On the 2002
cruise Rudy presented
one of the best ever illustrated lectures on the cruise. He has since
given versions of this lecture to various Mennonite Colleges and
Universities in Canada and the USA. We await his new edition of the
book and the Molochna 2004 version
of his
lecture on the ship. Rudy's wife Edith, author of "Journey Into
Freedom" (2003), will also play a special role on the 2004 cruise.
Along with historian Paul Toews and genealogist
Alan Peters, Rudy Friesen has helped create the international prestige
and reputation of the cruise. Rudy Friesen is a founding member of the
cruise and has participated in all of the cruises.
Historian Dr. Paul Toews
(link to Center for M B
Studies)
Paul Toews is Professor of History, Fresno Pacific University. He is
also Director of the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Mennonite
Brethren Biblical Seminary and Fresno Pacific University. He is the
author of many articles and books on diverse aspects of Mennonite
History including the recent Mennonites in American Society,
1930-1970: Modernity and the Persistance of Religious Community,
published in 1996. Like other leading Mennonite scholars today, he is
involved in archival research projects in Ukraine
and Russia. His presence on the cruise is much respected
and
universally loved. Dr. Toews gaves four major illustrated lectures and
hosts other significant cruise events. Toews is also bus resource
person, specializing in Molochna, where his own ancestral village is
Alexandertal. He is currently a Fullbright exchange scholar at the
State University of Zaporozhye in Ukraine. He is organizing a major
Molochna Historical Photographic Exhibit, to be opened during the
Molochna 2004 Academic Conference in Melitopol in June, 2004.
Alan Peters and the
genealogical laptop
.
Alan Peters, returning for his ninth cruise in 2004, is the master
Mennonite genealogist. He is acknowledged by his peers in the
genealogical world as having done more work in tracking the
Dutch/Prussian/Russian/North American Mennonite stream than anyone
else. The GRANDMA
project,
officially sponsored by the California Mennonite Historical Society, is
based
on his work. That project alone now includes genealogical
information
on nearly a million people out of this northern European Mennonite
strand.
In addition to researching in Mennonite records Alan has worked in the
civil
records and state church records of Prussia/Poland and Russia/Ukraine.
Alan
brings his laptop computer on the ship and presents family trees to
passengers
who have requested genealogical researches.
On the last three cruises Alan presented computer-assisted
seminars on genealogy that had passengers riveted for two hours, thanks
to his
profound knowledge of Mennonite genealogy and familiarity with
genealogical
software.
As a resource person on the Mennonite excursion buses, Alan is often
able to recite from memory complete lists of family names, along with
historical anecdotes, as his bus pulls into Tiege, Rueckenau or
Grossweide, etc. With Melitopol geographer Nikolai Krylov he has
created the popular theme bus route: "Steps of Johann Cornies",
combining key Cornies-related Molochna villages, the Alt Berdyan
Forstei (Forestry Service) and the necklace of former Mennonite private
estates around Melitopol. He has also become the resident litanist on
the cruise.
Having retired after a distinguished career in California Social
Services, Alan is much sought after for workshops in genealogy.
John Martens
John Martens - far right- with 1998
passengers, telling the Eichenfeld story on
site
John Martens is a native of Manitoba. His career was devoted to
agriculture, first as a farmer, then as a research scientist with
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, working on cereal improvement and
then as national co-ordinator for cereals and oilseeds research. He is
also a field naturalist and backpacker with a strong attraction to the
Arctic.
John has a strong affinity to Ukraine and has visited there twice
with the Mennonite Heritage Cruise before he became a Resource Leader
and Cruise Administrative Assistant in 2001. His family comes from
Schlachtin Baratov and Yazykovo, and his father was an agronomist in
Ukraine in the 1920s. The home his grandparents built in 1910 in
Kamenka (Steinfeld) still stands and now serves as a school.
John is also active as a liason officer for the Mennonite Centre in Ukraine.
Wilmer
Harms
Dr. Wilmer Harms in the home
of Margareta Plett, Hierschau in July 1997
.
Wilmer Harms, noted Newton, Kansas ophthalmologist (retired), family
physician,
lecturer and Mennonite historian, returns to the 2004 cruise as a
resource
leader. This will be Wilmer's ninth cruise. Wilmer has served on the
boards of Tabor
College, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia and many
other
organizations. He has recently published his fourth book - the first
major
book on the Harbiners (Mennonites who fled the Soviet Union east via
China),
The
Odyssey of Escapes from Russia: The Saga of Anna K. Wilmer joins
Paul
Toews, Rudy Friesen, Alan Peters and John Martens as the cruise
resource
person on each Mennonite excursion
bus. His treatment
of the Lichtenau train station for passengers on his bus is always
memorable.
Pianist Betty Suderman and violinist Calvin Dyck return as musicians
Betty Suderman and Calvin Dyck are
prominent Canadian West Coast recitalists and performers, with many
recordings. On the
2003 cruise they brought their delightful theme recital, The Golden Violin, to young
Ukrainian audiences in Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Molochna.
By special invitation they will present master classes at the
Zaporozhye College of Music during the 2004 cruise.
Harold
and Diana Wiens return as musicians as well
Zaporozhye joint worship
service in 2002. Diana conducts, Harold sings "Selig sind Die" with the
cruise choir
Harold and Diana Wiens are prominent
Edmonton musicians and music educators. Harold teaches at the the
University of Alberta. He has performed internationally as a baritone
soloist. They will be in charge of much of the music on Molochna Day,
Sunday October 10, 2004. They will also give master classes in
Zaporozhye.
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