Mennonite Moses – David Toews
a lecture by Dr. Helmut Harder (author of David Toews was Here), reviewed by Henry Neufeld

 
He was teacher, pastor, school board chair, church conference leader, negotiator with governments and businesses, husband, father and leader. Not just another leader, but charismatic in the true sense of the word with a divine gift of inspiring followers with devotion and enthusiasm.  “People of our day are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of David Toews,” said Harder at the February 11 lecture.
 
When Toews was young, his parents joined the Klaas Epp trek from Ukraine to Tajikistan to await the Second Coming.  Disillusioned after four years, the family returned to Ukraine but soon moved to Midwestern USA where they had relatives.

David Toews completed teacher training in Kansas and taught in public schools there for five years after which H.H. Ewert, principal of the Mennonite Collegiate Institute, invited him to preach in Gretna.   After teaching here for two years, Toews attended Wesley College (now the University of Winnipeg) and then taught school at Burwalde, Manitoba for one year.
 
In 1889 Toews went to Tiefengrund, Saskatchewan where he homesteaded and taught school.  In 1900, he married Margaret Friesen, and was ordained in the same year. Toews was one of the founders of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada and of Rosthern Junior College, where he taught and was principal.
 
In 1921, Toews and other Mennonite leaders met with Prime Minister Mackenzie King to request relaxing immigration criteria so that Mennonites fleeing the Soviet Union after the Revolution could immigrate to Canada.   The following year, he became executive director of the newly formed Mennonite Board of Colonization.  He negotiated a contract for $400,000 with Colonel Dennis of the Canadian Pacific Railway to bring more than 3000 Mennonites to Canada, a move that brought criticism from Mennonites in Canada and the U.S.   By the end of 1923, 3000 immigrants had arrived from Russia; another 5000 arrived in 1924. By 1929, 21,000 had come to Canada.
 
In 1929, the borders of the USSR closed.  Enforced collectivization led to widespread famine in Ukraine. In a four-month period in 1933, Toews received about 7,000 letters from the USSR begging for assistance. By 1934, over $160,000 was sent to help alleviate the famine.
 
In all this time, the Reiseschuld had not been fully paid.  Shortly before his death on February 25, 1947, Toews heard through J.J. Thiessen that payment of the debt was complete. David Toews was buried at the Rosthern cemetery. “He was a great personage to our people, he was God’s faithful servant,” said Harder.
 
Toews served as an ordained minister for about 45 years and on the Canadian conference executive for 31 years, (24 years as chairman).   In those years, his family made many sacrifices so his work could continue. His leadership style was visionary, persistent and tenacious. In 1938, Bethel College granted him an honourary Doctor of Divinity degree in “recognition of his sacrificial services rendered to the Mennonite church… motivated by the virtues of faith, hope and charity.”
 
From time to time a great person influences history that affects a lot of people. If Toews is described as a “Mennonite Moses” then surely Peter J. Dyck (also from the same Saskatchewan area) is another “Moses” who followed in Toews’ footsteps a generation later. Where is our “Moses” today? While we seem content (perhaps too comfortable) in this land, surely a Moses is needed on other issues.
 
A revised edition of Harder’s David Toews Was Here is available from the MHSBC office.

Our Volunteers: Erica Suderman
by Helen Rose Pauls

Erica Sawatzky was a Winkler town girl, second child of eight in the “Photographer Sawatzky” family. She thrived in school, singing in Justine Enns Wiebe’s children’s choir and playing violin in the orchestra. Erica remembers a wonderful childhood, compelling teachers, and a strong town spirit shaped by literary evenings and festivals.  When her parents moved to B.C in 1956, Erica stayed behind and attended Normal School in Winnipeg.   Her dorm was one story above the school’s library and she systematically read her way through the books from left to right.

In 1957, Erica was hired to teach elementary school in Abbotsford, where she met and married Peter Suderman. She taught for 31 years in various districts, aside from the ten years she stayed home to raise two children.

“Books were very near and dear to me, and I loved categorizing and cataloguing, so I took courses to become a teacher-librarian,” says Erica.

 Erica enjoys technology and automated four libraries as well as teaching special classes for gifted and talented students.

Her interest in Mennonite history was kindled when her father asked her to type genealogy lists for her parent’s fiftieth anniversary and for a Sawatsky family reunion. “When I retired from teaching,  I hoped to pursue Mennonite History,” Erica says.   “Esther Born got me involved in the Abbotsford Genealogy Society and also brought me to the archives. When Hugo Friesen showed me the archives room, I felt like a kid in a candy store.”

Erica began to translate obituaries from the Mennonitische Rundschau and Der Bote into English. She indexed them, extracted the data and typed them into a genealogical data base, and the information became part of GRANDMA [Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry].  Always a studious person, she enjoyed working with data and began to organize various projects and to oversee the volunteers who did data entry.

One of these is the EWZ: Einwanderungszentralle (immigration) files of those who fled from Russia to Poland and Germany in 1943/44.
Erica’s most intensive project is just beginning.  In 2001, she took a weekend archival course and saw the possibilities of Inmagic.  (see article below)   “This is a three to five year project,” says Erica. “We have volunteers working on this every day of the week. We have a wonderful volunteer family at the archives, who really care about each other and are keen about the same things.”

Aside from spending time with her two grandchildren, Erica is dedicated to archival work. “I am thrilled to be doing something I am so passionate about,” she says. “It gives me such a sense of purpose! I heard somewhere that being busy doing things one enjoys is cheaper than psychiatry.”