THE STONES CRY OUT: Greendale and South Poplar Cemeteries

Greendale Cemetery

Representatives of the First Mennonite Church and Mennonite Brethren Church presented a memorandum to the citizens of Sardis on October 20, 1947 regarding the purchase of a five-acre plot to serve as a cemetery.  This land was situated at the west end of Watson Road and was given the name, Greendale Cemetery.   This proposed name was presented to the municipal office for acceptance and confirmation.  A cemetery committee was chosen. A general meeting of interested people was held November 22, 1947 at which time the purchase of a cemetery was discussed.  Agreement was reached that the recommendations presented by those present at the October 20th meeting should be followed with one change: lot sizes should be 20’ by 18’.   Furthermore, it was agreed that representatives from the churches should establish the administration of the cemetery.

( Greendale Cemetery Memorandum, Oct. 20, 1947 and the Greendale Cemetery minutes, Nov. 22, 1947)
 

Johann J. Stobbe (1901-1947) was the first to be buried in the Greendale Cemetery. He was killed in a tractor accident.  His wife, Maria (Berg) Stobbe, (1904-1978)  is buried next to her husband.

Johann and Maria immigrated to Canada in 1924, arriving in Quebec City, then travelling by train to Rosthern, Saskatchewan.  From Rosthern they moved to Laird, and then to Blaine Lake where Johann was employed on a Doukhobor farm for a few years.  From here they moved to Mullingar  before moving to BC in  1941,  where they eventually purchased a farm on Chadsey Road, Sardis (later renamed Greendale).  (Henry Stobbe)
 

Jacob Bernhard Harder (1900-1975), minister and choir director, was born in Friedensfeld, Zagradovka Colony, Russia.  During his ninth year the family moved to Chortitza in Siberia where he was baptized and accepted into the Mennonite Brethren Church in 1923.  Shortly thereafter, the family relocated to Slavgorod where he met Kaethe Klassen.  Jacob and Kaethe married August 8, 1926.
Harder was secretary for the Mennonite Central Committee and his name appeared on the “black list.”  Searching for safety, the Harders left for Moscow in 1929, immigrated to Canada and settled in Sardis (Greendale), B.C.  Jacob and Kaethe had five children, two born in Russia and three in Canada.

Jacob served as lay minister in the Greendale MB Church 1931-1974, and assumed the duties of unsalaried interim pastor for approximately the first 20 years of the church.  He directed the church choir (1931-1963), and the German choir (1967-1974).  In addition to his church duties, he taught in the Greendale and Yarrow (Elim) Bible Schools.  Jacob B. Harder was known to say much with few words.  (Peter Harder)

Gerhard J. Peters (1906-1999) emigrated from the Molotschna Colony to Manitoba in 1925 at age nineteen.  Five years later, he married Anna Friesen and they farmed in Manitoba for fourteen years and then left for the Fraser Valley.   After a two-year stay in Atchelitz, they moved to Greendale.  Following his ordination to the ministry in Greendale Church in 1945, he attended Canadian Bible College in Winnipeg for four terms.
Gerhard preached fluently in German, English, Russian and Ukrainian.  He served at the Springstein Mennonite Church in Manitoba and at the Wellington Ave. Mennonite Church in Chilliwack.  He was one of the primary influences in building the Menno Home in Abbotsford.  For three years Gerhard and Anna commuted to Vancouver Island to officiate at Sunday morning services in the Black Creek Mennonite Fellowship.  He served two years as moderator for the BC Mennonite Conference, three years in the service of MCC and nine years on the Canadian Mennonite Missions Board.  He made numerous trips to the Ukraine to preach, teach and encourage. Gerhard died at age ninety-three. (Sig and Laura Peters)

John Peter Doerksen (1905-2000) left Moscow for Mexico in 1925 at age nineteen.  He sailed on a freighter for thirty-two days with stops at Spain and Cuba and finally arrived in Rosario, Mexico.

John’s love for farming took him to Winnipeg where he worked for Canada Packers as well as on various farms.  In 1933, John and his friend, Peter Thiessen, rode a freight train across the Prairies to BC. When John arrived in Chilliwack, he made his way to Greendale where  he met his future bride, Susan Schmidt.  In 1935, John and Susan moved to Harrison Mills.  After eight years at Harrison Mills, they purchased land in Greendale, built a house and barn and in 1943 moved onto their dairy farm.  For 27 years they farmed their 30-acre site on Keith Wilson Road where they raised three children.

John Peter Doerksen joined the First Mennonite Church in Greendale in 1946 where he remained a member until his death.   (Taken from John Doerksen’s Memoirs, 1995)

Katherine (Braun) Koehn (1914-2003), born in Orenburg, USSR, immigrated with her family, to Canada in 1929.  Here they  lived temporarily with Johann and Susanna Braun (uncle and aunt), in Yarrow before moving  to Sardis (Greendale) in 1930.

At age 15, Katherine found employment in Vancouver, where she learned to read and write English. She attended a Baptist Church where she committed her life to Christ and was later baptized in the Greendale MB Church.
In 1933 she married David Koehn.  David and Katherine had three sons, eight grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren.  (One granddaughter is married to the current mayor of Chilliwack.)  Katherine kept busy with family, farm, employment, and church.  In spite of her busy schedule, she took time to develop her talent in painting.   She died January 12, 2003. (John Koehn)
 

South Poplar Cemetery

The history of the South Poplar Cemetery is directly connected to the Mennonite settlers who pioneered the south Abbotsford area in the 1930s and 40s.  Construction of the South Abbotsford church building on Gladwin Road began in November of 1935 and a two-acre plot was purchased for a cemetery in 1937.  The first funeral was conducted August 9, 1938 for Grace Buhler, a South Abbotsford member who died at age twenty-five.  About twelve to fifteen churches of the two Mennonite conferences made use of this cemetery.  The burials at the outset were few, with an average of five per year (1938- 44).  However, 1945-1950, the number of burials averaged seventeen per year and the years 1948-1950 averaged twenty-three burials per year.  Since South Poplar Cemetery would soon reach capacity,  municipal authorities made space available in the Hazelwood Cemetery.  Later, in 1966, the Maclure Road Mennonite Cemetery Society was formed and this property is now the main burial site for Abbotsford Mennonites. (Henry Klassen)
 

Franz C. Thiessen (1881-1950), educator, conductor, minister, was born in Rueckenau, Molotschna, Ukraine.  In the late 1890s, Franz joined the Rueckenau Mennonite Brethren Church.  In 1900 he married Lydia Wieler who died in 1908.  Two years later he married her sister, Margaret.  There were six children from the two marriages.   After taking his training in Halbstadt, he taught schools in the Ukraine and eventually became principal of a secondary school in Davlekanovo, a growing settlement near the Ural Mountains.   He became the conductor of the school and church choirs.  The choirs performed Mendelssohn’s oratorio, “Paulus” – a first for the Mennonite community.

In 1925 the Thiessen family immigrated to Canada and settled in Saskatchewan.  For seven years he taught at the Rosthern Junior Academy.  However, as a result of the depression, the family moved to Winnipeg.  In 1939 the Winnipeg Northend MB Church elected Franz as pastor.  In 1943 Franz Thiessen was asked to teach in the Abbotsford, BC Bible School and one year later he became the first principal of the Mennonite Educational Institute.  He wished to remain in this work until he died and God granted his wish.  He died on the way to school, February 24, 1950. (Victor Thiessen)

Peter J. Reimer, born in Steinfeld, Ukraine in 1887, left Russia, together with his family, in 1926 and settled in Boissevain, Manitoba.  In 1937, during the Depression, the Reimer family moved to BC, purchasing 103 acres at the corner of Clearbrook and Huntington.  This property was mostly forested except for one small area that had been cleared leaving huge stumps.  While clearing three stumps with dynamite, one stump failed to ignite.  When Reimer neared this stump to check, he was caught with the full impact of its explosion and died February 27, 1953.  Peter Reimer loved to sing and often went about his chores singing familiar songs. (The Family)
 

Mary L. Klassen was born in Riga, Latvia in 1891 to German Lutheran parents and died in Abbotsford, BC, Dec. 6, 1976.    Mary and Cornelius (C.F.) Klassen were married in Moscow, Russia in 1926 and came to Canada with their two sons in 1928, settling in Winnipeg, MB where three additional children were born, one of them dying in infancy.  They moved to BC in 1948.  In 1950, Mary purchased a four-acre plot on Old Yale Road, which became the family home.  Mary’s grandson, Steve, is currently developing this property to house the new Mark Retreat Centre.

Mary was an invaluable secretary to her husband in his role of collecting the “Reiseschuld.”  In Moscow she had served in the Mennonite Centre as MCC’s first secretary abroad.  Later, many Clearbrook residents remember Mary as receptionist for Dr. Buir.

C.F. Klassen died in 1954 while working for MCC in Europe; Mary died much later in 1976.  There are two surviving sons, Wally and Herb, eighteen grandchildren and forty great grandchildren. (Maureen Klassen.)

John A. Toews (1912-1979) was born in Rueckenau, Ukraine.  The Toews family immigrated to Canada in 1926-27 and settled on a farm in Namaka, Alberta.  John attended the Coaldale Bible School and the Prophetic Bible Institute in Calgary. Following his marriage to Nettie Willms in 1935, he studied at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas and graduated with a Bachelor of Theology in 1940.

He began preaching and teaching at home and abroad.  He taught at Coaldale Bible School (1940-46),
MB Bible College (1947-67; 1976-79),  MB Biblical Seminary in Fresno (1971-72) and Trinity Western University (1972-76).  Periodically, his work took him to South America and Europe.  Amid the pressures of teaching and preaching, he managed to complete his B.A. at the University of Saskatchewan (1947), his B.D. at United College in Winnipeg (1950) and his PHD at the University of Minnesota (1964).

J.A. Toews was particularly concerned that the MB church and conference remain rooted in its Anabaptist heritage, especially in its non-resistant teaching.  In addition to many essays, he published three significant books: True Non-resistance through Christ (1955); Alternative Service in Canada during WWII (1959); A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church (1973). (John B. Toews)

Hilda Janzen was born in 1932. Although she started elementary school in Coaldale, Alberta, she completed her grade thirteen at the Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford, BC.  In 1967 she attended the MB Bible College in Winnipeg.  She completed Normal School in Vancouver and later graduated from UBC with a BA.  Her first teaching positions were in elementary schools in Ladner, Barrowtown, and Harrison Hot Springs.

Following these initial years, she taught at the Mennonite Educational Institute for 20 years.  She was particularly dedicated to the English and German departments.  In 1969, she catalogued the school’s library.  She loved to coach drama, and is remembered with fondness by many of her students.  She died in 1981, four years after her cancer was diagnosed.  (Helen Janzen)