Board Member Profile:  Robert Martens
as interviewed by Helen Rose Pauls

What is your role at MHS?
 I am official poet-laureate of MHS, and intend to write an epic poem on the triumphs and tragedies of our history called “The Mennonitead.” It will spare no one and will win the Booker Prize.
 On a less self-deluding level, I am a member of the newsletter committee, and it’s been a consistent pleasure to work with Louise Bergen Price and Helen Rose Pauls. As the “bookish one,” I’ve done a number of book reviews, among other things.

How did you become involved?
 A position opened up and was offered to me on the newsletter committee, and expecting that a large salary would be paid for my work, I accepted the position. To my consternation, I have now joined the vast throng of Mennonite volunteers.
 I have been involved in recent years in the Yarrow Research Committee, which has now published three volumes on the story of that village. (The most recent, Windows to a Village, is now on sale at the MHS Archives.)  My interest in my ethnic roots, like so many others, has deepened with age, and the Yarrow projects were a catalyst.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?
 I was born and raised in the navel of the Mennonite world, Yarrow, BC, which began as a full-fledged utopian Mennonite community and slowly disintegrated over the decades as younger generations assimilated into the mainstream. It was an experience of power and control, on the negative side, and of concern and sharing, on the positive. I certainly don’t regret having grown up in a genuine community, as many today, especially among the young, have lost much of their sense of what it means to live together.

What schools did you attend?
 I attended a private high school in Yarrow, Sharon High. In its early years it was still rather insular, but by the time I reached high school level, it had moved on. (We now were allowed to watch movies, but dancing was still suspect.) Yarrow was changing rapidly. The staff in Sharon’s last years were remarkably enlightened and stimulating, and included individuals such as Jack Dueck, Howard Dyck, Vic Vogt and Vern Ratzlaff.
After Sharon, I moved on to the stormiest years of Simon Fraser University, where we students naively tried to turn the world upside down. Innocently destructive years, perhaps, but fascinating – and we were part of the movement to put a stop to the Vietnam War.

What was/is your life’s work?
 Why are Mennonites always so inquisitive about work? No time for play?
 I was genuinely one of the drop-out generation, rather Mennonite in a sense, in my “traditionalist” rejection of mainstream society. This resulted in a long career, eventually, in Canada Post and the rough and tumble realism of blue collar Canada.

Family stuff?  Single. Why do you ask?

Hobbies?
 Excoriating the powerful and corrupt.
 My violin playing stopped when my hands folded not in prayer, but in arthritis. I miss the violin deeply but my passion for music remains. I also write poetry when my cats will allow me.

Favourite car, colour, food, or book?  “Blue” to all of the above.

Why are you involved in MHS?
 An old proverb states, “If you are obsessed by history, you lose an eye. If you ignore history, you lose both.” Our society seems to be determined to cut links with the past. We are, in my opinion, a culture driven by individualism and egotism, with little or no respect for the lessons of our ancestors. A spiritual quality is being lost. We need to reconnect for our own sanity.

 Anything else?  No.