Difference between revisions of "Wiens, Jakob (1855-1932)"

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By 1918 the Saskatchewan government was rapidly ramping up its policy aim of mandating public schools for Mennonite children and started aggressively fining and in some cases jailing those who refused to comply. Resistance to the schools initially held among the Hague-Osler Reinländer, with Wiens [[Excommunication|excommunicating]] those who yielded, and many people in Wiens’s congregation were reduced to abject poverty. By 1919, the Hague-Osler Reinländer, alongside their co-religionists in Swift Current and Manitoba, decided that emigration was their only option. They began [[Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922|searching for a new homeland]] and found one in Mexico, which was willing to grant them special privileges, including autonomy over the education of their children. A financial dispute with the Swift Current and Manitoba groups delayed the emigration of the Hague-Osler Reinländer and the first trainload only left for Durango, Mexico in 1924. Only about a quarter of Wiens’s church moved with him to Mexico. After the school fines, a botched land-sale scheme that impoverished many and resulted in a distrust of leadership, and the post-war economic downturn, many were simply too poor to move.
 
By 1918 the Saskatchewan government was rapidly ramping up its policy aim of mandating public schools for Mennonite children and started aggressively fining and in some cases jailing those who refused to comply. Resistance to the schools initially held among the Hague-Osler Reinländer, with Wiens [[Excommunication|excommunicating]] those who yielded, and many people in Wiens’s congregation were reduced to abject poverty. By 1919, the Hague-Osler Reinländer, alongside their co-religionists in Swift Current and Manitoba, decided that emigration was their only option. They began [[Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922|searching for a new homeland]] and found one in Mexico, which was willing to grant them special privileges, including autonomy over the education of their children. A financial dispute with the Swift Current and Manitoba groups delayed the emigration of the Hague-Osler Reinländer and the first trainload only left for Durango, Mexico in 1924. Only about a quarter of Wiens’s church moved with him to Mexico. After the school fines, a botched land-sale scheme that impoverished many and resulted in a distrust of leadership, and the post-war economic downturn, many were simply too poor to move.
  
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Wiens left for Mexico in 1926. He returned in both 1927 and 28 to provide baptism and [[communion]], ordiances that only the Ältester could offer. He intended to travel back to Canada again in 1929 but was prevented from doing so by his wife’s poor health and remained for the rest of his life in Mexico. Like the other Reinländer Ältesten, Wiens refused to ordain a successor for those who remained in Canada. In his view, the entire church was moving to Mexico and those who remained behind had cut themselves off from the church in their disobedience. The Reinländer church was left in considerable disarray before it managed to reorganize as the Old Colony church under the leadership of [[Loeppky, Johann (1882-1950|Johann Loeppky]].
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Wiens left for Mexico in 1926. He returned in both 1927 and 28 to provide baptism and [[communion]], ordiances that only the Ältester could offer. He intended to travel back to Canada again in 1929 but was prevented from doing so by his wife’s poor health and remained for the rest of his life in Mexico. Like the other Reinländer Ältesten, Wiens refused to ordain a successor for those who remained in Canada. In his view, the entire church was moving to Mexico and those who remained behind had cut themselves off from the church in their disobedience. The Reinländer church was left in considerable disarray before it managed to reorganize as the Old Colony church under the leadership of [[Loeppky, Johann (1882-1950)|Johann Loeppky]].
  
 
By Harry Sawatzky’s account, the [[Durango (Nuevo Ideál) Colony (Durango, Mexico)|Durango Colony]] adapted more quickly to their new conditions in Mexico than other Mennonite immigrants in part due to Wiens’s leadership and agricultural ability.<ref>P. 123.</ref> Under Wiens’s direction, the Hague-Osler settlers immediately adopted indigenous crops (e.g., beans and corn) and farming methods suitable to Mexico.
 
By Harry Sawatzky’s account, the [[Durango (Nuevo Ideál) Colony (Durango, Mexico)|Durango Colony]] adapted more quickly to their new conditions in Mexico than other Mennonite immigrants in part due to Wiens’s leadership and agricultural ability.<ref>P. 123.</ref> Under Wiens’s direction, the Hague-Osler settlers immediately adopted indigenous crops (e.g., beans and corn) and farming methods suitable to Mexico.

Revision as of 14:33, 8 April 2025

Jakob Wiens was the first Ältester of the Reinländer (also known as Old Colony) church in Saskatchewan, serving in that capacity in the Hague-Osler settlement from 1900 until 1926 when he led part of his congregation to a new home in Durango, Mexico.

Wiens was born to Jacob and Anna (Friesen) Wiens in 1855 in the Chortitza Colony in Russia (present day Ukraine), where his father was a minister. In 1875 he immigrated with his parents to Manitoba, settling in the village of Reinland in the West Reserve. He was baptized on 21 May 1877 and married Helena Wall on 4 April 1880, with whom he adopted four children. Wiens was elected and ordained as a minister on 25 October 1888. Wiens served the church as a minister for twelve years and as an Ältester for 31 years. During this time he preached 1577 sermons, conducted 370 funerals, baptized 1396 people, and married 184 couples. He died on 14 April 1932 in Reinland, Durango, Mexico and was succeeded by Peter Wiens.

Hague-Osler

In 1895, the Canadian government opened the Hague-Osler reserve in present day Saskatchewan for Mennonite settlement, which attracted many Reinländer Mennonites from Manitoba’s crowded West Reserve. In 1899, Johann Wiebe, Ältester of the Reinländer, who had been serving the church in Saskatchewan as well as Manitoba, persuaded Wiens, already a respected minister, to move to the Hague-Osler settlement and become their new religious leader. Wiens agreed and in July 1900 Wiebe ordained him as the new Ältester for the Hague-Osler Reinländer.

Over the next twenty years, Wiens oversaw the tremendous growth and material development of the Reinländer church in Hague-Osler. In addition to his ministerial role, Wiens (well-known for his love of animals) served the community as a veterinarian and chiropractor and was well-regarded as an expert in home remedies for both people and animals. Wiens was also an excellent farmer who was sought out for his agricultural knowledge. Wiens's wife, Helena, was sickly and often bedridden and Wiens devoted much time and energy to her care.

As a leader, Wiens determinedly sought to prevent worldly influences in the church. For example, under his direction the Hague-Osler Reinländer decided that they would not allow church members to use automobiles. Wiens enforced this and other rules with dedication; there are accounts of him refusing rides in cars even in cases of emergency. Alongside the other Reinländer Ältesten (in Swift Current and Manitoba) but unlike other Canadian Mennonite leaders, Wiens instructed his congregants not to fill out the Canadian government’s national registration cards of 1917 despite government assurances that Mennonites would be exempt from any draft.

Wiens’s greatest battle against worldliness was over public education. The Reinländer in Saskatchewan privately operated a network of religious, German-language elementary schools while the Saskatchewan government increasingly sought to force the Mennonites to adopt provincial standards. Some describe this effort by the province as an effort to improve the quality of education while others describe it as part of a nationalist programme by the Saskatchewan government, meant to assimilate Mennonites into anglo-Canadian society.[1] Wiens was uncompromising on the issue. He refused provincial curriculum, any English language instruction, and accredited teachers. His obstinance appears to have, in part, pushed the Saskatchewan government into the more extreme and coercive action they would take at the end of World War I.

When the Russian Civil War brought famine and great suffering to the Mennonites in Russia, Wiens appealed to his church to generously support the relief being prepared for them by North American Mennonites.

Durango

By 1918 the Saskatchewan government was rapidly ramping up its policy aim of mandating public schools for Mennonite children and started aggressively fining and in some cases jailing those who refused to comply. Resistance to the schools initially held among the Hague-Osler Reinländer, with Wiens excommunicating those who yielded, and many people in Wiens’s congregation were reduced to abject poverty. By 1919, the Hague-Osler Reinländer, alongside their co-religionists in Swift Current and Manitoba, decided that emigration was their only option. They began searching for a new homeland and found one in Mexico, which was willing to grant them special privileges, including autonomy over the education of their children. A financial dispute with the Swift Current and Manitoba groups delayed the emigration of the Hague-Osler Reinländer and the first trainload only left for Durango, Mexico in 1924. Only about a quarter of Wiens’s church moved with him to Mexico. After the school fines, a botched land-sale scheme that impoverished many and resulted in a distrust of leadership, and the post-war economic downturn, many were simply too poor to move.

Wiens left for Mexico in 1926. He returned in both 1927 and 28 to provide baptism and communion, ordiances that only the Ältester could offer. He intended to travel back to Canada again in 1929 but was prevented from doing so by his wife’s poor health and remained for the rest of his life in Mexico. Like the other Reinländer Ältesten, Wiens refused to ordain a successor for those who remained in Canada. In his view, the entire church was moving to Mexico and those who remained behind had cut themselves off from the church in their disobedience. The Reinländer church was left in considerable disarray before it managed to reorganize as the Old Colony church under the leadership of Johann Loeppky.

By Harry Sawatzky’s account, the Durango Colony adapted more quickly to their new conditions in Mexico than other Mennonite immigrants in part due to Wiens’s leadership and agricultural ability.[2] Under Wiens’s direction, the Hague-Osler settlers immediately adopted indigenous crops (e.g., beans and corn) and farming methods suitable to Mexico.

Leadership and Standing

Ältester Wiens was highly respected and beloved by many.[3] He was an effective speaker with a powerful voice and the community greatly valued his opinion. It was his distinction to be chosen to preach at the funerals of both Johann Wiebe in 1905 and Peter Wiebe in 1913, the Ältesten of the West Reserve Reinländer. His memorial service (held in Blumenthal, Mexico) was filled beyond capacity and the people in Hague-Osler also held a well-attended memorial despite their misgivings and resentments regarding the migration to Mexico.

For others, Wiens’s leadership brought bitterness and division. He aggressively used the ban, which included devastating economic boycotts, to enforce the church’s policy on education and other matters such as voting, operating businesses, or using automobiles. Some testimony additionally reports petty and vindictive use of his church authority.[4] Wiens faced legal trouble on at least one occasion when a businessman successfully sued him for conspiracy resulting in economic loss resulting from the ban; Wiens refused to appear in court, maintaining that Christians should not resolve their differences via secular law proceedings. It was also disgruntled former Reinländer who first brought the province’s attention upon the state of the Reinländer Mennonites’ private schools in 1908, when they appealed to the government after being excommunicated for sending their children to public schools.

During Wiens’s tenure in Hague-Osler the Reinländer had an antagonistic relationship with the (similarly conservative) Saskatchewan Bergthaler and automatically excommunicated any member of their congregation who married a member of the Bergthaler church. This was one of the first practices to change when Wiens moved to Mexico and Johann Loeppky reorganized the church.

A number of Wiens's contemporaries declare that the minister and leader Johann P. Wall was the real leader and decision-maker of the Hague-Osler Reinländer.[5] Some of these sources suggest, in particular, that Wiens was sympathetic to the plight of those who were too poor to move to Mexico and that it was Wall who maintained their excommunion with the church.

See Also

Notes and References

  1. ↑ See Doell, "Ältester Jakob Wiens," 16 and 18; Doell, The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Saskatchewan, 22-24; Doell, "The Mennonite Problem"; Ens, Subjects, 131-133; H. Friesen, 58-63, 77-78, and 92; and Quiring, 20-21.
  2. ↑ P. 123.
  3. ↑ E.g., Janzen, "Johan M. Loeppky," 9; Janzen, "Stories," 30; and Doell, "Ältester Jakob Wiens," 15;.
  4. ↑ See Doell, "Ältester Jakob Wiens," 16-17.
  5. ↑ E.g., Plett, 105 and Kouwenhoven, 193. Janzen, 7.

Bibliography

Doell, Leonard. "Ältester Jakob Wiens (1855-1932).” Preservings 29 (2009): 14-19.

Doell, Leonard. "Hague Osler Old Colony Mennonite Church." In Old Colony Mennonites in Canada, 1875-2000, edited by Delbert F. Plett. Steinbach: Crossway, 2000. Pp. 142-151.

Doell, Leonard. The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Saskatchewan, 1892-1975. CMBC Publications, 1987. Pp. 13-34, 109.

Doell, Leonard. "The Mennonite Problem: Public Schools in Saskatchewan." Preservings 45 (Fall 2022): 19-22.

Doell, Leonard. “The Move to Mexico.” In Hague-Osler Mennonite Reserve, 1895-1995, edited by Jacob G. Guenter et al. Hepburn: Hague-Osler Reserve Book Committee, 1995. Pp. 386-393.

Dyck, Isaak M. “The Mennonite Emigration from Canada to Mexico: A Memoir by Isaak M. Dyck,” translated by Robyn Sneath. Preservings 44 (Spring 2022): 3-71. Translation of first part of Auswanderung der Reinländer Mennoniten Gemeinde von Canada nach Mexico. Cuauhtemoc: Zweite Ausgabe, 1971.

Elias, Peter A. Voice in the Wilderness: Memoirs of Peter A. Elias, 1843-1925, edited by Adolf Ens and Henry Unger. Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2013. Pp. 70-71, 80.

Ens, Adolf. Subjects or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994. Pp. 109, 121-122, 174-175, 211, 275.

Epp, Frank H. Mennonites in Canada, 1786-1920: The History of a Separate People. Macmillan, 1974. Pp. 350-380.

Friesen, Henry A. The Swift Current Mennonite Reserve, 1904-1927. Self-published, 2022. Pp. 58-83, 94-102.

Guenter, Jacob G. “Mennonite Migration to Mexico.” In Hague-Osler Mennonite Reserve, 1895-1995, edited by Jacob G. Guenter et al. Hepburn: Hague-Osler Reserve Book Committee, 1995. Pp. 372-377.

GRANDMA (The Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry) Database, 5.00 ed. Fresno, CA: California Mennonite Historical Society, 2006: #157879.

Janzen, Abram G. Altester Johan M. Loeppky, 1882-1950: As I Remember Him. Hague, SK: unpublished, 2003. Pp. 6-9. See the copy in the Mennonite Historical Library at Canadian Mennonite University.

Janzen, John J. As I Remember It...: Neuanlage, 1895-1995. Self-published, 1995. Pp. 12-13, 20, 22.

Janzen, William. "Stories from the Life of Abram Janzen of Blumenheim." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 29-37.

Janzen, William. "The 1920s Exodus to Mexico of Old Colony Mennonites from the Hague Osler Area of Saskatchewan." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 5-13.

Kouwenhoven, Arlette. The Fehrs: Four Centuries of Mennonite Migration, translated by Lesley Fast and Kerry Fast. Leiden: Winco, 2013. Pp. 185-211.

Petkau, Irene F. and Peter A. Petkau. Blumenfeld: Where Land and People Meet. Blumenfeld Historical Committee, 1981. P. 39.

Plett, Delbert. “The Lonely Ohm - Myth and Reality: The Pastoral Vision and Challenges of the Conservative Mennonite Ministerial/Lehrdienst.” Preservings 21 (December 2002): 94-108.

Quiring, David M. Mennonite Old Colony Vision: Under Siege in Mexico and the Canadian Connection. Crossway Publications, 2003. Pp. 20-21.

Sawatzky, Harry Leonard. They Sought a Country: Mennonite Colonization in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Pp. 31-50, 122-123.

Wall, Andrew, dir. Conform: The Mennonite Migration to Mexico of the 1920s. Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies, 2022. 17:00-20:00.

Wiebe, Abraham. “Altester Abraham Wiebe, 1871-1925: Life’s Pilgrimage of our Altester Abraham Wiebe (1871-1925), Rosengard, Manitoba, and Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and Swift Colony, Cuauhtemoc, Mexico: An Autobiography,” translated by Ingrid Lamp and edited by Delbert F. Plett. Preservings 20 (June 2002): 98-100.


Author(s) Gerald Ens
Date Published 2025

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Ens, Gerald. "Wiens, Jakob (1855-1932)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2025. Web. 1 Feb 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wiens,_Jakob_(1855-1932)&oldid=180466.

APA style

Ens, Gerald. (2025). Wiens, Jakob (1855-1932). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 1 February 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wiens,_Jakob_(1855-1932)&oldid=180466.



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