Rempel, David (1869-1949)

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A photograph of the first page of David Rempel's travel diary, now housed in the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Photo by Imani Ndemu (Winnipeg).

David Rempel was born on 8 June 1869 in Russia (likely in the Fürstenland colony in present-day Kherson, Ukraine) to Bernhard Rempel and Anna Peters. At the age of 10 he immigrated to Manitoba with his parents. On 27 January 1895 he married Aganetha Wiebe (18 August 1874-23 October 1945), and they moved to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, sometime after 1901. Rempel died on 7 March 1949 in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Rempel was a representative of the Swift Current settlement in many of the land-seeking delegations sent by the Reinländer Mennonites of central Canada in 1919-22. These delegations paved the way for the emigration of around half of the Reinländer community, with 37 percent of the Swift Current Reinländer relocating to Chihuahua, Mexico, beginning in 1922. Rempel kept a detailed diary of his trips to Latin America, kept up an extensive correspondence, and wrote reports of the delegations' findings.[1] These documents are a crucial source for knowledge about the itinerary, goals, impressions, reactions, and dynamics of these trips.

Notes

  1. ↑ As of 2024 there is a English translation by Jake Wiens of most of Rempel's diaries from his trips to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, but no translations or transcriptions of the other documents are present in the archives. In Village among Nations, Royden Loewen refers to a translation of Rempel's letters by Robyn Dyck Sneath.

Bibliography

Dyck, John, and William Harms, eds. Reinländer Gemeinde Buch 1880-1903. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 1994: 189.

Ens, Adolf. Subjects or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994: 203-204, 226.

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

Loewen, Royden. Village among Nations: "Canadian" Mennonites in a Transnational World, 1916-2006. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013: 24-27.

Rempel, David. “Diary of his Trip to South America and Mexico in 1919-1921,” trans. Jake K. Wiens. Volume 5015, Small Archives. Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB.

Rempel, David. Various writings. Walter Schmiedehaus fonds. Vol. 4395, no. 3 and 5. Mennonite Heritage Archives, Winnipeg, MB.

Schmiedehaus, Walter. The Old Colony Mennonites in Mexico. Translated by Erwin Jost, edited by Glenn Penner. Mennonite Heritage Archives, 2021.

Sawatzky, Harry Leonard. They Sought a Country: Mennonite Colonization in Mexico. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1971: 31-52.


Author(s) Cornelius Krahn
Gerald Ens
Date Published June 2025

Cite This Article

MLA style

Krahn, Cornelius and Gerald Ens. "Rempel, David (1869-1949)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. June 2025. Web. 19 Jan 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Rempel,_David_(1869-1949)&oldid=180920.

APA style

Krahn, Cornelius and Gerald Ens. (June 2025). Rempel, David (1869-1949). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 January 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Rempel,_David_(1869-1949)&oldid=180920.



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Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 298. All rights reserved.


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