Wiebe, Abraham (1871-1925)

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Abraham Wiebe (also known as Abram) was the first Ältester of the Reinländer church in the Swift Current Mennonite Reserve in Saskatchewan. In the early 1920s he led part of his church to a new homeland in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Wiebe’s father, Johann, was the Ältester of the Reinländer church in Manitoba and before that in the Fürstenland Colony in Russia (present day Ukraine). In 1895, Wiebe was elected as a minister under his father. In his autobiography, Wiebe describes a period of fraught inner struggle before he was able to accept this call receive ordination on 26 July 1896.

The Canadian government established the Swift Current Mennonite Reserve in 1904 for Reinländer Mennonites who had run out of land in Manitoba. In 1907, Wiebe accepted the call of the church to move to Swift Current and serve the church there as a minister. He again describes the process leading up to this move as one of prolonged struggle before accepting a heavy burden. On 18 July 1911 he was ordained as the Ältester of the Swift Current Reinländer; before this, the Reinländer Ältester from Manitoba had served Swift Current.

In November 1916, Wiebe traveled to Ottawa with the other two Reinländer Ältesten to receive assurances that men belonging to their church would be exempt from a general draft. When the Canadian government issued general registration cards in 1917, Wiebe and the other Reinländer Ältesten returned the cards sent to their communities without filling them out.

Education was a major issue during Wiebe’s tenure in Swift Current. Wiebe worked to ensure the existence of a private, German language elementary school with a religious curriculum in each of the newly established villages. At the same time, the newly established provincial government of Saskatchewan was looking to expand the public education system into the Mennonite settlements. Wiebe, along with the Reinländer in Hague-Osler and Manitoba, completely rejected the public education system, seeing it as an intrusion of the secular world into the faith community and threatening of their way of life.

In 1917, the Saskatchewan government introduced legislation requiring attendance at provincially authorized schools and enforced this law with imprisonment and heavy fines. Despite this, Wiebe continued to excommunicate any members of his congregation that sent their children to the public schools.

In 1919, the Reinländer decided that emigration was their only recourse and began sending delegations to search for a new homeland, some of which included Wiebe. In 1921, the Reinländer received a Privilegium from President Obregón of Mexico and between 1922 and 1927 approximately 1200 Swift Current Reinländer, 37 percent of the population,[1] moved to a new settlement in the state of Chihuahua.

Wiebe took a strong stance on emigration and told his congregants that moving to Mexico was necessary in order to remain true to their baptismal vows. Like the other Reinländer Ältesten, Wiebe refused to ordain any successor to serve those who remained behind when he migrated in 1924, regarding them as cut off from the church. The Reinländer church in Swift Current fell into disarray after their leaders left for Mexico and never reorganized; many Swift Current Reinländer ended up joining the local Sommerfelder church.

Wiebe’s autobiography provides rare insight into the self-understanding of Mennonite ministers around the turn of the 20th century. Delbert Plett, for example, relies on Wiebe’s writings to argue that the “ministerial office was not seen as a great glory…[but] as a heavy burden and sacred responsibility.”[2]

Wiebe was born on 26 August 1871 in the Fürstenland Colony. In 1875 his family moved to Canada and settled in Manitoba’s West Reserve. He was baptized on 18 May 1891 and on 26 November 1893 he married Aganetha Ginter (1873-1913), with whom he had seven children, three of them surviving into adulthood; after she died, he married Anna Harder (1881-1973) and had three children with her, with one surviving into adulthood. Wiebe moved to Mexico in 1924. He died on 10 November 1925 in Neuhoffnung, Swift Current Colony. During his ministry he preached 1119 sermons, conducted 207 funerals, baptized 408 people, and married 188 couples.

See Also

Notes and References

  1. ↑ This figure is from Ens, 214. Friesen (83, 107) tallies 1892 emigrants, but (citing Ens) maintains that this represented 37 percent of the population.
  2. ↑ Plett, "Lonely Ohm," 98.

Bibliography

Doell, Leonard. "Swift Current Old Colony Mennonite Church." In Old Colony Mennonites in Canada, 1875-2000, edited by Delbert F. Plett. Steinbach: Crossway, 2000. Pp. 152-155.

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. P. 135.

Ens, Adolf. Subjcets or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994. Pp. 203-204, 214-217.

Epp, Frank H. Mennonites in Canada, 1920-1940: A People’s Struggle for Survival. Toronto: Macmillan, 1982. Pp. 94-138, 197-201.

Friesen, Henry A. "Mennonites from the Swift Current Mennonite Reserve Migrate to Mexico." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 21-26.

Friesen, Henry A. The Swift Current Mennonite Reserve, 1904-1927. Self-published, 2022. Pp. 32-33, 49, 58-78, 82-84, 88, 96

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

Plett, Delbert F. "The Family of Aeltester Johann Wiebe (1837-1905)." In Old Colony Mennonites in Canada, 1875-2000, edited by Delbert F. Plett. Steinbach: Crossway, 2000. P. 50.

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.

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


Author(s) Gerald Ens
Date Published 2025

Cite This Article

MLA style

Ens, Gerald. "Wiebe, Abraham (1871-1925)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2025. Web. 10 Apr 2025. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wiebe,_Abraham_(1871-1925)&oldid=180462.

APA style

Ens, Gerald. (2025). Wiebe, Abraham (1871-1925). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 10 April 2025, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Wiebe,_Abraham_(1871-1925)&oldid=180462.



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