1974 – New Beginnings / Fresh Outlooks: And may God grant a little more humility, more Godly patience, and less human zeal.
~ An entry in the General Records of the Orthodox Mennonite Church
In a previous post, I outlined the rift(s) in the Old Orders that resulted in the ultra-conservative Dave Martin Mennonite group. There I sketched the “official” history, as documented by Donald Martin and others, which focuses on the two David Martins, father and son, who were the driving forces in the movement. I also discussed briefly the effects this history had in my own family’s history, through the entanglement of my mother’s family in the group.
Since then, however, I developed an interest in my grandfather Peter’s father, Peter P Martin, also known as Rabbit Peter. It seemed to me that his life did not follow the normal Old Order Mennonite male life pattern of the period; most obviously, he never owned a farm of any significance and, as his nickname suggests, he was never taken too seriously. I started doing a bit of research into his history and writing a (semi-fictional) short story tentatively called “Rabbit Peter: a Historical Romance of Waterloo County.”
But then I acquired from my aunt Anna a document written by Elizabeth (Martin) Rudy, my grandfather’s eldest sister. It describes, in some detail, her family’s involvement in the Daniel Brubacher group and the David Martin group. I then consulted (my bootleg copy of) the records of the David Martin and Orthodox Mennonite Churches to see what became of the siblings left behind. As a result, I decided I had to write this post about the heart-breaking story of the ultra-conservative groups within the Mennonite community.
Most Mennonite historians handle this story pretty delicately, trying hard not to lay any blame, putting it down to personalities, misunderstandings, and—for them most significantly—different interpretations of the importance and application of the ban (excommunication) and shunning. That’s the way I tried to do it in my post on the Dave Martins. But here I am going to focus on the impacts this history had on the family of my great grandfather, partially through the eyes of his daughter, my great-aunt Lizzie.
This story focusses primarily on two related families, the Rev Daniel M Brubachers and the Peter P Martins. These men were first cousins, though Daniel was about 20 years older than Peter and came to be his father-in-law as well. The family of another cousin, David B Martin, is also implicated.
Daniel Brubacher was born 20 Sep 1840, the seventh child of John W Brubacher and Catherine G Martin (daughter of David and Maria, the old pioneers). In September 1865, Daniel married Elizabeth Beeshy, born 24 Dec 1842, daughter of Louis Beeshy and Barbara Wanner. They had 9 children, of whom the first, Lydia, and the fourth, Menno, are of special significance to this story.
Peter P Martin was born 12 Dec 1859, the eighth of Peter G Martin and Maria Bauman’s eleven children (and nephew of Catherine G Martin and John W Brubacher). On 6 Feb 1885, Peter married Susannah Reist, who was born on 18 Sep 1861. Peter and Susannah lived for a while on a farm just south of his dad’s place, on the Hawkesville Road about a mile west of St Jacobs. Then they moved to a farm owned by Menno Lichty, west of Floradale towards Yatton. After that, they moved to a 3-acre place about 5 miles north of Elmira, at the corner of Arthur Street and Cedar Spring Road (the house is still there). They had 3 children:
- Amanda R. Martin, 22 Mar 1886
- Jeremiah R. Martin, 26 Apr 1888
- Levi R. Martin, 5 Feb 1890
Susannah died on 21 Sep 1895 and was buried in the North Woolwich Meeting House Cemetery north of Floradale. Peter couldn’t manage on his own after Susannah died, so his brother Jonathan took in Amanda, and Jeremiah went to live with Daniel Brubacher’s family. Peter and Levi (who suffered from epilepsy) went to live with his parents back at the home farm.
On 8 Nov 1896, Peter married his cousin Daniel Brubacher’s eldest child, Lydia. They moved onto a farm a mile or so east of the little place where he had lived with Susannah (at 1071 Cedar Spring Road). This farm was held by his oldest brother Levi, in trust for their sister Mary—she was Menno Reist’s widow and had a young daughter. In 1901, Mary’s daughter Nancy married John Horst, and they took over the farm, so Peter and Lydia moved back to the little place at the crossroads, where he had lived with Susannah.
Young Levi died there in 1902, but they had seven kids of their own between 1897 and 1908:
- Elizabeth B. Martin, 29 Aug 1897
- Manoah B. Martin, 6 Jun 1899
- Catherine B. Martin, 11 Mar 1901
- Lydia B. Martin, 14 Feb 1903
- Peter B. Martin, 14 Feb 1903
- Mary Ann B. Martin, 2 Apr 1905
- Jonathan B. Martin, 17 Jan 1908
In 1908, they moved to a one-acre place on the northwest corner where the Hawkesville Road meets Kressler Road (the Woolwich-Wellesley line) up from Heidelberg.
It is unclear whether Amanda and Jeremiah lived with Peter and Lydia after they married or stayed on with the relatives. There is no mention of either of them in the records of the Dave Martin and Orthodox Churches, so it is clear they never got enmeshed in that mess. Here’s what we know:
- Jeremiah, known as Jerry, married Mary Ann Bowman on 21 Dec 1913. They lived at the north end of St Jacobs and had 11 children, only 6 of whom lived past infancy. She died on 5 July 1968 (aged 77) and he on 19 August 1975 (aged 87); they are buried in the St Jacobs Mennonite Cemetery.
- Amanda worked for many years as a maid, then in 1931 bought a house in Floradale and worked as a seamstress. Her youngest half-brother Jonathan boarded with her for a while. She married Noah Lichty on 3 Dec 1933 at the age of 47, but he died in Feb 1934. She married Menno Weber on 20 May 1951, and died 21 Dec 1956; she is buried in the Elmira Mennonite Cemetery (shared by Old Order, Markham, and Conference Mennonites).
Lydia’s brother Menno Brubacher had married Elizabeth Brubacher (no relation!) in 1895. They had 6 children and lived next door to his parents. At some point they took in Christina Metzger as a maid. She was born in 1885, the daughter of their neighbour Peter Metzger. In 1907, Elizabeth’s father Bishop Abraham Brubacher (son of “Cooper” John) came to live with them; he soon confronted Menno about what he thought was Menno’s “too familiar” relationship with the hired girl.
This accusation raised such a dispute between the three families that everyone involved was excommunicated from the Old Order congregation in 1910. Daniel, who had been minister at Conestogo meeting house, started holding worship services at his own home, then at Menno and Elizabeth’s place next door. Most of his children and their families withdrew from communion with the Old Orders and joined their father’s group, his daughter Lydia and her husband Peter P Martin included.
Meanwhile Menno and Elizabeth kept Christina on as their hired girl. It seems Elizabeth had a nervous breakdown of some sort over the whole bruhaha, and she was never well again. Their youngest daughter, Lizzie, contracted polio at age 3 and was crippled the rest of her life. Christina, known as Teena, assumed more and more responsibility and authority in the home.
Peter and Lydia’s daughter Elizabeth, who was about 13 at the time, recalls: “We children grew up in a state of bewilderment.” They didn’t really understand what the fuss was about, and while they could still associate with their Old Order friends, they were not allowed to be involved in any of the church activities. When she was older, Elizabeth wanted to be baptized with her Old Order girl friends; at first her parents refused to let her, then the next year they said she could be baptized, but wouldn’t be allowed to have communion at the church.
In 1917, preacher David B Martin (son of Jacob G Martin and Esther Bauman and so first cousin of Daniel Bruacher and Peter P) and his son deacon David W Martin left the Old Order church and started their own group, which included most of their extended family and a few others. They invited the Brubacher people to join them, and Daniel Brubacher was soon ordained bishop and Menno a minister (apparently, he was a very good preacher). Because David B and Daniel were first cousins, almost everybody in the church was closely related to everybody else.
Great aunt Elizabeth writes that the young people really suffered at this time, because the Dave Martins did not allow members to associate with outsiders. There were very few young adults, and almost all of them were first cousins. At 20, Elizabeth was the oldest of the young people, and there was no real hope for her to find a husband.
On 7 Feb 1918, Lydia (Brubacher) Martin died from cancer after a long illness and was buried in the Conestogo Old Order Cemetery. Elizabeth was left to keep house for her father Peter P and the younger siblings still at home. She wrote, “I felt I was 40 years old instead of 21.”
In 1920, Rev David B Martin and Mrs Daniel Brubacher both died. That fall, there was a rift between Bishop Daniel and the other ministers in the group over the issue of shunning outsiders, and his people left to meet on their own again. Most of the people stayed with the Daves, including four of Peter P Martin’s children: Manoah (aged 21), the twins Lydia and Peter (17), and Mary Ann (15). I must assume that these four were working for families in the Dave Martin group, a few probably already courting. Elizabeth (23), Catherine (19), and Jonathan (12) left with their father.
Conestogo Meeting House Cemetery
In the newly separated Brubacher group, there were only 4 couples, 3 young men, and 8 young women; the young people were all first cousins. Bishop Daniel died in 1921, and Menno took over as minister. There was a great deal of strife within the group, at least in part (according to Elizabeth) because of Christina Metzger’s continuing role in Menno’s family and her influence in the group as a whole. One by one, people stopped going to the services, and by 1931, only Menno’s immediate family, his brother and sister-in-law, and their two sisters were left.
In 1933, Elizabeth (aged 36) and Catherine (32) and three of their (unmarried) cousins left and joined the Conestogo Old Order congregation. Three more cousins moved there later that year, while some of the young men left the Mennonites altogether. Some people who lived in Elmira started going to the Conference Mennonite church there. In 1940, Menno’s remaining siblings and their families left. After Menno died in 1952, his wife, the three remaining unmarried daughters and Teena Metzger joined the St Jacobs Conference Mennonite Church. Teena and the three Brubacher women were still living together in the mid-1960s.
Peter P’s son Jonathan was one of the young men who left the Mennonites. He married Lorene Stahlbaum in 1937, and they had 3 children. He was a blacksmith, first in Floradale and then in St Jacobs, where he became quite famous as a tourist attraction. The local artist Peter Etril Snider (a relative on my mother’s side) did a number of drawings and paintings of his blacksmith shop. Jonathan died in 1990 and is buried in the United Church cemetery in St Jacobs.
Elizabeth looked after her father until 1938, when (at 41 years of age) she married Aaron Rudy, a widower with a number of children. They had two children of their own, but only the oldest, Lydia, survived. Elizabeth died on 11 Jan 1991 (aged 93) and is buried in the Martin Meeting House Cemetery.
After Elizabeth married, Catherine, known as Katie, looked after Peter P until she married in 1944. Peter then went to live at the home of his daughter Lydia and her husband William, still members of the David Martin Mennonites. When Peter died on 30 Jan 1945, Lydia and William were not allowed to hold the funeral visitation and reception in their house, as he wasn’t a Dave Martin, so it was held at a relative’s house on the Heidelberg Rd. The funeral was held at the Conestogo Meeting House, and he is buried in that cemetery.
Conestogo Meeting House Cemetery
Peter’s son Jeremiah and his family did not attend the funeral, but that was because he thought Peter should have been buried with his first wife, Jerry’s mother, in the North Woolwich Cemetery. So that was just an issue of family politics rather than religious dogma: it could happen in any blended family.
On 10 Sep 1944, at the age of 43, Katie married Christian Martin (my father’s uncle), a widower who had recently moved back from Ohio with his children. She was thereafter known as Aunt Katie to both my mother and my father. She died on 23 Mar 1995 (aged 94) and is buried in the Conestogo Meeting House Cemetery. I remember visiting great aunt Katie where she lived at her stepson Reuben’s home south of Heidelberg, when I was young and she were very old but still pretty lively and sharp.
Conestogo Meeting House Cemetery
Meanwhile back in the Dave Martin group, deacon David W was ordained minister in 1921. In 1922, Peter P’s son Manoah married Selina C Martin, daughter of minister David W Martin, and in 1925, Peter B married Lovina S Martin, daughter of John W Martin, David’s brother. In late 1926, Lydia married William C Martin, David W’s son, and Mary Ann married Emanuel Sherk, whose family had recently moved up from Haldimand County. All four of Peter P’s children were thus tightly connected to some of the central families in the group.
During this period, many people were baptized, many couples were married, and many others were excommunicated.
In 1924, David W was ordained bishop. In 1934, Elam S Martin, Lovina’s brother, was ordained minister. In July 1938, Lovina’s younger sister Annie was baptized, and in August that year Peter and Lovina were excommunicated after they were “born again” through the ministry of the Hawkesville Plymouth Brethren. In spring 1941, Annie was excommunicated after she ran off with Henry Martin, a born-again Old Order Mennonite.
Henry and Annie lived in Elmira, then in Kitchener where they attended First Mennonite Church for years, before moving to the Missionary (“New Mennonite”) Church. My grandparents Peter and Lovina lived in St Jacobs until 1948, then in Waterloo. They attended the Hawkesville Gospel Hall and Bethel Bible Chapel Waterloo. Peter died on 19 Nov 1964 (aged 61) and Lovina on 21 Sep 1978 (aged 72). They are buried in the Hawkesville Cemetery.
A number of couples (including my mother’s cousins Anson and Sarah Hoover) were excommunicated from the Dave Martins in 1953 and ‘54, and in 1956 minister Elam S Martin and deacon Samuel Horst and their wives were excommunicated. In September 1956, a number of the recent ex-communicants, including William and Lydia Martin, and others who were dissatisfied with the Dave Martin church’s use of the ban and with its autocratic leadership met at the home of Emanuel and Mary Ann Sherk to form their own group.
By the spring of 1958, this group of disenfranchised Dave Martins had joined with Elam S Martin and his followers. They had their first communion service, with Elam officiating, on 6 April 1958. In 1962, they opened a meeting house at Lawson Line and Moser-Young Rd in Wellesley township and registered themselves as the Orthodox Mennonites. (For a much more detailed history of this group, See “The Orthodox Mennonite Church.”)
Of Peter P and Lydia’s children, only Manoah and his wife Selina were now left in the Dave Martin group. Manoah died 7 Nov 1975 and Selina on 22 May 1989. They are buried in the David Martin Central Woolwich Cemetery northwest of St Jacobs.
In 1965, Anson Hoover was ordained minister in the Orthodox church. In 1974, there was a major rift between Elam S Martin and Anson Hoover over application of the ban, the wearing of beards, and perhaps the practice of “bundling” (courting couples sleeping in the same bed at the home of one of their parents). Anson Hoover left with 60 members and 107 children, leaving the Elam group with 45 members, and 62 children.
Mary Ann and Emanuel, who lived on a farm in Wallenstein (the General Store is on property parcelled off from their farm), stayed with the Elam group. Their son Amos went with the Hoovers (he was ordained a minister in 1975). Lydia and William, who lived on a farm a mile east of Yatton, also went with the Hoovers.
In 1976, the Hoover group excommunicated their bishop Anson Hoover and a few other people, including minister Amos Sherk and his wife Annie. Amos and Annie were reinstated after a few months, and the next year he was made bishop.
The Elam Martin group began migrating to the Gorrie area in 1979. Because of discord in that group, no communion was held in the fall of 1979 or in 1980.
On 2 Jan 1980, Mary Ann (Martin) Sherk died in her 75th year; her husband Emanuel Sherk died on 18 July, 1983. They are buried in the Orthodox Meeting House Cemetery northwest of Hawkesville.
On 19 December 1985, Lydia Martin (my grandfather’s twin) died at age 82; her husband William died on 19 Jul 1989 (aged 86). They are both buried in the Orthodox Cemetery.
In 1986, many of the Hoover faction, following deacon Tilman Hoover, left and re-joined the Dave Martins. The ministers tried to hold services, but only one or two people showed up. That fall, the remnant group made overtures to the Elam Martin faction.
On April 25, 1987, the three ministers from the Hoover group were accepted into the Orthodox church, and on April 26, the re-united Orthodox congregation held communion together. On December 10 of that year, a funeral was held for Elam S Martin.
Over the next few years, the members remaining in Waterloo County, including Amos and Annie Sherk, moved to the Gorrie-Wroxter area. The Orthodox church has flourished there and expanded into Huron-Kinloss township, around Holyrood, in Bruce County, as well as into Algoma district, 35 miles east of Sault Ste Marie, and to an area near Renfrew in the Ottawa valley. They maintain a very plain lifestyle, with no electricity, telephones, mechanized farm machinery, or other modern conveniences. They have a number of meeting houses and parochial schools.
The Orthodox meeting house near Hawkesville was vacant for about 20 years and burned down in a suspicious fire in Aug 2019.
This is the story of a family shattered by intolerance and dogmatism within the Mennonite community. Between 1920 and 1975, members of the family were scattered across the Old Order, the David Martins, the Conference Mennonites, the Anson Hoover and Elam S Martin factions of the Orthodox Mennonites, the Missionary Church, the Plymouth Brethren, the United Church, and probably more.
For decades, some members of the family were only grudgingly allowed to speak to others. They could not have a friendly visit or share a meal. When Manoah, Lydia, Peter, and Mary Ann were married in the Dave Martin church, their father and siblings were not invited to attend. When uncle Manoah died, his siblings and nieces and nephews were not even notified. The only way that they learned about his death was that great-uncle Jonathan noticed a lot of Dave Martin farmers in town at St Jacobs and asked them why they were all dressed up; they told him his brother had just been buried.
Elizabeth and Katie married only in their middle age because, when they were young, there were no eligible men except first cousins. Menno Brubacher’s daughters never did marry. I have heard stories of brothers passing their sisters on the street without acknowledging them. Cousins were separated forever, many never meeting.
When the Orthodox group left the Dave Martins, they were a little less strict in their avoidance of apostates and outsiders. My mother and several of my aunts and cousins attended the funerals of some of the aunts and uncles in that group, but the separation was so long and deep that there is little connection left. The Old Orders, on the other hand, were always welcoming of everybody, but they too were cut off from the David Martin relatives.
I am afraid that I cannot fathom, let alone justify, this sort of inhumanity passing itself off as religious practice. It is a travesty, an abomination. I can find no spirituality in it.
Here’s a poem Elizabeth wrote on New Year’s Day 1931, when she was almost 34 years old:
A few short words at random wrote On this quiet winter night, The snow lies cold upon the road, Within, the fire is warm and bright The chores all done, since set of sun, And quiet reigns. The clock is ticking off the time, As the weary hours drag by, No great interest is mine That will help the time to fly, To pass the time, I write this rhyme In loneliness. Dear friends seem all so distant now, And alas so very few. One can only wonder how Can so many prove untrue. I know today, though miles away, True friends remain. I hear a horse trod in the lane, A buggy wheeling by, My wandering thoughts turn home again, To neighbours living nigh. Kind friends to cheer are always near In time of need. The aching spot within my heart Is not the neighbours’ fault, For they have always done their part In what friendship can be called. But brothers near and sisters dear Broke family ties. The home is lonely every day, For sister and for me. Alone with father here we stay, The others seldom come to see. My eyelids fail, I’ll close my tale, And go to sleep.
Sources:
Horst, Isaac R. Up the Conestogo. Mount Forest: self-published, 1979.
Martin, Donald. Old Order Mennonites of Ontario: Gelassenheit, Discipleship, Brotherhood. Kitchener: Pandora Press, 2003.
Rudy, Elizabeth (Martin). A History of the Ancestors and Descendants of Peter P. Martin. Self-published, about 1967.
Rudy, Elizabeth (Martin). A History of the Daniel Brubacher Church. Unpublished manuscript, January 1958.
Weber, Urias. New Beginnings: A History of the Old Order Mennonites of Ontario. Wallenstein: Vineyard Publications, 2018.
500 Years of Migration 
What a fantastic story Rick. You have filled in so many gaps in my understanding of all those complex family issues. Reuben, where you went to visit aunt Katie, was one of the farmers in the haying and threshing group when I worked for Daniel Martin who lived on the same side of that road right at the north end, so I was often at his farm and remember him as having a nice sense of humour and two beautiful Clydsdales.
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I didn’t realize you worked with Reuben, Don. He was a brother of Elam, who Rod and I both worked for, so I worked on his farm to help with haying. But because those guys were cousins of both my mom and my dad, we sometimes just dropped in to visit them.
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A story heavy with with heartache and disrupted social connections primarily caused by a misguided understanding of a book that spoke also about unity and love as the highest values of life. Something really got messed up. The patriarchal leadership perpetrated this brittle and toxic dogma on the flock in an obvious attempt to control the members. So much pain and suffering ensued. Reminds me of the idea that some forms of religious belief can cause otherwise good people to do terrible things to each other.
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A very interesting and sad story. As an outsider and a woman, I am left wondering whether these kinds of splits and discord has less to do with religious doctrine and more to do with family dysfunction, closed social relationships and a very unhealthy dose of gender imbalance, i.e. male domination.
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The old practices of banning and shunning go way back in the anabaptist tradition to the Schleitheim (1527) and Dordrecht (1632) Confessions. While the early Dutch Mennonites (including Menno Simons) were pretty firm on both practices, the Swiss (except for the Amish) generally did not practice strict shunning. So in “our” tradition, excommunication was generally used only in extreme situations, and shunning wasn’t practiced–until the David Martins and some other ultra-conservatives revived it. And they saw it as a biblical imperative and a religious practice, a means of keeping the church pure.
But, you are right that there are other things going on, including some very authoritarian personalities, (probably) intra-family squabbles, and deeply ingrained partiarchalism. I also see inter-generational tensions, struggles between younger people and the old leaders, and so on. Everybody was probably very sincere, but the fallout for many was disasterous.
Thanks for your interest and empathy, Kathy.
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Descendants of Daniel Brubacher told me that Tina Metzger was reputed to be a witch. It was believed that Elizabeth (Brubacher) Brubacher had a nervous breakdown and was bedridden because Tina had cast a spell on her. When visitors raised the matter of Tina with Elizabeth, she whispered for them to keep quiet because “Tina is under the bed.” The community feared that if Tina was put out of the house, she would cause Elizabeth to die.
There was a stigma associated with witchcraft (black magic) and charming (white magic) among Old Order Mennonites, but such “superstition” has been alive and well on many levels throughout Mennonite history.
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Well, thank you for this insight, Reg! This would explain the awkwardness with which my great-aunt Elizabeth wrote about the whole situation and her belief that Tina was behind all of the problems in the Daniel/Menno Brubacher group. I am going to have to look into this belief in magic among the Mennonites.
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