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PODCAST

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives

Mennonite Heritage Archives

Explore the history of Mennonites through materials found in the Mennonite Heritage Archives. Using interviews, object, and documents, this podcast will dive into stories inspiring, tragic, strange, and beautiful. As varied as the lives of the people and organizations whose materials are housed in the Mennonite Heritage Archives, this weekly podcast aims to educate and inspire greater interest in Mennonite history.

history

All Episodes

15:00

Adina Janzen

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/05/25

Send us Fan Mail Today, guest host Sara Dyck brings you the compelling life story of Adina Janzen, who survived the dark Soviet era in Russia. In 1934, her father was taken by Soviet authorities. They instantly lost the family breadwinner. At one point, a starving Adina turned to eating chalk! Her story is a heartrending yet hope-laden tale of living on three different continents and finding light in dark places. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here o...

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15:00

Interview with Dr. Mark Janzen (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/05/18

Send us Fan Mail Today, In Part 2, Dr. Jantzen reveals how Prussian rulers targeted Mennonite women, which eventually provoked a mass migration of Mennonites out of Prussia. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Archives on Instagram and Facebook.

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15:00

Interview with Dr. Mark Janzen (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/05/11

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you an interview with Bethel College professor Dr. Mark Janzen, who studies the little known history of Mennonites who lived in Prussia from the 1530s to the late 1700s. In this episode, we learn that Mennonites lived in mixed villages instead of colonies, like they later did, how they acquired land in the vast region of Prussia, and the political complexities of living under a system with several power centres. Your donations help preserve and share sto...

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15:00

Samuel McRoberts and his Paraguay photo collection

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/05/04

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you the story of Samuel McRoberts, the American lawyer and banker whose deeply religious wife Harriet persuaded McRoberts to negotiate and facilitate a mass re-settlement of Canadian Mennonites to Paraguay in the 1920s. Did the hymns the Mennonite delegation sang for the McRoberts play a role in Samuel’s decision to help the Mennonites? You’ll have to tune in to find out! Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 20...

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14:59

Laureen Harder Gissing and the Mennonite Archives of...

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/04/27

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you a conversation with archivist Laureen Harder Gissing. When Laureen was 13 years old, her grandmother gifted her with a cheque for $13.00. That gift inspired a life long interest in her family’s history, and the bigger picture of Mennonite history. Today Laureen is the archivist at the Mennonite Archives of Ontario, which holds collections from all over the world – including records from non-European Mennonites, and documents dating as far back as 1520. You...

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15:00

Journey to Burns Lake

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/04/20

Send us Fan Mail Today, guest host Sara Dyck brings you the story of a provincial government experiment to resettle a group of Manitoba Mennonites near Burns Lake, B.C. during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Hear about their journey to B.C., and the challenges they faced when they got there. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Fo...

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14:59

Episode 70 with Andrew Unger

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/04/13

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you an interview with author and satirist Andrew Unger about his book Once Removed. The novel’s main character, Timothy Heppner, is determined to preserve the heritage in his small Manitoba town, but is at odds with the town’s pro-development mayor. Andrew talks about how fiction and historical fact can work together, the place of humour in his story telling, and his ancestor Abram, whose nickname was “Lazy” Reimer. Your donations help preserve and share stori...

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15:00

Tragedy at Vanderhoof

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/04/06

Send us Fan Mail Today, guest host Sara Dyck shares the tragic tale of a group of Mennonites who in 1918, moved from Manitoba to Vanderhoof, British Columbia. They had high hopes of owning land and establishing prosperous farms. For at least one family, their dreams were dashed. Listen to Tragedy at Vanderhoof to find out what happened to these unfortunate souls. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the...

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15:00

David Bergen, novelist

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/30

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring your listeners an interview with nationally acclaimed writer David Bergen about his novel Away from the Dead, a fictional account of victims and their relationships during the historical events that led to the complex and multi-layered conflict of the Ukrainian revolution in the late 1910s. Bergen has written more than a dozen books, many of which feature Mennonite backdrops. He is the recipient of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his 2005 novel The Time in Bet...

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14:59

The Disappeared Beaver Lodge Mennonite Church

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/24

Send us Fan Mail Today, we bring you a story about the Beaverlodge Mennonite Church, a little known congregation that formed in the late 1920s and disappeared from the landscape of Peace River country in northern Alberta some 15-ish years later. Guest Doug Klassen, Executive Minister of the Mennonite Church Canada, shares about his little-known family connection to the church, and we capture his reaction when a surprise visitor shows Doug church records containing names of his ancestors. Your...

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15:00

Elmer Hildebrand (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/16

Send a text In part two of this two-part series, Elmer answers questions about his personal interest in Mennonite history, and how he came to move and restore an old house barn that now resides in the village of Neubergthal. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Archives on Instagram and Facebook.

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14:59

Elmer Hildebrand (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/09

Send a text March 4 marks 69 years since Golden West Radio CEO Elmer Hildebrand first walked through the doors of the brand new CFAM radio station in Altona in 1957. We cover a lot of ground in this 2-part conversation. In Part 1, Elmer shares how Golden West Radio got its start. When he arrived at work for his first day, the building’s construction was still in progress, so he helped lay tiles to finish up the floor. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift h...

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15:00

Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/03/02

Send a text Today, we carry on with our 2-part series featuring historian Dr. Aileen Friesen. In this episode, Aileen shares concerns about the endangered state of historical Mennonite documents in Ukrainian archives as the Russian invasion and war drags on. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Archives ...

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14:59

Meet historian Dr. Aileen Friesen (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/24

Send a text Today, we bring you part 1 of a 2-part series featuring an interview with Dr. Aileen Friesen. Aileen wears more hats than a Caps R Us store can hold. She is a professor, a published author, a researcher, editor of Preservings magazine, executive director of the D.F. Plett Foundation, and co-chair of the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies, to name just a few activities in which she is involved. Still, she found time to talk with us about what drove her to study Mennonite hi...

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14:59

Episode 62: From Russia with Woe (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/17

Send a text During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the more severe form of the camps called the Gulag. More than 80 years later, his great-grandaughter, Maria Lotsmanova, discovered parts of his story with help from the Gulag History Museum of Repressions in Moscow. Maria shares with listeners what she has learned about her great-grandfather’s struggle and faith during ...

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14:59

From Russia with Woe (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/11

Send a text Today, we bring you ‘From Russia with Woe’, part one of a two part series. During Stalin’s Reign of Terror the 1930s, Jacob Petrovich Janzen was one of many Mennonites swept up into forced labour camps called Special Settlements, and then the more severe form of the camps called the Gulag. More than 80 years later, his great-grandaughter, Maria Lotsmanova, discovered parts of his story with help from the Gulag History Museum of Repressions in Moscow. Maria shares with listeners wh...

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14:59

Trapped in Icy Waters

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/02/03

Send us a text Today, guest host Sara Dyck brings you the chilly tale about a group of Mennonites whose ship became trapped in icy Lake Superior in the spring of 1876. A journey that was meant to take five days turned into a 15 day ordeal. They ran out of food, and almost out of coal to power the steam ship. Their story is pieced together from letters and journals of the travellers who did – eventually – arrive at their southern Manitoba destination. Your donations help preserve and share sto...

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14:59

The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 2)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/26

Send us a text Today, we bring you Part 2 of the Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 2, we return to the story of Jacob Hoemsen, as he rejects his pacifist upbringing to serve in the controversial Mennonite Self Defence League to protect Mennonite colonists from various paramilitary groups during the War of Ukrainian Independence. Later, a close call with Soviet authorities for whom he worked, clinched his decision to migrate to Canada. Your donations help preserve and share s...

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14:59

The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen (Part 1)

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/19

Send us a text Today, we bring you Part 1 of The Life and Adventures of Jacob Hoemsen. In Part 1, Jacob Hoemsen was raised as a pacifist, pursued education in Germany, and completed his mandatory non-combatant role in the Russian government’s Forestry Service. During WWI, Jacob served as a medic, eventually joining the elite Flying Column at the battlefront. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visit...

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14:59

Anna Thiessen, Nurse and Midwife in Paraguay

Tales from the Mennonite Heritage Archives ·

2026/01/12

Send us a text Today, we bring listeners the story of Manitoba born and raised nurse and midwife, Anna Thiessen. For years, she was the only trained medical practitioner in Colonia Sommerfeld, Paraguay. Anna helped an estimated 1,000 mothers deliver their babies. Your donations help preserve and share stories like this one! Make a gift here or call 204.560.1998. Find out more by visiting the Mennonite Heritage Archives website - https://www.mharchives.ca/ Follow the Mennonite Heritage Arch...

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