The Soldiers in Our Mennonite Family

When Remembrance Day comes around each November, our family has always treated it very low-key. I think it's because we are rather confused about what to do with it. On the one hand we know that Mennonites are known to be pacifists in their faith. We've heard it all our lives, and yet, I don't recall getting any in-depth teaching about it as I grew up. I learned more from my reading after I was an adult than I learned from my parents or church in my childhood.

But there's another factor. Our family for three generations has had someone sign up to be a soldier. This seems to have messed up our pacifist thinking in each of those three generations. This is all on my mother's side of the family. On Dad's side he had a brother who went to war. Uncle George was conscripted. Uncle Johnny became a Conscientious Objector. I have some photos from his time in the work camps in B.C., but no hard and fast details. Dad was away working on a farm/ranch when the conscription officer came, and escaped having to join or make a decision, for which he was always grateful.

Let me profile the ones on Mom's side, since I know the most about those stories.

First there was my maternal great-uncle, Peter Kroeker. Gran'pa Kroeker's younger brother left home and signed up as a Canadian soldier in the second world war. He was stationed in England. Beyond that I know nothing of his service, where, when, etc. But I have seen this letter in 1942, which my grandmother had in her possession. (It may have first come to his parents).

Dear Folks,
I am well and happy and hope this writing finds you all the same. I hope you will all forgive me for not writing sooner. I have received so many letters, cards and parcels, and I am very sorry I have not written before this. and I can't thank you folks enough for all this kindness and love you have shown me by writing and sending parcels.

And now that I am out of the kitchen I will try and write oftener. I hope you won't laugh at what I am going to tell you next. Now just take a guess while you turn this page.

_____over________

I got married on the 17th of Jan. 1942 to a Miss Lillian Alice Baker, from London. I won't describe her now, but I can tell you that I think she is all right and I have not changed my mind yet.

Anyway she has a sister married to a Canadian soldier from the last war and they are living in Alberta, Canada, and she has a lady friend in P.A. Sask, Canada, that knows some of our relatives in Hague.

I have met this lady and her daughter myself before they sailed for Canada about 4 months ago. They wrote my wife after they got home that they were thinking of me when they passed through Hague on their way home.

Some day we will get a picture taken and send you some. But right now it is pretty hard on account of the paper shortage.

Now a few words about the weather. We've had a very little snow this winter and now it is nice out and everything is starting to green and folks are working in the gardens.

You know, I get to like this country more all the time. I guess I will ring off for this time. Many thanks for the letters and parcels you have sent me, and will write again soon,
Love and Best Wishes to all,
Yours truly, Peter.

However, this same man divorced his wife five years later, after he had brought her to Canada. He married a widow in 1949. Subsequently he divorced her too. He also changed his name to Crocker.

I can recall, as a young girl, seeing this Great Uncle Peter in his veterans uniform at some family gatherings. I watched Gr'ma Kroeker for cues and she accepted him but ignored his military past, and I think others did too.

In 1952 my uncle Peter (Mom's brother), left to sign up to go to Korea as a soldier. He had been hankering to join up for some time. His Dad, my Gran'pa Kroeker, wouldn't give his permission, and he couldn't talk his mother into signing the consent either. But in January he slipped away to Regina, signed up (I'm not sure if he lied about his age), and came back for one week's leave to say good bye, and then he was gone for his basic training in Calgary.

He was back on a pass in February and again at Easter. He was scheduled to go overseas at the end of April. I was still a pre-schooler so I have no vivid memories, but knowing my family, I know those were days of tension. So was Christmas, when Gr'ma took to listening to the news on the radio. I'm sure she wrote more letters and sent more parcels than anyone knew.

Finally, at Christmas of 1954, word came that Peter was arriving on the train on Christmas Eve. His father and younger brother Isbrand hurried off to fetch him. That was a memorable Christmas. Parts are blurred for me in the excitement, but there is tangible evidence of some details.

Peter was home! He brought interesting gifts. I'm only aware of the ones he gave his mother. I cannot vouch for others, although there may have been more. For his mother he brought a doll from Japan, all dressed up in a kimono of red and gold brocade and standing in a glass box with the front pane a door. We kids ogled the chalky white face and the funny black hair, while Gra'ma warned that it was NOT for touching. It got a place of honour high on top of her wardrobe closet where none of us could reach it. Peter also gave her a practical gift. A green desktop cabinet with many little drawers for sewing notions. (This is now mine, and the doll is my sister Elsie's).

Uncle Peter, tall, and strikingly handsome in his uniform had such new urbane manners. There were so many people on Christmas Day in my grandparents' house, and everyone trying to draw him out. Mostly I recall him smiling at everyone and smoking.

In 1955, he was back in Canada and working with the army as an electrician out of Regina, he had signed up for another three years. By June he was stationed at Vedder Crossing, B.C. and he got married.

I do recall when he brought Aunt Gladys home for us to meet. She was very tall and very skinny, had blood red finger nails, and smoked. But she was friendly and had a pretty face. I watched Gra'ma. She accepted and treated this new daughter-in-law well, so I choose to like her too.

Over the years we had occasional visits with this family as they added three children - younger cousins for us, to their family. But I often wondered how to understand my mysterious Uncle Peter.

Now to top it all off, my own brother Ernie decided to join the army. Seems to me he said once he did it for a steady job and free career training. He was stationed in Germany for a while, but never participated in a serious war, so I guess I didn't worry about his safety so much as his spiritual welfare.

The skill he learned was to make and test parachutes.

Ernie too, married and had two children while in the army. Then, about the time his wife started to take the children to Sunday School he divorced her. I prayed all the harder!

In about 1980, when he returned from Germany, Ernie quit the army and went to win back his family. He himself became a Christian and remarried his wife. He took his role as husband and father seriously, and has made up for wasted years as much as is possible.

Yes, there are a lot of unsorted tangles in understanding the service these three relatives have given to our country. But love can flood in to fill the gaps. Until understanding comes we can love them, and thank God for them. What's more, we can learn to be prayer warriors in the unseen spiritual war all around them.