My first attempt at memoir. What questions do you have ?
Epigraphs:
” Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” Luke 1:1-14
Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend ” Pacing The Cage ” Bruce Cockburn
My dad, David Redekop, was born on November 21, 1916. We shared a birthday, with my dad being 42 years older than I. I know very little about the life of David Redekopry. He was born in the Russian Empire as it was beginning to disintegrate, eventually becoming the first communist state. He was born in the middle of the first World War, and so life must not have been easy. My dad had three older sisters and one older brother when he was born. One more brother was born after him.
He shared a few memories of those days, but not much. He said once that his village was burned, and his mom was raped . He also mentioned that the MCC tractors came to their farm, and he and his dad used it to prepare the land for planting. There had been years with no harvest . It must have been in 1922 or 1923. His father was a farmer, teacher and minister.
His dad, David Redekop, was a teacher, minister and farmer. My grandfather attended what became known as the Synod of the Martyrs in 1925. It was a meeting of the ministers to find responses to the new communist government concerning their faith. After that meeting was over, half of the ministers were arrested or killed. David, my grandpa or Opa, received notice that he should leave the Empire, and he received papers to leave, and he took his family to Canada. During those years in Russia, my dad’s mom died, and my grandfather remarried a woman who also had five children. Not all of her children came to Canada, and one was held over in Europe because of illness. One of my dad’s sisters, Neta, stayed in Russia. She was already married with a family, and thought things would not get worse.
So David, my Opa, and his wife arrived in Davidson Saskatchewan in July 1926. They lived on a farm that was owned by a local doctor. In October 1926, three months after this large family arrived to a new and safe life, my Opa was killed in a farm accident. My step-grandmother was pregnant with her soon to be born daughter, Malvin. My dad never shared anything about the trip to Canada, nor this tragic event. His uncle Henry arrived from Russia around the time for the funeral, and made sure my dad and his siblings had places to live in nearby Drake . My dad lived with the Bartels and the Hoeppners as he was growing up. He went to Rosthern School in Saskatchewan, and after graduation led a life of wandering, serving as a CO in Banff, on a cattle boat to Europe for MCC, and living with his sisters in Manitoba, until he settled down in the Niagara Peninsula.
So how did this trauma affect my dad ? He seldom talked about these things, but it was all in there, milling around his heart, soul and mind. I think he suffered from low level depression most of his life. He was happy to wake up every morning and do a day’s work. I think it was too hard to think about the future. He never knew when his life would be torn apart again. He lived from day to day, not planning for the future. At his 80th birthday gathering he said. ” I didn’t think I would ever make it this far. “. And so what passed down to his children including me ? Where does the trauma of my dad sit in my life ?
Peace to all as we relive our own stories.
Fred Redekop
Ponder Anew 