Before I go on I want to make one clarification. These pieces about the loss of our mother are just that; they are not so much memories of her or stories about her life. Furthermore, and it probably hardly needs saying, these are my thoughts on the loss of our mother and its impact, which has turned out to be more far reaching than one would have anticipated all those many years ago at the time our mother went to be with her Lord and Saviour. Each of my four siblings has their own memories of all of this, and they do not necessarily coincide with what I remember, think or feel.
At the end of my first chapter in this essay, I talked of our family’s resuming ‘life’ after the loss of our mother. Father continued his work with the Mennonite Church’s urban mission outreach, as it was then still called, with native people, again, as they were then called. We children finished our school years in June 1964. For me, that meant high school graduation and deciding what was to come after that.
In July of that year we got our first inkling of a significant new development in our family life. Father made it known that he was too lonely as a widow trying to raise us five and wanted to marry. Furthermore, he already had his sights on, and had indeed spoken with, a young woman in our church whom we knew. Her name was Anne Thiessen and we older three knew her through our belonging to the youth/young adult program and choir of our church. She was somewhat of a ‘sponsor’ of the former and member with my sister Loretta and I of the latter. Dad had been getting to know her better through his being on our church’s council where she was treasurer.
On July 20 – it’s in my diary, as I discovered recently – Dad asked what I thought about remarriage. I am not sure he mentioned Anne specifically. I thought I had a memory of his asking the three older ones of us way back around February. Now, I’m not sure about that idea. Anyway, was I going to flat out say no?
The secret was soon out. Honestly, I think we were all more intrigued by the idea than that we had or shared negative thoughts about the prospects. We got to go on dates with Dad and Anne. What’s not to enjoy for a family in the summer when you get to go to a powwow (on the prairie outside of Stoney Mountain Penitentiary, mind you, because of father’s connections with indigenous inmates) and a picnic after. Or a day trip to the Peace Gardens, or the Whiteshell – with picnic lunches.
Meanwhile, I started my first year at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, commuting the 13 miles by bus. This meant leaving home at 6:20 and getting home just in time for supper. A wedding date was set and plans put in motion. Sister Loretta was designated as Maid of Honour and myself as Groomsman. Before we knew it, October 17 rolled around and after a marriage in Bethel Mennonite Church and a reception, we had a new Mom. My siblings remember Dad coming home and telling us this was our new Mom, we should give her that honour and put our biological mother out of the picture, or words to that effect. Sounds somewhat harsh, and maybe it was the impact that caused it to be so remembered (Maybe father did not want us to use the word 'stepmother' and, indeed, I do not remember using this word till years later, and then only outside of our parents' hearing). How little did we know at the time how true this request was going to become over time.
Anne worked hard at being a Mom for 5 chidden from 7 - 17. If my memory serves me well she even altered my trousers to go with changing fashions. She might even have helped me type up some college homework. Understandably, things did not go totally smoothly. My siblings complained of too many casserole suppers… of not being able to always have seconds… or even meals if they came home too late. As the oldest, whose bedroom was next to ‘the folks’ for a while, I recall overhearing hard discussions between our ‘folks’ with dad trying to encourage our new Mom. For my part, I remember trying to get my younger siblings to go easier on our new Mom.
The following autumn, 1965, I moved into residence for my last two years at the college. From then on, apart from weekends (and not even all of those) and summers at home – and even then, I was out working on a farm in Alberta all of one summer (1966) – my relationship with my parents gradually changed to being one of a guest. Two months after I graduated from college in the spring of 1967 they moved to Saskatchewan. I saw them once more that summer and then not again till Christmas. After that, it was not until I also moved to Saskatchewan in the spring of 1968. Thereafter, it was the usual occasional weekend, perhaps Thanksgiving, usually Christmas and Easter visits etc. Our own biological mother had faded into history it seemed, at least for me.
