Many Mennonites in Southern Ontario came from Switzerland via the United States. A number of them were and are "horse and buggy" people. The Swiss Mennonites in Ruth Smith Meyer's community weren't. They drove cars, trucks, and tractors, and had electric lights and appliances. They were quite conservative just the same. They didn't have organs or other musical instruments in their churches—singing only. Young people weren't supposed to go to high school; elementary school was considered enough. And Ruth wore her Mennonite garb (white head covering, plain dark dress) until well after her marriage.
I bought her book OUT OF THE ORDINARY because I also grew up in a Mennonite community. My people came from the Netherlands and Northern Germany via Russia. Our Mennonite community—located near the village of Elbow, Saskatchewan—was less conservative than Ruth's. But we shared the same Mennonite beliefs and values including personal conversion to faith in Christ; believers' baptism; pacifism; thrift; helping others in practical as well as spiritual ways; and living "in this world but not of it."
My Mennonite relatives' stories and my early years in our Elbow-area community inspired my 1940s-era novel CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS (published by Borealis Press of Ottawa in 2014). In a somewhat similar way, Ruth's Mennonite identity forms the core of her autobiography. Her family came from Switzerland to Pennsylvania to Ontario. She grew up in Pickering Township, northeast of Toronto. Her family lived in a hamlet across from a general store and near a brick Mennonite church surrounded by a cemetery. Among names of Mennonite families in the area were Reesor, Grove, Lehman, Neuenschwander, Meyer, Wideman, Smith, Burkholder, and Bowman.
Ruth's childhood experiences included jumping into the hay in the barn, picking berries to send to market, writing to pen pals, and going on school field trips. As a child she discovered that her people's Pennsylvania Dutch dialect (a form of German) is similar to Yiddish. Interestingly, the Low German dialect that was spoken in my Mennonite community is also similar to Yiddish.
Singing was important in Ruth's community. Events called "singings" were held in church on Sunday evenings. These presented opportunities for courting. If a young man had his eye on a particular young woman, he would ask if he could walk or drive her home. That was how Ruth became acquainted with her first husband, Norman Smith. They were married in 1960, and went west for their honeymoon. One motel they stayed in cost ten dollars, which was shockingly high in those days.
The Smiths' marriage had its ups and downs. Ruth grappled with health challenges including low thyroid, migraines, a broken leg, and sleep apnea. Also, she was frustrated by the lack of leadership roles for women in the conservative Mennonite church she and her husband attended. Eventually they left and joined what later became the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada. In the new church, Ruth found more opportunities to exercise her leadership abilities. Unfortunately, her blossoming in this direction caused problems in the marriage. Norman felt she was ignoring him and leaving him behind. Their marriage almost collapsed. The story of how it survived and flourished makes for fascinating reading.
Sadly, Norman passed away in 1999. Ruth's account of her six years as a widow is unvarnished, touching, and inspiring. It was after Norman's death that she started to write. This book is one of the happy results. Readers will be pleased to know that she found love again, marrying childhood friend Paul Meyer in 2005.
OUT OF THE ORDINARY is available online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo, and other sites.
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