http://bit.ly/RedFezOurGermanRelative

In 2015, I was told this story – parts of it at least – by a resident in a predominantly Mennonite senior home in British Columbia. Some friends and I were there for lunch — the restaurant in the building had famously delicious food. One of the women at our table told us a moving account of incidents that had happened in Russia, during the early days of…

The fictional Mennonite community of Hartplatz, Man., has been seen in print and on the wing at several locations on the WWW.

Tell-tales include red wing blackbirds, killdeers, grackles, budgies and pelicans…icing sugar…the smell of an old baseball glove when you hold it right up to your face…the sound a bible makes when it is dropped – for emphasis – on a large wooden desk…followed perhaps by…