The Mulberry Tree

Jean Johnston was a freelance writer in Mitchell, Ontario.

In a moving way, Anna Friesen is an Anne of Green Gables speaking not from Prince Edward Island but from Saskatchewan. Now in her eighties, she writes with intensity about her childhood as a German-speaking Mennonite, in a new country that was just being settled. Her parents chose this area because of differences in belief with their kin in Minnesota, who had emigrated from the Ukraine a generation previously.

Her reminiscences are low-key and touching: as a little girl about four years old, she found herself walking home alone along a deserted road to her home. When she reached her own house, she did not recognize it because she was coming from an unfamiliar direction. Her parents did not give gifts at Christmas, and it was embarrassing to be among her schoolmates and not be able to show off her gifts. As very young women, she, her sister, and a neighbour girl attended a political meeting, the only women present. At the end of the book are some Ukrainian recipes, including a good one for apple fritters.

Anna married and moved to a farm adjoining her parents’, where her son (and co-author of this book) Victor Carl Friesen was born. With a Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta, Victor Carl Friesen writes for Canadian journals and is working on a collection of Mennonite folklore.