June 5, 1930 – May 18, 2023
Our Father was born in Marienthal, Molotschna Colony, Ukraine in the Soviet Union on June 5, 1930, an almost mythical place, I would say, for his children. The stories he told of growing up there spoke of a world that had passed away, a time and place destroyed first by Stalin’s Holodomor and then by the ravages of World War II. But before that all happened, we heard stories about how he threw rocks at a bull, his cousin John Dahl promising him rubles he didn’t have for driving the bull back into the pen, snatching a few watermelons from the shared village fields, and playing marbles with frozen rabbit pellets, since they did not have money for toys. But for all the difficulties of that time, surrounded by family and friends, it seemed sort of magical.
Dad was the oldest child of Jacob Martens and Anna (Kornelsen) Martens. He had two brothers, Jake born in 1931 and Nick born in 1937. They have all lived long lives, which in itself was a miracle, an act of God’s providence, since according to Timothy Snyder in his book Bloodlands on the horrors of Stalinist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, a child born in 1930 in Ukraine had a life expectancy of 7 years (p. 48). God cared for our Dad and his brothers, though they would lose their father in 1941. Dad wrote, “I lost my father to the communists. He died on his way to a concentration camp. Then I had to flee across the Ukraine, White Russia, Poland, and Germany with my mother, brothers and sister, always hoping to someday come to a free country.”
The family wound up in a refugee camp in Germany. Grandma had remarried and Dad had a new baby sister Anne and baby brother Bill and a good stepfather, Naftali Bachman. They all arrived in Canada in 1948 and Dad was forever grateful for this country of freedom. Dad described the journey to Canada, writing, “Left Hanover, Germany on the 12th of March 1948. Travelled by train through Germany and Holland. Took a boat from Holland across the English Channel. Arrived in Harvick Port. Took a train to London, then took bus to Southampton and left on the 17th of March. We boarded the ship, Aquitania, for Canada. Arrived at Pier 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on March 22, 1948. (This day is special for me for two reasons: Freedom Day in Canada and, my first grandchild’s birthday).”
He said that “coming out of war-ravaged Europe, Canada was like an oasis in the desert. People were well dressed and had plenty of food. We had so little food in Europe. There was never enough to satisfy our hunger. But my mother said, when we get to Canada (pronounced Kahn-aud-ah) we will be able to eat all we want.
I owned a pair of pants which I found on the British Army base where I was employed. It was so stained with oil and needed five washings before they could be put on. That was all I had when I arrived at Pier 21 as a 17-year-old.
We were given $25.00 per person for food on the train which was to last us five days. But sandwiches were 35¢ and would not be enough for 5 days so when the train stopped at a station, I ran to a nearby store and bought 10 loaves of bread, a large bologna, and about 15 pounds of Sunkist oranges. That lasted for the entire trip for our family of seven… On March 27th we arrived at the Chilliwack, BC station. Our sponsor, Mr. Nicholas N. Reimer, picked us up. He had a tree nursery and also supplied us with employment.”
Dad was baptized on September 4, 1949 at Yarrow MB Church. His life in the Church was the key priority for him, followed by his dear wife.
He married a “Canadian girl” Gertrude Esau on April 16, 1950 when he was only 19 years old, a marriage which lasted over 68 years until Mum’s death on August 27, 2018. If ever there was an example of faithfulness and love, it was our father. If you knew Dad, you knew he adored, loved, and respected her. He was so grateful that God brought them together. In their later years, they worked together at MCC’s The Cedars. Dad said it was his favourite job. He enjoyed working with the men there, and he especially enjoyed working with Mom who was the manager. He said one of the fringe benefits was being able to kiss the boss!
They were blessed with five children, Marian, Jim, Tilly, John, and Trudy. They also were blessed with many, many beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Dad loved telling stories about all of us. One story he shared was how he used to take the bus to Stanley Park to meet Mom and the three oldest kids after work. It was the simple things that gave him such joy like piling leaves on the kids at the park. He also used to drop dimes on the ground or shoot them over our heads and tell us to look for the coins. He always made sure that we each found one. As much as he enjoyed us children, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren topped us. They were more precious than gold.
Dad grew up poor and having been without, he wanted to be generous to those who were suffering. Both Dad and Mom considered it a privilege to give to those who were in need. They would make sacrifices in their personal life so others would not have to go without. One example of their generosity involved sending sewing machines to India so a number of women would have a livelihood. Mom and Dad had agreed to send a certain sum of money but when Dad heard that it would not be enough for all the women to receive sewing machines, he talked to Mom and said that they needed to send more so all the women could have a sewing machine. His big heart would not allow some of the women to go without.
I should mention my Dad’s sense of humour. He truly was a man of integrity but that didn’t mean he didn’t like to have fun and laugh. He loved joking even if he was the butt of a joke. Some of the heartiest laughter I have ever heard was when he was with his cousins The Dahl Boys. They loved to tease each other. They teased him about having to wear women’s shoes with the heels cut off when they were refugees because that’s all he could find to wear while they were fleeing.
He also loved to have fun at theme parks, whether Castle Fun Park, Knot’s Berry Farm, or the greatest of all Disneyland! We all have so many memories of his joy when we travelled. He took our whole family to Disneyland, seven people crammed in one car in 1968 when not a lot of Mennonites took that kind of trip, and then Mom and Dad did it again when they took Trudy and me to Disneyland again in 1974. Dad loved to travel with his family and with his dear Gertie elsewhere too, traveling to Ukraine, Scotland, England, Germany, Israel, Holland, Hawaii, Quebec, Virginia, Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, and to wherever his children lived.
He was so proud of our education. He wrote that “I was unable to get formal education during my years but all of our five children have obtained university degrees (9 in total, for my 5 children) and I am so proud of them!” But Dad was really smart and a constant reader, which is a key predictor of how well children do in school, particularly boys, and he gave himself an education and allowed us to succeed in school. He was always reading the newspaper, in fact, he had Jim get him a paper to read just days before he died, and he was always reading the Bible. In the 1980s I heard the great Canadian novelist Robertson Davies give a lecture, later published as Fiction of the Future, in which he recounted the story of the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who read only the Bible and the daily newspaper, and it was through this reading Davies writes that Ibsen gained his profound and wide-ranging insight into human life (p. 4-5). Davies said that to be an educated person all you needed was the Bible and the newspaper. Honestly, I think we can all agree that our Father was a well-educated man, even if not formally acknowledged. I’m sorry he was not able to get the formal schooling he desired, but he had something better: a true knowledge of God and now he has even more than any education can offer. As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: 12, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” We should all seek this perfect education as our life’s goal.
Dad took his faith in Jesus Christ seriously. To him it was not religion just practiced on Sundays but a faith that guided all his decisions. Dad would remark that he often failed but God never failed us. Dad and Mom served as deacons at Clearbrook MB and it gave them such joy. They faithfully visited people in the hospital and nursing homes. He did this because he felt the overwhelming love of God and the mercy that God has offered us.
We should be grateful to have had a role model like Dad. Trudy wrote that sometimes Mom would say to her that “You’re just like your Dad” and that “I’m pretty sure she would say it when she was exasperated with me. But if someone said that to me today I think I would be very proud to be compared to him.” And I think we can all agree with Trudy: Dad was faithful to his wife, he loved and provided for his family, and he guided us in the pathways of the Lord. He lost his father at the age of 11, but God blessed us with him so that we could experience a complete life with our father. He saw his children grow up, and his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren. Psalm 128 tells us that the man is blessed who sees his “children’s children,” and doubly blessed is the one who sees his children’s children’s children. Our Dad was blessed by God and we will all miss him dearly until we meet him again.
Delivered by John W. Martens on behalf of his siblings on June 5, 2023 (on what would have been our father’s 93rd birthday.)
