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Early Mennonites were skilled in clockmaking

By ROWENA PLETT

Staff writer

Mennonites are an offshoot of the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. As agrarians, they had a long history of moving from place to place seeking more land, religious freedom, and exemption from military service.

They were known as hardworking, enterprising people. This led to their being invited from Holland to Polish-Prussia, then Southern Russia, and finally to the Americas.

Everywhere they went, they were pioneers, turning previously unproductive regions into highly productive areas.

One thing perhaps less well known is that Mennonites were skilled in clockmaking.

In the book, "An Introduction to the Russian Mennonites," written by Wally Kroeker of Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada, the author gives the history of Mennonite clockmaking.

The Mennonites' skill in clockmaking grew out of their skill in blacksmithing, which required a knowledge of mathematics, metallurgy, and precision engineering.

By the 1700s, a large group of Mennonite clockmakers existed in southwest Germany. They patterned their clocks after the long pendulum wall clock invented in the Netherlands in 1656 by the famous Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.

When many Mennonites were forced to migrate because of persecution for their beliefs, some went to Russia, and others moved to the eastern United States, taking with them their clock-making skills.

Johann Kroeger was the first Mennonite clockmaker in Russia. The skill was passed down through four generations.

For a time, back in Germany, Mennonite clockmaking was an underground industry because trade guilds did not permit newcomers to work or mark their products with their names. They continued to leave their clocks unmarked after they moved to Russia.

Kroeker describes a Mennonite clock as a simple design, "a large metal wall clock with long brass pendulum and driven by brass weights on a string. No frills, no fancy cabinet or glass case. Just a well-crafted clock."

Arthur Kroeger, a great-grandson of Johann Kroeger, migrated to Canada in 1949. He developed the skill to repair antique clocks.

"If a clock has no markings at all, it most likely will be a Kroeger," he says.

In one clock that was brought to him for repair, Kroeger was startled and pleased to find the initials of his father carved inside. He said his father would have been about 16 at the time, working in his father's shop.

Though the Mennonite clock was simple, it wasn't cheap. Kroeger estimates its cost was equal to two weeks' salary.

"The clock was one of the leading items Mennonites brought over from Russia," Kroeker writes. "For immigrants enduring poverty and hardship in their new land, the clock gave a sense of connectedness with their past. It reminded them of a time when they were still prosperous."

Kroeger estimates there are still a couple of hundred of the clocks in homes in Canada, the U.S., and Central and South America. One hangs in the Mennonite Heritage Museum at Goessel.

After a third of the Russian Mennonites migrated to the United States and Canada between 1872 and 1884, those who stayed behind prospered economically, culturally, and intellectually. It was known as the Golden Age, but it came to a frightful end after the Communist Revolution in 1917.

Entrepreneurship was stamped out, and many Mennonite clocks were destroyed by marauders who plundered their villages.

Kroeger's grandfather was beaten to death by anarchists. His father died in 1942 in a Soviet concentration camp.

Kroeker tells this story:

"Nestor Makhno, a brutal bandit, was known to take over a village and make himself at home in the most prosperous house. From there he would lecture village leaders on how life would now proceed under the revolution.

"On one occasion, a Kroeger clock bonged while Makhno was in mid-speech. The interruption startled him and in fury he tore the clock from the wall and trampled on it.

"When he left, the family collected the pieces. Years later, Arthur Kroeger was called upon to create a duplicate faceplate. The damaged original was donated to the Mennonite Heritage Center in Winnipeg, where it still bears the dents of Nestor Makhno's boots."

According to research done by Kroeger, Mennonite clockmakers in Russia manufactured some 10,000 to 12,000 clocks in a 100-year period. About 80 percent of them were made by Kroegers.

The story about Mennonite clockmaking is just one of many fascinating facts in the book, "An Introduction to the Russian Mennonites." The 128-page paperback provides a brief historical overview of the history of Mennonites up to the present time.

The author is a graduate of Tabor College, Hillsboro, and has a master of arts degree in theology from the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, Fresno, Calif.

His book was published in April 2005 by Good Books, Intercourse, Pa. It may be purchased on the web at www.goodbks.com., by e-mail at custserv@goodbks.com, or by phone at 1-800-768-3433.

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