A Prayer of Hope, Consolation, and Thanksgiving

At the Table of the Giesbrecht Family

by Andy Clement

In the fall of 1945 the Giesbrecht family of eight children, Lisbeth, Greta, Katy, Jacob, Gerhard, Peter, Helen, and Henry moved in from Manitoba, with their parents George and Katherine.  Of the Mennonite persuasion they took up a partially cleared former homestead.  Their home was over five miles from the school car. There were three girls of thirteen, eleven, and nine years, and a boy of eight, for school.  A note of their mileage walked in June to get to the school for a four day stop totalled forty-four or eleven miles a day.  Also noted was that the eldest daughter, perhaps because of other work at home, showed the most fatigue.  The youngest kept right up with the rest!

In the winter they arrived by sleigh. With daylight saving they would leave home in the dark.  Trained in Manitoba they suffered only for the slow tedium of the ride.  But the father made the sacrifice of hanging around the little store all day till four o'clock.

I was invited out to supper in the spring.  This was their way of saying thanks.  I was prepared for a frugal meal as I had seen those kids take only bread in their lunches at school.  Bless their hearts they had a chicken.  And they had vegetables, and some sort of dumplings, and dessert and tea.

There was a closing of the meal with a prayer.  Nowhere is a prayer more impressive than at the table of the poor.  Hope, consolation, thanksgiving are all there.  It was a godsend that the buses would call for them in the fall.  I heard later that the Giesbrecht family turned out really well.

Source:  A passage taken from by Andy Clement’s book, "The Bell and The Book" with minor corrections by Gerhard Giesbrecht, now George Grant from Eagle Lake, in Haliburton County, Ontario.