Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43 Poppy Chair Margaret Storey says a few words in front of the cenotaph in front of city hall on Friday morning during a cermony to open the Royal Candian Legion’s 2020 Poppy Campaign.
Klassen column header
I really wanted this column to be about potatoes and their importance in my family. After all, my grandparents’ family nickname was “Eitchocken Boyas,” meaning “Potato Bergens.” However, since I am gifted, or cursed, with an advocate’s brain, my train of thought went from potatoes to poppies.
Mid-October is a bit early for snow. I had been counting on another two weeks of grass and crisp leaves on the ground. Mother Nature had other ideas, so I hurried to dig my potatoes. My fingers were freezing, even with new leather gloves. I put on a pair of wool socks to warm my freezing toes inside my rubber boots.
As I dug, snowflakes fell on my beautiful, fresh, whole potatoes. My thoughts turned to those who had dug rotten potatoes out of frozen dirt in Stalin’s Russia. They dug under the cover of darkness, hoping to remain unseen by the soldiers guarding the confiscated piles of their harvested grain and vegetables. Despite my own “hardship,” I knew that I had much to be thankful for.
That reminded me of those who fought wars in the freezing cold so that I could dig my potatoes and think my own thoughts, in peace. That brought me to think about my family’s history.
There are no war heroes in my family tree, only dead pacifists. My people’s legends are of men and women who were burned at the stake or stuffed into sacks filled with rocks and tossed into rivers. Faced with the choice to die, fight or flee, my people fled from their ancestral homeland in Northern Germany.
They fled to Russia, when Catherine the Great invited them to immigrate there in the 1700s. She promised freedom to practice their religion and, as part of that, excused them from military service.
After establishing themselves and their farms successfully, the Russian government reneged on Catherine’s agreement with the Mennonite immigrants and began to require military service. Again, my ancestors were those that chose to leave rather than fight, die, or compromise their faith. Leaving Russia before things got really bad meant they were not among those who scrabbled for rotting potatoes in the frozen dirt of Stalin’s Russia.
My ancestors settled in Saskatchewan, north of Saskatoon, in the 1890s. Agriculture was their preferred way of life, so they learned to farm in the short summers and to survive the harsh winters of Canada. My family’s nickname maybe came from their ability to grow potatoes, but more likely because they were so poor, they had nothing else to eat.
So I dug out my potatoes in peace because my pacifist ancestors were willing to start over, at least twice, in a hundred years. It is a peace maintained by many, by those that work to remind us of the importance of our freedoms and those who have served the militaries of the free world, in whatever way, since then. Despite being pacifists, many of my extended family honour that sacrifice by wearing poppies.
Which brings me to a Remembrance Day PSA. This year, Remembrance Day ceremonies will be very different, with the Canadian Legion recommending people commemorate from home, and not to attend ceremonies in person.
The official period to wear poppies is the last Friday of October to Nov. 11, so make sure you get yours. The Legion says poppies will be available at Costco, HSBC, London Drugs, Michael’s, People’s Jewelers, Princess Auto, Shoppers Drug Mart, Starbucks, the Source, Tim Horton’s, Via Rail, and Walmart. Get your poppy, take a photo of yourself wearing it and post it on your social media with the hashtag #GetYourPoppy. There is also a Place a Poppy in a Window Lest We Forget group encouraging people to put poppies in their windows, similar to putting hearts in our windows at the beginning of the pandemic. To buy beautiful poppy merchandise, go to the Legion’s webstore at poppy.ca.
Buy a poppy to support our veterans.
#GetYourPoppy.
Wear a poppy.
Lest we forget.
