Mennonite Mirror, October 1979
The Kehlers living in the wider Steinbach region are a truly remarkable clan. Not only are they as numerous as chokecherries in August, but like chokecherries they grow in dense family clusters in close proximity to each other. There the comparison breaks down. Chokecherries are silent, waiting to be picked. The Kehlers are never silent and anything but passive. They are active, spirited and vocal – if not downright gabby. They never stop talking and when they have nothing more to say they go on talking for the sheer pleasure of it. When Kehlers get together the air turns into a whirlwind of words and laughter. As the Kehlers themselves like to say: ‘Never bury a Kehler until you’ve made sure his mouth is dead too.’
In August, the Kehlers held a one-day reunion in the Mitchell Arena, near Steinbach. Both physically and symbolically an arena is the proper place for a Kehler clan reunion. In this case the site was fitting for another reason. The new arena in Mitchell happens to be built on what was once the south-east corner of the original Kehler family farm. Local residents waited nervously for this momentous gathering of the clan. Many made plans to be away from home that weekend, hoping that the neighborhood would not have been declared a disaster area when they got back. Some took new comfort in the hope that their brand new arena was sturdy enough to withstand the vocal onslaughts of hundreds of celebrating Kehlers of all ages.
And so they met. In backslapping waves and in full cry. By noon the sand floor of the arena had been churned into a fine beige mist which hung in the air and mixed freely with the vocal clouds (not to mention the vocal chords) and the volleys of boisterous laughter. In the morning, Kehlers of all shapes and sizes settled down long enough to listen to a bilingual church service. Then they descended on the long trestle tables laden with enormous plates of cold farmer sausage, heaping bowls of potatoe salad and jars of dill pickles. As they chewed and sipped they continued to swap yarns, gossip and family anecdotes. A few of the younger, city-bred Kehlers looked a little bewildered by all this rustic animation and Low German gusto, but they were quickly swept into the hot vortex of family reunion and were soon swirling around with the others.
In the afternoon, there was a long, largely improvised programme of family history, songs and hearty doggerel verse (mainly in Low German). A long line of family spokesmen took turns at the mike, each one more garrulous and humorously anecdotal than the last. By the time Faspa rolled around, the tide of talk was beginning to ebb and exhausted verbal swimmers were gasping on the sand like beached whales. But all agreed that it had been a great day, that the arena had borne up well and that the earth was still (surprisingly) spinning on its axis.
For three generations, the fertile Kehler clan has thrived and multiplied and helped to fill the Steinbach area. By now they have spilled over into Winnipeg and other places. The founders of the family were Jacob and Elizabeth (Schultz) Kehler, who came to Manitoba, as children in the 1870’s. Their union produced eight sons and three daughters who lived to maturity. Several other children died in infancy. The descendents of these grandparents now number 613 (no doubt the count had already risen since the reunion). Of that number, almost 500 attended the reunion, and only a handful of them were from out of province, a fact that gives some indication of what a close-knit and localized family this is.
Jacob, the patriarch and begetter of this line, was universally, known as “Berliner” Kehler. He was, by all accounts, a fascinating man. Small, dark and round in his prime, he possessed a magnetic personality and was a masterful raconteur locally famous for his quick wit and jovial manner. When people began to call him “Bush” Kehler because of the large amount of brush that grew on his farm, he decided to select his own more favourable nickname, Having as a boy travelled through Berlin on his way over from Russia, he declared himself to all and sundry to be a “Berliner”. The sobriquet caught on and became the most famous nickname in the East Reserve. Although without much formal education, Berliner Kehler spoke half a dozen languages and was much in demand as an interpreter for political candidates in local election campaigns. With a squad of husky sons at home to look after the farm, he could afford to take the time for such activities.
Elizabeth, his wife, was small, delicate and quiet, but raised her large brood with the calm efficiency of a ship’s captain. The oldest was Marie, who died early after giving birth to a girl. Then a long line of boys: Jacob, George, Aaron, John, Peter and David. Then Susan, followed by Henry, Elizabeth and finally Cornelius. By the time Berliner died of cancer in 1923 the children were all grown up and most of the boys were on farms of their own. And busy raising their own large families.
When it came to talking, this second generation of eleven children took after old Berliner himself. And how they could talk! Friendly, warm and personable, the regaled each other, friends and acquaintances with an endless stream of joke anecdotes and stories. When they got together they required no artificial stimulants like wine or liquor. They got drunk on each other. Their houses trembled and shook with their loud bellows and whoops, their heaving salvos of mirth and cries of mock astonishment as they told each other ever more whopping lies and outrageous stories. Everyone knew that the Kehler boys stretched the truth, but no one minded. “If the truth can be stretched” people said of them fondly, “then the Kehlers must own the biggest collection of rubber bands in Manitoba.”
Now only Susan and Henry are left of that second generation. They were both at the reunion, mere shells of their former selves. Widowed Susan (Kehler) Wieler is 82, the senior member of the clan. She spends most of her time in a wheelchair, but her wit and tongue still show flashes of their old sharpness when she is stimulated by other talkative branches of the family range in size from 18 to 87 descendants.
It’s safe to say that for sheer size and vitality and joy of life this Mennonite clan would be hard to match anywhere. And talk about being healthy and well adjusted! In the history of the Kehler family, there has only been one sub-normal child, which died in infancy, and no serious mental disorders in any of its members. Family breakdown? Almost unheard of. Only three members of the clan have experienced the bleak defeat of divorce.
Most of the older Kehlers have only a minimal of formal education, although the third, and especially the fourth, generation are doing better in this respect. But while even today a few of the Kehlers have gone to university, there are no bums among them and precious few of them have abandoned their Mennonite faith or lost themselves in the mainstream of society. The first two generations preferred farming and carpentry. Today some of the favourite trades among the Kehler men are constructions, trucking, auto mechanics and factory work. It is still very much a blue-collar clan. There are, of course, exceptions. A few are doing very well in business, thank you. One grandson in Calgary is the manager of four Eaton’s stores; his brother in Winnipeg operates 18 roller rinks in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Another grandson is a highly successful salesman and the owner of a large insurance agency in Winnipeg. Another grandson is a university professor and a great-granddaughter is just beginning a law career.
Not one of the Kehlers has achieved wealth, however, and none is famous or ever likely to be. And most of them would tell you that they don’t much care about wealth or fame. Individually, most of them are lacking in sophistication, ambition and hard driving intelligence necessary for material success in our society. But collectively, as a clan, they are rich in exactly those qualities which seem to be in short supply among the successful of this world. They are caring, unselfish and delightfully spontaneous human beings. The Kehlers love God, other Kehlers and the rest of mankind, in that order. If they frequently give vent to their zest for life with more noisy exuberance and naive hilarity than other people, they also retain an innocence and charm that make them as attractive as they are irrepressible. They are really very much in the tradition of “die Stillen im Lande” – except that someone forgot to tell the Kehlers about the quiet part.
Yes, Berliner Kehler and his wife Elizabeth sowed the seed for a mighty clan of warm, gregarious Manitoba Mennonites, I know. They were my grandparents too.
The preceding article, written by Al Reimer, first appeared in the October, 1979 issue of the Mennonite Mirror. The Mennonite Mirror was published 1971-1990 with ten issues a year. It described itself as an inter-Mennonite news magazine for the Mennonite community of Winnipeg and Manitoba. Its aim was to “… make us reacquainted with each other and with the institutions that we have created.” While primarily in the English language, the magazine also had a regular German language section. After the close of the magazine, ownership was assumed by the Mennonite Literary Society.