Walter Harms was born on September 2, 1940, in the small orchard community of Oliver, in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. He was the first son of Jake and Mary Harms.
Although Jake and Mary had met and married in Oliver in the summer of 1938, they were both new arrivals in Canada. Born in Ukraine to Mennonite parents, they eventually made their way to Canada in the waves of Mennonites who immigrated in the wake of the Russian Revolution in the 1920s.
Mary was born in 1907 in Einlage, Ukraine, a small and increasingly crowded Mennonite colony. Her parents heard that land was more plentiful in the southern regions of Siberia, so when Mary was two years old, the family set off with her and her four older siblings to see if the rumors were true.
They settled in Suvorovka, Altai Krai, Siberia. Although her father was a furniture maker by trade, he turned his efforts to farming in order to provide for his family. Farming in the remote settlement of Suvorovka was grueling work and included occasional disruption by menacing bands of Kyrgyz horsemen. When it was time to sell the harvest, farmers traveled with horses and heavily laden wagons to the railhead, a day’s travel each way.
Despite the hardships, Mary remembered her youth in Suvorovka fondly. She recalled how wildflowers blanketed the grasslands, known as the steppes, where she rode her horse, feeling the wind in her hair and breathing the scent of grass and flowers.
Her parents had two more children after arriving in Suvorovka, both boys–Jakob, and Heinrich. By that time, Mary’s older siblings, one by one, left the family home for work or marriage. Her older sisters Katharina and Margherita married, and Katharina moved to a different village with her new husband. Mary’s oldest brother, Johann, took work in a psychiatric hospital, where he met a premature death by the hand of one of the in-patients. The family was still reeling from that news when Margherita also died. A quiet sadness blanketed the family as they carried on the arduous work of daily life in an unforgiving land.
One day in 1922, the world as Mary knew it came to a stark end when her father unexpectedly died. He was 57 years old. Only days later, her mother also died unexpectedly, though she was only 45 years old. Within the course of a week, Mary and her brothers–Peter, Jakob, and Heinrich–were left grieving and orphaned. Their modest home was sold to settle debts, and other Mennonite families took Mary and her younger brother Jakob in. Jakob went to work for a family in a nearby village. Mary was taken in as a domestic worker for the Enns family, but little Heinrich, who was still a toddler, was sent to an orphanage.
Mary was 14 years old when she began working for the Enns family. The Enns had a large family with many children, and Mary helped look after the youngest. Mr. Enns was a schoolteacher, so the family didn’t have much money, but they cared for Mary as though she was one of their own.
In the late 1920’s, the Enns family joined a wave of Mennonites fleeing Siberia, where they faced increasing political upheaval and hardship. Most had their sights set on Canada. As the travelling groups approached borders, officials often separated travellers and sorted them into “categories”. They sorted Mary into the “worker class” of refugees and moving her into a different group from the Enns family.
She spent some time alone, traveling among a group of other working-class migrants. When she arrived in the port city of Riga, Latvia, to board the ship to Canada, she was relieved to find the Enns family there. They would be on the same sailing. It was a blessing, as Mrs. Enns gave birth to another child on the crossing and struggled mightily with seasickness. Mary stepped right back into her role as caregiver for the other young Enns children and helped Mrs. Enns any way she could.
Upon arriving in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Mary once again found herself alone, separated from the Enns family. The Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, who were helping Mennonites from the colonies in Ukraine and the broader region resettle in Canada, sponsored Mary as a refugee. They paid for her passage to Canada, and her room and board upon arriving in Canada, and she would need to pay it back as quickly as possible. She was in her late teens, alone, and spoke no English.
The Canadian Mennonite Board of Canada placed Mary at the Ebenezer Girls’ Home in Winnipeg, along with other young women who had made similar journeys. It was comforting to be among others who spoke German and shared familiar experiences, and she formed close friendships there. She stayed only briefly, leaving once she secured work as a maid for the Fyfe-Smith family.
The Fyfe-Smiths, a Scottish family, treated Mary well and helped her learn English. She accompanied them on trips to their summer home at Lake of the Woods, which she enjoyed. Even as a young woman, Mary was something of a tomboy. She was a strong swimmer, skilled with horses, and a capable deer hunter, so she enjoyed exploring the outdoors at Lake of the Woods very much.
Her employment with the Fyfe-Smith family enabled her to repay the debt she owed to the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization for her travel expenses to Canada. Once she had paid her debt and the Fyfe-Smith family no longer had work for her, Mary, following the suggestion of friends she had made in Manitoba, travelled west to Vancouver, where she found work as a kitchen helper for a wealthy family.
In 1938, a friend she met back in Manitoba invited her to visit her in Oliver, a small town in the Okanagan region of British Columbia. Mary made the trip and reunited with her friend. There was a strong Mennonite community in the Okanagan, as young men arrived in the area seeking jobs in the orchards and stayed for the dream of one day owning their own land. There were a lot of bachelors around, but one in particular caught Mary’s eye. Jake was younger than her–a full five years younger–and the nephew of her friend, but his friendly, humorous manner and his enthusiasm for life attracted her. He also became smitten, and before long, they were planning their wedding.
Jake had been born in 1912 in the village of Grigorievka, Ukraine, a Mennonite farming settlement. Grigorievka was a thriving, well-managed community in an idyllic location.
“Then the war came. Like wildfire the traumatic announcement raced through the village in August 1914: “Germany has declared war against Russia!” A policeman had ridden his foaming mount onto the yard of the village mayor and tearfully delivered this message. Generally our people were patriotically inclined toward Russia. Until then we had been treated as full-fledged citizens, were trusted by the government and respected by our Russian neighbours. Surely no one should doubt our loyalty toward our Fatherland.” Memories of Griorievka, p.27
The outbreak of World War I had a profound impact on Mennonite communities in Ukraine, including Griorievka. Jake was only two years old when war reached the pastoral farming settlement in 1914. Men and boys from the village were drafted into the Russian army, despite Mennonite religious beliefs against taking up arms. Rather than fighting roles, the army assigned the Mennonite men to jobs as forest watchmen, medics, and administrative clerks. Women and younger children were left behind to maintain the settlement under increasingly hard conditions, worsened by the government’s commandeering of their horses, which were essential to farming. While Russian women received financial compensation for their husbands’ and sons’ wartime service, Mennonite families did not, adding to their hardship. Jake’s mother had an additional responsibility in caring for her young son, as he developed infantile paralysis, more commonly known as polio. Although he recovered from the disease by the time he was four years old, he required additional care until then.
The situation worsened during the Ukrainian-Soviet War (1917-1921), when Ukrainian forces, backed by German troops, fought for independence from Russia. The battlefield came dangerously close to the village–so close that a piece of shrapnel struck and wounded one of Jake’s sisters outside their house. German soldiers, surprised to hear the Mennonites speaking German, set up an encampment in Griorievka. Jake recalled an afternoon when one soldier left his rifle leaning against a structure in the center of the village. His older brother, John, quietly snatched it up and ran away with it. The boys escaped the soldiers and no harm befell them for their prank, beyond what their very alarmed mother could provide.
As active conflict subsided, it had irreparably disrupted the once-peaceful way of life in Mennonite settlements. The community continued to face hardship. Starvation became a reality for many as the government persisted in confiscating crops and supplies, leaving families with little to sustain themselves. Many Mennonites emigrated to Canada in the 1920s, aided by organizations like the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization.
Jake’s family, however, chose to remain in Griorievka, as news of a slight reprieve arrived in 1921 when the “New Economic Policy” was introduced by the state. This policy reduced the portion of farmers’ yields claimed by the state, allowing them to sell the remainder and better provide for their families. Yet, despite this minor improvement, the once-prosperous communities struggled to survive.
In 1924, when Jake was 12 years old, the family felt they could not hold on any longer and joined other families in the migration to Canada. To Jake and his older brother John, the journey felt like a grand adventure.
They set out by train to Germany, and from there they continued to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, sympathetic Mennonites assisted them, and connected them to Mennonites in Manitoba, Canada, who sponsored them as refugees. From there, they travelled to Southampton, England, where they boarded the ship that would finally take them to Canada.
The ship carrying them across the Atlantic encountered rough seas. While most passengers sheltered below deck, battling seasickness as the ship rolled in the ocean’s swells, John and Jake sneaked up to the main deck. Clinging to the railing to avoid being thrown overboard, the boys made their way to the stern. Lying on their bellies, they peered down to watch the ship’s massive propeller rise out of the water as the vessel pitched in the heavy weather. The waves came almost up to their faces. From there, the soaked boys made their way to the ship’s dining room. Unsurprisingly, they were the only passengers there. The ship’s staff, amused by John and Jake’s enthusiasm and humour, brought them anything they wanted. It was a grand adventure, indeed.
By early 1925, the family arrived in Manitoba. Jake had completed three years of school in Ukraine and now could sit in on classes at a small school in Manitoba, in exchange for keeping the classroom fire stoked.
By 1933, at the age of 21, Jake, along with his brothers John and Pete, heard that land was available in British Columbia, so they set out to see for themselves.
The boys bought an old car for the trip, a Star. It had wooden spoke wheels. They set off west with enthusiasm, but quickly realized if they took a corner at any speed, the spokes flew out of the wheels. Frequent stops punctuated their journey, not only to fix the wheels but also to cool the engine, and a range of other repairs. They got as far as the small orchard town of Oliver, in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, before the car completely fell apart, and that was where the young men decided to stay.
They took work as orchard pickers, and before long, their mother and other siblings joined them. Jake’s father, not being a particularly committed family man, remained in Winnipeg, but in time, other relatives followed the family west, and settled in the Okanagan. Jake worked hard, and over the next four years, saved enough money to buy a two-acre lot in Oliver that had a small, one-room picker’s cabin on it.
Author’s Notes:
N.B.1: We often see our parents through the lens of their roles in our lives— caregivers, disciplinarians, cheerleaders. Perhaps they are our role models or mentors, but who were they before they became these things to us?"
To better understand who my parents were before they were, well, my parents, I set about interviewing them about their lives before marriage and kids. I started with my mom, and you can read her story here, and now, “Learning to Fly” is the story of my dad.
Walter Harms was the oldest son of Mary and Jake Harms, Mennonites who fled to Canada in search of safety and the hope for a better future. He was a curious child, always interested in the land they lived on, and how things worked. As a young man, this curiosity led him to respond to an advertisement for flying lessons, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Walter is my dad, and this is his story, as told to me in a series of interviews in 2024-25. The story is pieced together from Dad’s memory, photos, and documents. As we all know, memory is fallible. In the telling of this story, some names have been changed, either because they could not be recalled, or to protect the privacy of the person.
N.B.2: If you are interested in reading more about the Mennonite settlement of Grigorievka, Ukraine and the migration of its residents to Canada, you might find this account: Memories of Grigorievka, edited by Ted Friesen and Elisabeth Peters, published by the Canadian Mennonite University, to be enlightening.