When I was in 7th grade, I started researching my genealogy for a school project. It was through this schoolwork that I discovered my ancestors came not through the United States but through Canada. I was somewhat let down by this, as Canada did not seem sufficiently "cool." But it did help re-establish contact with the (larger) Manshreck clan north of the border. My Mom has exchanged letters with Jane Manshreck of Deloraine for a number of years since then.
Now, the "south" of Manitoba is still north of North Dakota, so the weather is pretty severe in winter. The University of Manitoba (an aggie school where I let Faulkner run in the fields) has electric outlets at each parking spot - of which there are thousands - to heat the car engines. I hazarded guesses at why my particular ancestor, great grandfather Charles, left Manitoba. What I didn't know is what brought the Manshrecks to Manitoba in the first place.
No Manshreck from my clan has ever personally contacted a Manshreck from this Canadian clan since Charles left Deloraine for Chicago almost 100 years ago. But the Internet had allowed me to connect with Al Manshreck, running a farm about 10 miles out of town. As I drive into Manitoba, the woods give way to familiar farm country, not all that dissimilar from any in the Midwest, but much more wide open. The flatness is stark. The sky is seemingly greater than 180 degrees, in a big wide arc with thousands of clouds. You've never seen clouds until you've seen them in a sky heavy with the weight of thousands of square miles.
I pull into town, past a few old barns labeled Manshreck and finally reach Al's place. Al has about 2000 acres, divided roughly into hay and wheat fields and about 2000 acres for grazing. About 500 head of cattle (100 grazers, 400 feed cows) 4 horses, and a dog named Jack. This is a real farm. I meet Al with a hearty handshake and notice the family resemblance (more so with Al than with me) and begin a tour of the farm, out to the still untilled prairie where his cattle graze and take care of their new calves. Later I help Al feed the cows, which involves (for me) learning about hay, silage, and punching a bunch of buttons on a big ass tractor. This is great stuff for the 3 year old inside your noggin.
Al and Laurie have 3 children, Rebbecca, Samantha and Chris. All are good at math. We all meet and share some stories. I learn that some relatives came to Chicago but changed their name to "Mann" during the First World war when being German wasn't viewed too well. Great grandpa once hit the wrong gear on a tractor and plowed it into the barn and got so pissed off he drove around and went through it again. I relate my stories of driving the FDR for comparison.
Al fills me on some family history, as his son Chris is working on this for a school project. The first Manshrecks settled in Montreal, thence to Ontario where they began farming. In the later 1800s, they became part of the great Canadian migration to settle the plains, mostly as a response to encroaching Americans. Canada was afraid of suffering the same fate as Mexico at the hands of land grabbers and 54'40" or fighters. So my ancestors first came to Winnipeg, and then to homestead on the cold, less than perfectly fertile plains of southwestern Manitoba, around the town of Deloraine.
We head out in the pickup to the old family farm, the barn that was built in 1906 by great great grandfather Albert Reinhardt Mannschreck. It's a huge barn and a feat of carpentry, back in the day with no electricity. (This part of Manitoba didn't get electricity until the 1950s, and didn't get person to person phone service until 1989.) My Dad would have liked looking at the tongue and groove floor, and the special beams shipped in from British Columbia (fir lumber) to form the bulwark of the roof. The old family house built in 1907 is brick - wood was so rare in these parts that it needed to be shipped in from the Rockies, and the rocks needed to be pulled up out of the prairie for farming anyway - but they make poor insulators in the biting cold. Al notes the house is a "hooer (sic) to heat." I also hear my first "ay" at the end of a sentence.
The house is boarded up now as Ralph Manshreck, who inherited this particular farm, died of cancer 6 years ago. His son John now lives in Vancouver and I'll visit him on the way back. The quality and expanse of the loft above the barn wishes this farm were in Massachusetts - it would make a perfect office space.
We have a big dinner at Al's parent's house (George and May) and I see a number of great old photos. The family relates that they remember my grandmother because she was quite the looker in the 1920s (the flapper age) and George used to carry the photo around and brag about who his brother landed in the Big City. We get steak while the dogs play outside, and then play some softball.
Seeing all this history, the huge barn, the homestead, the pig pens and cattle fences, this could have easily been my life if so many random chances didn't occur in the past. I wonder if I would have liked it. I ask Al if he wants his kids to take after him and he hopes not. Being a farmer is tough, and BSE has nearly ruined him. It turns out that he can now sell his beef in the States, but he can't ship his cattle to be slaughtered there, so local houses are charging twice as much for the work. It's also been raining for 10 straight days (soon to be 11) and a large amount of his fields are soggy and unable to be seeded.
Still, it seems more honest work than typing at a keyboard.
The farm also has an abandoned school bus (now up to its shoulders in water from the recent rains). It gives me ideas ...
-Tom
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