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Hello good listeners and welcome to

Tales from the Menanite Heritage

Archives, a show about people, places,

and events from Menanite history. I’m

your host Dan Dick. Thanks for tuning

in. On the seventh day,

he rested

with a kind of fury, a ferocious,

fleeting nap before Fospa.

But on Monday, God said, “Let there be

work.” And there was work, a hell of a

lot of, “Thy work be done.” On earth as

it is in heaven will not be a place of

rest if God turns out to be a minite.

Give us our daily chores. Forgive us not

our sloth. Lead us not into relaxation,

but deliver us from idleness. for ours

is the grunt, the heave, and the hoe.

Until next Sunday anyway. Amen. That was

author David Elias reading his poem

entitled On the Seventh Day. I’ve

invited David to talk with me about an

eclectic mix of subjects that includes

his book, The Truth About the Barn, and

prolific writer and recordkeeper of

early pioneer, Peter A. Elias, and more.

Hi, David. Good morning. You were born

and raised in Winkler, Manitoba, and

studied philosophy and English at the

University of Manitoba. What else should

our listeners know about you and your

work? For the last number of years, I’ve

been writing full-time. Uh, but before

that, I was also an educator and uh

taught uh right through elementary

through into high school uh grade 12 uh

creative writing course that I

developed. And so kind of had

two careers in a way, both of which I’m,

you know, I’ve been quite pleased with.

I’m curious to know what prompted you to

write the poem you read at the opening

of this episode. you know, my upbringing

um from about the age of 11 or so when I

had developed enough muscle mass to be

of use

uh on the farm

was one of a great deal of physical

labor of a lot of grain shoveling and

fence post head, you know, digging and

just a tremendous amount of uh of

physical toil And so this whole idea of

the work ethic that is the the theme of

the poem is something that um is is I

think it is tied in with the religious

uh aspect of being a Menanite. I think

the two kind of go hand in hand. Is it a

stereotype? Well, yeah, of course it is

as all are, but certainly a lot of truth

behind it too. Yeah. Your book, The

Truth About the Barn, is partly a vast

collection of fascinating facts about

barns and all that surrounds them, and

partly memoir. I was particularly struck

by the stories about your father, whom

you describe as an ideas man who often

left you and your siblings in the

implementation side of those big ideas.

Looking back, how would you describe his

impact on your life and did he have any

influence on your decision to pursue

writing? Well, as far as his influence,

uh I would probably classify it as uh uh

somewhere between monumental and

catastrophic.

Um he was a force

to be reckoned with

and so that

was a part of my life you know all

growing up through my growing up years

all through my much of my adult years.

Um,

so

the best way I could probably put it is

that I can never decide whether I became

a writer because of my father or in

spite of my father. And I think probably

it would been a combination of both.

Your great-grandfather’s brother, Peter

A. Elias, was a prolific writer who

arrived on Manitoba soil circa 1875 on

what we know as the West Reserve.

Some of his letters, stories, and

memoirs have been translated and

compiled into a book called Voice in the

Wilderness.

I’ve read numerous historical accounts

by Menite writers. This one stands out

to me as being extraordinarily honest,

detailed, and explicit. Peter seems to

be in a constant state of conflict and

turmoil with church leaders. He points

out hypocrisies and he writes at length

in his own defense. He recently spoke

about Peter and his writings at a

conference. What is your take on his

life and his stories? I had not known

about his work

until I was um over at the archives just

down the hall here

um looking uh into some genealogy of my

own family.

Happened to be browsing uh the shelves

there and um as you may know they they

have produced a series of books. They’re

all the the same.

They’re all gold embossed with a black

cover and they all deal with some

element or aspect of Menanite life

history, etc. Menanite Historical Society

books. Yeah. Yeah. And so they had taken

Peter’s journals, translated them,

painstakingly done a lot of work and

produced this book of which I had no

knowledge whatsoever. Thought these are

interesting looking books. I looked at

one of them on the shelf and it said the

voice in the wilderness and the I said

the author is Peter Peter a Elias Peter

A Elias. Hm. We had a Peter Elias and so

on and my brain started going and I I

thought I don’t really know who this is.

I never heard of I never heard of any of

this. I there were never any journals.

Still, I mean, I I I took it off the

shelf and I paged through it and and

there on on on page 36 was a picture of

what looked like my great-grandfather.

And the caption below, sure enough,

Gardias,

born 1852, died 1952, brother of Peter

A. Elias. Well, that was quite a

revelation

to see my great-grandfather’s picture in

a book. Um and uh had you ever seen that

picture before? I had not seen that

picture before. Uh it was really I find

it a bit bit haunting almost that

picture. He seems to be looking at me

and he’s conveying some sort. I don’t

know what he’s thinking but he’s there’s

something going on there you know. I

mean this is just me projecting of

course but um I would certainly like to

um to meet him and and know him. I was

three years old when he died.

And um that that immediately got me

going as far as I’m going to read this

book and find out what’s going on here

and then discovered that he was, you

know, uh the younger brother of of Peter

and um and I knew that I I wanted to

read it and find out as much as I could.

There’s precious little in there about

Ghart

and there’s precious little about him

anywhere. uh I have found a few bits and

pieces here and there but um that was

the impetus for um

for uh getting to know the book uh

better and then for the the paper that I

gave which was um uh the theme which

which the theme was okay Peter Elias his

work I didn’t know there was somebody

who sort of came before me I thought I

was writing out of a literary vacuum

familywise

uh turned out I wasn’t there there was a

writer before me, you know, so that was

a big deal for me. Yeah, big deal.

What went through your head when you’re in

that book? It’s full of stories.

Well, you know, I I I I laughed at in

parts, you know, when he was talking

about um what the transgressions he

considered banworthy.

Uh that that I got a big kick out of

that. the bicycles really got me um when

he explained in great detail how it uh

how the the inner workings of what would

happen if a person should find

themselves in possession of a bicycle

you know um inadvertent to me he wasn’t

in that trying to be funny at all but I

thought he was is very funny uh I don’t

think he really in that book makes an

attempt at humor consciously

seemed to be pretty serious man I found

the uh the way that he would quote

scripture where he would often draw it

like a gun kind of you know to use an un

a metaphor he would not probably not

appreciate. Theologians I think the term

is the theologians use proof texting

well he I think he sometimes felt he had

to defend himself and then there were

other times where he felt like he needed

to read some people the riot act kind of

you know and wasn’t afraid to do it. Um

cuz because he had these extremely rigid

views about what was and wasn’t okay in

terms of behavior and thought and

action, you know, which which which is

kind of a typical Elias trait. Um I say

that a bit tongue and cheek, but the

Eliases are can be a little bit

notorious for uh um

being once they get an idea in their

head, they they’re going to run with it.

Yeah. interesting. Yeah, he was very

religiously knowledgeable

uh very well read

um especially the Bible and and I sense

the throughout the many of the stories a

real power struggle between him as a lay

person and the church authorities and

lots of disagreement about uh uh being

strict enough or being too strict.

there’s there’s all that tension going

on constantly through much of many of

the stories and that is the kind of

contradiction that makes us have

something in common because

for me uh you know when I meet and talk

to people and they find out about my

background and they hear that I was not

a member of any church that I didn’t go

to church regularly and my family didn’t

um that I wouldn’t be really consider

myself um religious in that sense. And

yet uh I uh they say, “But but but

David, you you you know so much about

the Bible. You know the Bible so well.

You know scripture. You know what? Like

what what’s the deal?” And I’m like,

“Well, that’s not really a

contradiction. And you can know the

Bible well and study it and inval and

find great value in it

and yet not necessarily

uh be part of an institution where that

where that book is is is part of uh of

the experience. Those things are not

mutually exclusive. Yeah. You have

visited the Menite Heritage Archives

from time to time to research books

you’re working on or have worked on. Are

you working on anything right now that

will take you back to the ma?

Well, I’ve got a book coming out this

fall. It’s We’ve finally decided on a

title. It’s going to be called into the

dark,

but dark is spelled small dward

slash capital A R K

because in the book there is a man

uh Abew Weeb who is a former preacher

and he is building a massive

edifice in the middle of a field and

nobody knows Why? And when they visit

him, his basic response is to quote

chapter and verse from the book of Job.

What to you is the value of an archive

in terms of you being a writer? That’s a

great question because it is much more

than just the printed material that will

be placed in front of you. It isn’t so

much what you find. It it sometimes is

but sometimes it’s the process

and in that process you become

uh much closer to the character that you

are going to fictionalize

or write about just because of what you

went through and not so much of the

actual ar um archive that you that you

gain access to. Yeah. Thanks so much for

a wonderful conversation, David, and

best wishes to you on your future

writing projects. Well, thank you. I’ve

enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. David

Elias has written about a halfozen

books, which you can find wherever fine

books are sold. To see photos related to

this episode, visit mharchchives.ca.

As always, we’re happy to receive your

comments and questions about this

program via email to info@

mharchchives.ca.

Hello, I’m Conrad Stace, the archavist

at the Midnight Heritage Archives. Your

donations help preserve and share

stories like the one you just heard. To

send a gift, visit our website at

mharchchives.ca

and click on support or give us a call

at 204-560198.

Thanks also to our partners, Canadian

Midnight University, the Center for

Transnational Menite Studies, Midnight

Church Canada, and Golden West Radio. In

an upcoming episode, I’ll talk with

Graeme Unra, the friendly face and voice

behind the desk and phone at the MHA.

Before Graeme returns to university this

fall, I want to pick his brain about the

people and stories he’s encountered in

his work. Thanks to the Tales team of

Conrad Dace and Graeme Unra for their

work on the program. And for the last

time, thanks to Kaylee Dick, who leaves

Tales to pursue new work. I’m your host

Dan Dick. Tales from the Menanite

Heritage Archives will be back soon with

more stories about people, places, and

events from Menanite history. Thanks for

listening.

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