Reimers have a story worth telling

By Aaron Epp  |  Friday, July 23, 2010

WINNIPEG, MB—At a time in life when most people are slowing down, Elizabeth Reimer Bartel is busy promoting her second book, a memoir titled About Those Reimers.

"I have always thought that the story of my extended family was a story worth telling," the 85-year-old says by phone from her home in Victoria, B.C. "It is really the story of an ambitious family who did very well. My grandfather became very prosperous and wealthy, and he had a large family. It was sort of the rise and fall of an empire, I call it."

Reimer Bartel's grandfather was H.W. Reimer, a Russian immigrant who became a wealthy merchant after starting a store in Steinbach, Manitoba in 1874. The book chronicles the family from the peak of their prosperity to the demise of their "empire" in the 1960s.

The book includes Reimer Bartel's reflections on what it was like growing up amidst privilege that most girls of the Mennonite settlements of the early 1900s could only dream of.

"The sad thing is, I took it for granted," says the writer, whose father John worked at H.W.'s department store before buying a car dealership in Sperling, Manitoba. "It was just the way it was. It was a very secure and idyllic childhood until I was six years old."

The demise of the family's empire was the result of a conflict over how H.W.'s wealth was to be divided after he and his wife died. It was to be divided among all nine of his children, but his son Henry felt that, as the eldest male child, he was entitled to all of it.

Reimer Bartel says the story includes how the family's Mennonite church community responded to the conflict, and also recounts a significant conversion her father experienced that led to him forgiving his brother.

"I hope people take away from the book that families are terribly important, and where you come from is important," Reimer Bartel says. "It made me realize how rich my heritage is and it taught me how to live a richer, fuller life."

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