JOURNEYS Mennonite Stories of Faith and Survival in Stalins Russia, John B. Toews, 1998

lost their father and their mother, and now little Jacob of whom they were so fond. They REMINISCENCES 29 needed my support and I was being selfish in my despair, neglect¬ ing their feelings. This was sinful and I could not continue in this way. Kneeling before the Lord once again, I cried tears of repent¬ ance. It suddenly became clear to me that I was not only the mother of these children, but had to carry on the responsibilities of a fa¬ ther as well. I prayed that the Lord would give me new strength and courage in order to make life happier for the children. The following day I was cleaning up my room when I heard the sec¬ ond youngest child come running in. The youngest piped up saying, “Shh! Frieda, Mother is singing.” This cut deeply into my heart as I realized how the children had longed for a song, for a cheerful glance .... I decided to visit my parents. While I was there, the Lord wonderfully blessed me with a son to replace my little Jacob. Some people thought that he wouldn’t live, because he was thin and ailing .... For me he was the most wonderful gift and I still feel this way today. Upon returning home from my parents home, I discovered that my neighbors had stolen a great deal from me. A large amount of flour was missing and the potato pile had decreased signifi¬ cantly. Furthermore the children had butchered our pig and most of the meat was gone. Things got steadily worse because I could hardly hide the money in a safe place where our neighbors did not find it. By spring things became impossible. We could not lock our doors because the neighbors had access to the cellar. While I was at work and the children were at work or school, they had com¬ plete freedom to rummage through everything. The thieving be¬ came so bad that I informed the children, “One morning, we’ll get up and find our clothes are gone.” Things could not continue this way, so I told the children that we were going to move into the barn. I laid the bricks for the interior walls of the barn, built a chimney, and brought in the stove. There had been a recent crop failure and I wasn’t sure how we would survive since so much of the flour had been stolen. Peter decided to quit school and go to work in the mountains where there was mining. Although he found work, the children and I continued to starve, especially little Alfred who could not get enough nourishment. I did not even have a spoonful of lard or a handful of flour in the house, and the cow produced no milk. All 30 JOURNEYS we had were potatoes and salt. Morning, noon and night, I pre¬ pared potatoes in every way I knew how. Poor little Alfred, who was only a few months old could not eat potatoes and continued to starve .... I found the situation extremely difficult. It was as if Satan stood next to me saying, “You have been forgotten by God. God’s mercy is at an end.” I could not pray that evening, everything was so dark, so very bleak.