If you’re looking to learn more about the Mennonites living in Yarrow, British Columbia during World War II, you’re in the right place! This website will serve as a guide for that very topic.
After settling in the small farming area of Yarrow in 1928, Mennonite immigrants were ready to start a new life while still upholding their traditional values. When the War broke out in September of 1939, the Mennonites found themselves persecuted by the rest of Chilliwack, despite pledging their loyalty to Canada and the British Empire. Although pacifism was strongly rooted in their religion, many Mennonites found themselves driven to serve in some capacity, either in combatant or non-combatant units.
Major global historic events, like the Second World War, can be difficult for people to relate to because they often occur far from home and from daily life. This website seeks to bridge that gap and shed some light on how the War affected and impacted those on the home front.
To Fight or Not to Fight: Yarrow’s Mennonites in World War II will help those who feel like World War II was “an occasional distant rumble of guns”2 to instead feel a local connection to the War through the story of Yarrow’s Mennonites.
- Yarrow United Mennonite Church, early years, Mennonite Church British Columbia, https://mcbc.ca/article/8641-historical-sketch-yarrow-united-mennonite-church. ↩︎
- R. Scott Sheffield, “An Occasional Distant Rumble of Guns: The Second World War in British Columbia’s Historiography,” BC Studies, no. 213 (2022). ↩︎