After a busy summer of events and visitors, Curator Andrea Dyck was happy to bring an artifact to the studio this morning!! 

This work was made by 2 young ladies for their parents' 25th Anniversary. They used tin, beads and their own human hair. 

Abraham and Katherine Riediger were married in 1868 and this was presented to them in 1893. The poem on it, was most likely written by the girls for their parents.

The Story: This family came to Canada in 1925 and made the effort to bring it with them. When it was donated in 2019, the donor said, "I can't for the life of me imagine why they would have brought it with them when they had so few opportunities to bring things in 1925."

Obviously it had lots of sentimental value, a taste of home and perhaps it served a purpose to hide money and different objects in it -- but no one knows why and Andrea's best guess is  for the sentimental reasons of remembering this heritage. 

Between 1923 and 1930 just over 24,000 Mennonites fled the Soviet Union for Canada.

This is all part of the Russlander Exhibit at the museum which will be up in the hall gallery till April 2020.