Brief biography of Peter Penner

  

Peter Penner, researcher and writer, was born in Siberia in 1925 and came toCanada with his parents Peter and Katharina Wiebe Penner in the very next year. He grew up in Vineland/Beamsville [now Lincoln, Ontrio]. His junior and high school education was gained in theNiagaraPeninsula. He married Justina Janzen in July 1949. They have two children: Robert, with daughter-in-law Angela Parkes, and two grandsons, Justin David and Jonathan William Penner, living inCalgary; and Ruth, currently living inCarson City,Nevada.

             For some years he dedicated himself entirely to the Mennonite Brethren (MB) Church, eventually training atMennoniteBrethrenBibleCollegeinWinnipegfor the ministry, 1950-1953. He served his home church and this denomination in various capacities until 1964, having however begun to improve his education in history. His undergraduate degree came from theUniversityofWestern Ontario, and he earned his MA and PhD in History atMcMasterUniversity,Hamilton, in 1962 and 1970.  

            In 1965 Penner took a lecturer’s position in History at MountAllisonUniversityin Sackville, New Brunswick. He rose through the ranks until in 1983 he was made Professor of History. Over a period of twenty-seven years (including three sabbaticals) he taught British and European history, including Russian and Soviet history, with a speciality in British India. His first of three sabbaticals included four months in Northern Indiaduring 1972-73, having been awarded a Shastri Scholarship for that period. He served the Department of History as Head from 1985 to 1992. He published four books on various aspects of the 19^th centuryIndia (British) Civil Service.           Following retirement in 1992 he was honoured with the title Emeritus Professor of History of Mount Allison University. In Sackville, for recreation and exercise, Peter actively pursued jogging, helped in 1980 to get the Terry Fox Run started in Sackville, and was part of the adult badminton scene at the University gym.

            In 1965 Penner turned to teaching and took a lecturer’s position in History atMountAllisonUniversity, a United Church of Canada-related university, inSackville,New Brunswick. He rose through the usual ranks until in 1983 he was made Professor of History. He had three full sabbaticals, two inLondon,UK, and one inFresno,CA. He was inIndiaon a Shastri Indo-Canadian Scholarship for four months during his first sabbatical, 1972-73.

            Over a period of twenty-seven years he taught British and European history, including Russian and Soviet history, with a speciality in British India. He served the Department of History as Head from 1985 to 1991. He published four books on various aspects of the 19^th century India (British) Civil Service. Two were new editions of 19^th century books [Frederick John Shore and John Beames]; while two were full-length studies: 1) Robert Needham Cust: A Personal Biography (1987); 2) The Patronage Bureaucracy in North India: the Robert M. Bird and James Thomason School, 1820-1870 (1986).

            After retirement in 1992 he was honoured with the title Emeritus Professor of History. MountAllisonUniversitywas ranked by Maclean’s at the very top of small Canadian universities for the years 1991 to 2002.

            Once in New Brunswickthe Penners became members of SackvilleUnitedChurch. This meant that Peter was prepared to give up his ordination status. Subsequently he and Justina worked in that church and conference from 1967 to 1991. Throughout this time they were always known as Mennonites in the UCC and at the University. Over the years they fostered the growth of MAP, meaning Mennonites in the Atlantic Provinces, an annual retreat towards the realization of an Anabaptist-Mennonite presence in Eastern Canada, complete with MCC-appointed personnel and MDS contact persons. Representing MAP, Peter was elected to the Board of Mennonite Publishing Service, the publisher of the Mennonite Reporter, serving a full term of nine years, the last five (1986 to 1991) as secretary.

            Peter Penner has been a frequent contributor since 1952 to MB and inter-Mennonite papers and journals. He has also published three books on the Mennonite Brethren, Reaching the Otherwise Unreached (1959), being the early history of MB outreach in British Columbia, and No Longer at Arm’s Length: MB Church Planting in Canada (1883 to 1983) (1987). A third, telling the story, based on primary sources, of the MB who worked in India, was published in 1997 under the title: Russians, North Americans, and Telugus: The MB Mission in India, 1885-1975.

            During twenty-nine years in Sackville, Peter has been active in the Westmorland

Historical Society of which he and his wife Justina are life members. Peter was President 1975-7. He was a member of the Rotary Club of Sackville from 1979 and is a Past President. To cap his association with SackvilleUnitedChurch, he wrote its 200-year history in a book entitled The Chignecto ‘Connexion’: The History of Sackville Methodist/United Church, 1772 to 1990 (1990).

            Sports-minded and athletic throughout his life, Peter actively pursued jogging for many years, helping in 1980 to get the Terry Fox Run started in Sackville before it became official. For fifteen years he was also part of the adult badminton scene at the University gym, having learned to play the game at age forty-five.

            In 1991 the Penners joinedPetitcodiacMennoniteChurch,Petitcodiac,NB, located about eighty kilometres from Sackville.  This congregation is the only far eastern church in the new Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada (MCEC) that takes inOntarioandQuebec. After relocating toCalgary,Alberta, in July 1994, they joinedFirstMennoniteChurch, a memberchurchofConferenceof Mennonites inAlbertaand of MC,Canada. At the turn of the Millenium, however, the Penners began to attend a mainline church again, Grace Presbyterian Church, in downtownCalgary, and eventually withdrew from FMC.

            Meanwhile Peter helped to reactivate the Mennonite Historical Society of Alberta. Peter and Justina also belong to the Calgary Branch of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, and to this Society whose headquarters are in Lincoln, NE.  This Calgary Branch in the year 2000 requested of the City that Penner be made “honorary Calgarian,” white Stetson and all. Peter was also invited to become part of the Yarrow Research Committee (YRC) in 1998, and of the Board of the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) in 2002. The YRC, headquartered in Abbotsford, published two volumes on the Yarrow Mennonite Community covering the years 1928 to 1960 in the year 2002 and will eventually publish five volumes, a book of papers given at a 2003 Fraser Valley conference, a book of biographies, and a life of Johann and Tina Harder. The Encyclopedia  has gone global and began in 1906 to put the entire Mennonite Encyclopedia (five volumes) online.

            Once in Calgary Peter began to write his life’s memoir, broadening this to include family history and completed this more or less in 2002. All of this is based on a daybook and correspondence he has kept since age 22, and on documents he accumulated over the years. Also, once inCalgary, Peter was invited to join the Rotary Club of Calgary South. Supported partly by Rotary International, Peter and Justina did volunteer service inLithuaniaduring August to December 1997. Peter taught history in the College section ofLithuaniaChristianCollege,Klaipeda(the formerMemel), while Justina worked in the Library of LCC. In the fall of 2000 Peter undertook a second such stint as a Rotary Volunteer. He was hosted by the Rotary Club of Barnaul, Altai, Western Siberia, to teach ESL to two classes; one made up of students doing Physics and Engineering at the Masters level in the Altai State University; the other comprising Rotarians, their spouses, and friends.

            This brought him within 400 kms of his birthplace, Orlovo, near Slavgorod. With the help of his newBarnaulfriends he was able to visit the area for five days, being hosted by the Kornelius Berg family in Protassowo, about fifteen kms from Orlovo and eighty from Slavgorod.

            There is more detail about the Siberia trip in a brief entitled “Beyond All Expectations” and in two instalments in Der Bote (February 2002) entitled: “Was ich im Altai, Sibirien, gewonnen habe [what I discovered during my Siberia visit],” also in 2007 issue of Preservings now edited by John J. Friesen, “Setting our Sights on Siberia.” 

            In 2002 an impromptu group called the “Siberian Initiative” was able to engage Andre Savin, Akademgodorok,Novosibirsk, to undertake to cull out Mennonite materials from Siberian archives over the next eighteen months. Peter was fortunate to be able to meet this young (also German-speaking) Russian historian for twenty minutes during a few days of visiting inNovosibirsk. The gratifying sequel to this story is told in another place.

            Peter’s latest and probably last extensive project is to research and write the history of the Rotary Club of Calgary South for its 50^th anniversary to be observed in 2005. This manuscript was given to the printers in early July, 2004, and the book launching took place in November. Manchester to Calgary South, 1955-2005 (2004)

            Now, in 2007, Peter has (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to write the centennial history of Grace Presbyterian Church situated in the Beltline of Calgary. This was published as A Century of Grace: Grace Presbyterian Church (2008) 540 pages, coffee table size. Fortunately his reading at the doctoral level atMcMasterU. prepared him for an understanding of Reformation and Presbyterian history.   

Peter Penner, Emeritus Professor of History,  MountAllisonUniversity,                              

Updated 2007

---

[1] Manchester to Calgary South, 1955-2005: Rotary Fellowship in Action. (Rotary Club of Calgary South, 2004) [386 pages, many photographs, printed by Friesens, Altona]