COLUMN: Carillon Flashback July 20, 1998 – Schilstra exhibit at MHV tells story of early Steinbach doctors

The Schilstra exhibit at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach documents the life of Steinbach’s first doctors.

While parts of the story are shrouded in mystery, there are enough artifacts and papers on display to pique interest and lead visitors deeply into the lives of the Schilstra family, so that they will almost feel they know them.

This has certainly been the case for museum curator Daryl Friesen, who worked for eight months on the exhibit. Anyone exploring the history of Steinbach will be delighted by the wealth of information, while musing on how these ‘outsiders’ became an integral part of the Mennonite community.

The artifacts came from the estate of P. J. Reimer who purchased the Schilstra property at 218 First Street in the late 1980s, after Maria Hughena Schilstra, the last remaining Schilstra heir, died in a local nursing home.

Before the house was torn down to make way for a duplex, Reimer discovered a wealth of Schilstra memorabilia which was moved to an empty barn on a property near Steinbach.

Since Reimer passed away, the artifacts have remained in the barn until Garth decided it was time to fulfill his father’s wishes and donate the material to the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum.

As the museum curator pulled items from the boxes, mostly in remarkably good condition, the story fell into place and the decision of what to display became increasingly more difficult.

Friesen decided to place the articles in somewhat of a chronological order, to give the story movement, as well as to highlight the more significant parts of the Schilstras’ medical practice and family activities.

In the late 1800s: Alexander Schilstra, from a Dutch Reform background, attended the Toronto Trinity Medical College, while Sara Anna McConnell, who was of Scottish Presbyterian lineage, studied at the affiliated Ontario Medical College for Women.

The Schilstras were married in 1904 and decided to move to the frontier of Western Canada to pursue their dream of setting up their own medical practice.

Their train fares took them as far as Winnipeg, where they heard that Gretna needed a medical officer. Their two children were born there; Maria Hughena in 1906 and Urquhart Alexander in 1908.

The Schilstras stayed in Gretna for five years, spending short periods of time in Steinbach during this time. After leaving Gretna, the Schilstras lived in British Columbia and Ontario, and in the Bermuda Islands where Anna had a sister. Alexander served as a medical officer during the First World War.

In 1919, the family was asked by acquaintances to return to Steinbach as village doctors, with Alexander assuming the additional post of medical officer for the RM of Hanover.

The doctors stayed in Steinbach for the rest of their lives, running a very successful medical practice out of their home on First Street. Anna suffered from asthma, which weakened her lungs and she died in 1942, at the age of 71. Alexander lived at the Rest Haven Nursing Home in his later years and passed away in 1962, at the age of 90.

Their daughter, Maria, who never married, also remained in Steinbach, living with her father until he moved to Rest Haven, while Urquhart left Steinbach in his mid-twenties to live in Toronto with his wife Lillian.

Much of the MHV exhibit focuses on the medical history of the Schilstras. There is an old-fashioned hospital room, complete with white gown, baby scales and various medications (still unopened) ranging from diphtheria antitoxin to kidney pills.

There are records of visits in careful detail, medical tests on toxicology, midwifery and surgical instruments, and information booklets on scarlet fever, measles and typhoid fever.

Alexander Schilstra’s original army uniform is displayed on a mannequin and nearby are the original trunks, probably used to travel to Bermuda Islands.

Dr Alexander Schilstra, his wife Dr Anna McConnell, their son Urquhart and daughter Maria are buried in Clear Springs Cemetery.

– with files from Doris Penner