In the heart of Neubergthal, where tall poplars sway and time moves just a little slower, something quietly beautiful has been unfolding inside the Klippenstein house. It’s not just a renovation—it’s a resurrection.
Recently, artist and heritage enthusiast Margruite Krahn has been hosting painting bees for women with roots in the village. The project? Recreating the hand-painted floor patterns once crafted by the women who lived in these homes generations ago.
These delicate geometric designs, often inspired by Fraktur folk art, are being lovingly restored by their descendants, right on the floorboards where they first appeared more than a century ago.
“This is a tribute,” Krahn explains, gesturing toward the living room floor now bright with carefully traced patterns. “It’s a lot of work, but I realized as I was restoring that floor, why not invite the women connected to Neubergthal to come and honour their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who did this?”
The Klippenstein house, built in 1910, belonged to Elizabeth Klippenstein, one of the first Mennonite women in Manitoba to manage a farm.
“She ran the farm with her father-in-law after her husband Bernhard died young,” says Krahn. “She was strong, independent—and the women in the village remember her.”
Now, women are once again gathering in this historic space—not for baking bread or quilting, but to paint. To restore. To remember.
Ty Linklater, whose grandmother grew up in Neubergthal and who has also volunteered for the Neubergthal Heritage Foundation, reflected on the emotional weight of the experience.
“This is such a neat event. It’s brought so many people together who have connections to this place that might not have reconnected otherwise,” she said. “Getting to create these designs that have been a part of the history of Mennonite women has been really neat. I’m excited to see how it all turns out.”
Another volunteer, Jamie Karr, holds a special connection to the house—Elizabeth Klippenstein was her great-grandmother.
“It feels amazing to decorate the floor like this,” Karr shared, kneeling down with a smile. “It’s neat to come back here and dedicate her memory in this way. It’s a little hard on the knees, but it’s so rewarding.”
Krahn, together with curatorial team members Marilyn Hauser Hamm and Pauline Villeneuve, has worked meticulously to ensure authenticity.
“We’ve stuck to the original designs,” she says. “Under the old flooring was the original painted pattern. I wanted to preserve that.”
Restoration began with peeling back layers—of linoleum, paint, and time. The team scraped, sanded, matched colours, and used Norwegian linseed oil mixed with natural pigments to replicate the century-old designs with stunning accuracy.
“It’s more than petals and flowers,” Krahn notes. “It’s really abstract, geometric motifs. Those kinds of patterns were rare. That’s why I think either Bernhard or Peter Klippenstein, both Fraktur artists, designed them.”
The walls, too, are being brought back to life, dressed in vintage wallpaper and wainscotting chosen to match the era.
“Marilyn, Pauline and I did the wallpapering,” Krahn smiles. “It’s part of the aesthetic—when people come to the café, they’ll be surrounded by this beauty. They’ll see what the women have done.”
That’s the ultimate vision—a fully functioning café housed in the Klippenstein house, expected to open this summer. It will serve as a gathering place for the community, and a visual love letter to the village’s past.
The tradition of the nepharane—women gathering for crafts, conversation, and coffee—is being reimagined here.
“And people don’t always know what it’s about,” Krahn chuckles. “I’ve heard that several times. But then they come here and it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is fun.’”
Since 2001, Krahn has been unearthing and documenting painted floor patterns in Mennonite housebarns across southern Manitoba and beyond. Her research, which has taken her as far as Mexico and the Netherlands, culminated in the exhibition Resurfacing: Mennonite Floor Patterns, a celebration of these hidden works of art and the stories they hold.
Now, in the quiet of Neubergthal, those patterns are resurfacing not just on gallery walls, but in the very homes where they began. And the hands restoring them are connected by memory, community, and a shared reverence for the women who came before.
