Dave Harms says he inherited his love of history from his father, William Harms.
“He knew the value of things and he was always very practical. He was very involved in the Cooperative movement and was the one who eventually got them to put numbered signposts on the country roads. He was also one of the founding members of the Manitoba Historical Society and that’s how I got pulled into it; I was in there for years.”
Harms’ father, who passed away in 1998, also had a fascination for technology, and with the help of his grandson, Ashley, became adept at every new model of home computer.
“He started using genealogy programs because he could just keep adding to it. He had lots of people who contacted him for help with their own family genealogies.”
As the board chair for the Altona & District Heritage Research Centre, Harms also spends many happy hours parked in front of a computer, storing photos, documents and news articles so they can hopefully be valued and cherished for generations to come.
“I’ve always been involved with history,” he says. “It gets in your blood.”
Located on the main floor in the Golden West Plaza, the centre—more commonly known as the Altona Archives—was established in 1999 by an ad hoc committee made up of former mayor Al Schmidt, councillor Ted Klassen, Eugene Heinrichs, Ted Friesen, and Don Penner.
The roughly 450 square foot space may be small, but it’s packed wall-to-wall with generations of information relating to Mennonite history, businesses, institutions, churches, schools and local politics in the Altona and Rhineland area.
Much of the material is donated by families who want a safe place where potentially valuable documents and mementos can be stored and enjoyed by others.
“We get more and more all the time,” Harms says. “We still have lots of files to sort. I’ve scanned well over 44,808 photos.”
Shelves are lined with boxes stuffed with treasures, including photos, scrapbooks, journals, old transactions, school records, land titles, maps and original, bound copies of the Red River Valley Echo, the former community newspaper founded in 1941.
“They have a safe place here,” Harms says.
Everything is carefully catalogued and cross-referenced on a digital database for every researcher’s ease. If you want to find an old school photo, discover where your family lived in the 19th century, or who married who, this is the place to go. Visitors are welcome to visit on Mondays from 1 to 3 p.m. (excluding long weekends) or you can call a board member for access to the material.
The Heritage Centre relies heavily on grassroots support to keep running, with the help of local businesses, grants, and donations, as well as funds from the Town of Altona and the Municipality of Rhineland to cover operating costs.
Current board members include Harms, Al Giesbrecht, Albert Falk, and Art Wiebe while volunteers Liz Rempel Wieler, Tina Rempel Siemens, and Mark Villeneuve also lend a hand. And they’re always looking for new members who love history as much as they do.
Harms says through the years many people have helped out, out of pure pleasure. Some have passed on, but there is always another archivist willing to step in and take their place.
“We always welcome new members. It’s important for the next generation to become involved,” Harms says. “Otherwise, it quits. Someone needs to take an interest, and take this on, after we can’t.”
Falk stepped in as board treasurer last fall after the passing of long-time member Jake Rempel. He joined the board because he also loves history.
“I was always into science in university. As I have more time, I realize there were questions I should have asked that I didn’t ask, and those people are no longer there. Things that are put down on paper have a value because they pinpoint a moment in time.”
He added, “My mother’s brother did a bit of a biography, and he would ramble on, but one time he mentioned his 93-year-old grandmother from Blumenfeld. If he hadn’t put that in there, I wouldn’t have known to look for her burial place in the Blumenfeld Cemetery. Now I’m looking for my grandfather’s siblings in Russia, and of course Die Mennonitische Rundschau was the Facebook of the late 1800s to the 1920s, and there is just so much information there. And if that information gets lost, it is lost. And if people don’t have access to it, it will die with this generation and disappear.”
