Elma Schemenauer
As the story opens, it's 1940 and Tina Janz doesn't want to marry the man her pious Mennonite parents have chosen for her. He's as boring as turnips compared with the dashing half-Gypsy Frank Warkentin. Obsessed with Frank, Tina leaves her job in Vancouver and marries him. However, her joy is soon overshadowed by loneliness on Frank's farm in the prairie community of Coyote, Saskatchewan.
When Frank shuns local Mennonites because some of them scorn his mixed parentage, Tina feels torn between her Mennonite heritage and her husband. Their son's death drives the couple farther apart. Then Tina's former boyfriend shows up, setting off a series of events that send her and Frank stumbling toward a new understanding of love, loyalty, faith, and freedom.
Consider the Sunflowers is 299 pages, $19.95 paperback, publisher Borealis Press of Ottawa. You can ask for it in a bookstore or library. Or order online:
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Elma (Martens) Schemenauer is a child of Dutch-German Mennonites who immigrated from Russia to Canada in the 1920s. She spent her early years in a Saskatchewan farming community that later inspired the fictional setting for her novel Consider the Sunflowers.
At age eight Elma Schemenauer wrote a poem about spring, stuck it in a bottle, and threw it into a pond. That was her first foray into writing and publishing. She's been fascinated with them ever since.
After high school, Elma attended Briercrest Bible Institute (now College) at Caronport, Saskatchewan. She graduated with a diploma in Christian education. Later she attended the Universities of Saskatchewan and Toronto, earning a BA in English and psychology, and qualifying as a teacher.
Elma taught in Saskatchewan, Montana, and Nova Scotia. From teaching she fulfilled a lifelong dream by moving into a publishing career in Toronto. At first she worked in-house for an educational publisher. Then she went freelance, working for a variety of Canadian and American publishers.
She's the author of 77 books published by a variety of Canadian and American companies. Titles and publishers include: YesterCanada: Historical Tales of Mystery and Adventure (Borealis), Salmon (Grolier/Scholastic), Calgary (Weigl), Uganda (The Child's World of Minnesota), and Language Connections 4 (Nelson). Elma has also edited hundreds of books.
Elma enjoys speaking about writing, history, and other topics. Groups she has spoken to include The Word Guild, Canadian Authors Association, Federation of BC Writers, Abbotsford Community Library, Probus, Mountainview Alliance Church in Langley, and Kamloops Adult Learners Society.
In 2006 Elma and her husband moved from Toronto to Kamloops, British Columbia. There she writes, edits, blogs, and takes long walks on grassy hillsides that remind her of her prairie roots.Facebook Twitter Blog
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2 comments:
I am always completely in awe of people who write about history. Way to go!
-R.T. Wolfe
A very interesting post! Thank you for being on our blog!
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