Tuesday Special: Consider the Sunflowers

Elma Schemenauer

https://elmams.wixsite.com/elma

Consider the Sunflowers paints a colourful, sometimes amusing picture of life on the home front during World War II and after.

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:

Amazon        Amazon Canada         Chapters Indigo 

Borealis Press


     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.

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Tuesday Special: Consider the Sunflowers with Elma Schemenauer

Elma Schemenauer

http://elmams.wix.com/elma

Inspired by a prairie Mennonite heritage

As a child I loved to hear coyotes howl on our family farm about halfway between Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan. I enjoyed riding on the hay rack, taming half-wild cats in the barn, and attending our country Mennonite Church in a white dress made from my mother's wedding dress.

I especially enjoyed my Mennonite relatives' stories about the Old Country (Russia), their voyage across the ocean, and their new life in Canada.

My relatives' stories and my own experiences inspired my 1940s-era novel CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS. Its main characters, Tina and Frank, enter into a marriage that's troubled from the beginning. She's a transplanted Vancouverite who feels lonely with nothing but open pastures and fields around her. A few trees around the house would help. But Frank doesn't want trees. They'd make him feel trapped. He needs to be able to see the whole sky, uncluttered.

That's just one example of what Tina and Frank argue about. She wants to attend the local Mennonite Church and socialize with Mennonites. He shuns Mennonites because some of them scorn his mixed parentage, which is Russian Mennonite and Gypsy. He prefers to socialize with his Scandinavian and British friends, who "don't carry all that Russian baggage."

Tina and Frank's relationship deteriorates as the story progresses. He resents the fact that she neglects her daily chores to paint pictures. She begrudges the time he spends with his Norwegian bachelor buddies. When she tries to convert him to her Christian faith, he says she should accept him as he is, not try to change him.

The birth of Tina and Frank's son draws them closer together. Then the infant's death drives them apart again. Frank, mourning his lost son and discouraged about his marriage, escapes to work in a copper mine in Montana. In his absence Tina rediscovers feelings for a former Vancouver boyfriend. Is there any hope for Tina and Frank's marriage? You'll need to read CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS to find out!

It's 299 pages, $19.95 paperback, publisher Borealis Press of Ottawa, ISBN 978-0-88887-575-4. Ask for it in a bookstore or library. Or order online from Amazon, or Chapters Indigo, or Borealis Press,

About Elma:  Springtime on the prairie was the topic of one of the first pieces of writing Elma (Martens) Schemenauer did as a child. Writing has been her passion ever since. She's the author of 77 books including YESTERCANADA: HISTORICAL TALES OF MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE and the 1940s-era Mennonite novel CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS. Elma was born in Saskatchewan. She taught there and in Montana and Nova Scotia. Then she spent many years working as an author and editor in Toronto. She now lives with her husband on a sagebrush-dot\ted hillside in Kamloops, British Columbia.


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YesterCanada: Historical Tales of Mystery and Adventure

The Write Way Café welcomes author Elma Schemenauer. In her book YesterCanada, she shares unique history of Canada, and answers questions, such as, Who put a jinx on Alberta’s lost Lemon Mine?

“Who wants to move to Canada?” asked my grandfather, Jacob Peter Martens. He glanced around the table at his wife and five children. Were they willing to leave their familiar Mennonite village in Russia and sail across the Atlantic to the new land?

“Yes, Canada!” the children chorused. Their mother shook her head. The majority won and the Martens arrived in Saskatchewan in May 1926. At first, they lived with relatives in the Swift Current-Herbert area. Later, they settled in the Elbow-Loreburn area, where I was born and grew up.

Life in the new land was challenging, but my relatives’ prevailing attitude was “Yes, Canada!” That’s my attitude, too. Love for this country and its history inspired my book YesterCanada: Historical Tales of Mystery and Adventure.

Published by Borealis Press of Ottawa, the book presents 30 historical tales spanning this great land and the centuries from the 1200s to the 1900s.

Some mysteries in YesterCanada involve eccentrics whose motives puzzle people to this day. One was a Finnish farmer who built an ocean-going ship near Macrorie, Saskatchewan, far from any ocean. Another was a hermit obsessed with the beauties of Niagara Falls.

Other mysteries in the book involve the supernatural, or seem to. For example, who rang the chapel bell in Tadoussac, Quebec one foggy April night in 1782? What mysterious power told an Atlantic Sea captain to change course and “sail to the nor’west?” Who put a jinx on Alberta’s lost Lemon Mine?

I’ve always been interested in faith, values, and the adventures they inspire. Stories in YesterCanada that especially reflect such themes include “Dr. Elizabeth of Onion Lake, Saskatchewan,” “A Nova Scotia Noah and His Ark,” “Lily of the Peace River,” and “Abigail Becker, Heroine of Lake Erie.”

I’m also interested in animals. Among those in the book are Manitoba’s haunted horse, the ten-armed monster of Newfoundland, and the camels of British Columbia’s Cariboo gold rush.

The narratives in YesterCanada are based on Canadian history, biography, folklore, and Aboriginal traditions. The bibliography in the back of the book lists my sources for each story.

YesterCanada: Historical Tales of Mystery and Adventure is a 248-page paperback with 30 illustrations, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-88887-650-8. Ask for it in a store or library. You can also order it online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo,or Borealis Press. For more information, please visit http://elmams.wixsite.com/elma .


About Elma:  Springtime on the prairie was the topic of one of the first pieces of writing Elma (Martens) Schemenauer did as a child. Writing has been her passion ever since. She's the author of 77 books including YESTERCANADA: HISTORICAL TALES OF MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE and the 1940s-era Mennonite novel CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS. Elma was born in Saskatchewan. She taught there and in Montana and Nova Scotia. Then she spent many years working as an author and editor in Toronto. She now lives with her husband on a sagebrush-dotted hillside in Kamloops, British Columbia.


Website      Facebook       Twitter       Blog

Amazon      Goodreads (YesterCanada)      Goodreads (Consider the Sunflowers)

AuthorsDen      Library Thing

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