THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN FOLKLORE SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
THE WATERLOO AREA CHAPTER
Past president Ralph Shantz rdshantz@golden.net
President Dean Martin dean@martindrainage.com
Vice – president Vernon Sherk vlsherk@kw.igs.net
Secretary Judy Rivers jrivers@kw.igs.net
Treasurer Dorothy Shantz rdshantz@golden.net
Membership Marilyn Sararus msararus@sympatico.ca
Directors:
Gladys Cressman, Orland Gerber, Willis Martin,
Sherwood Hagey, Richard Schiedel
Cliick on the Buttons for Chaper programms
The Chapter’s Beginning:
At a meeting held February 17, 1956, the Waterloo Area Chapter was organized with the election
of the following slate of officers:
Pioneer Memorial Tower, Doon – 1926
President:
Alson M. Weber
Vice-President:
Roy Snyder
Secretary:
Vera Schweitzer
There was a time when the Pennsylvania German dialect was commonly heard in Kitchener and
Waterloo and the surrounding countryside. The Waterloo Area Chapter sought to have a balance
of English and Pennsylvania German used in its entertainment at the annual meetings. On one
occasion a vocabulary match revealed the extent to which the dialect varies, depending on
geography and the erosion of time. Gradually it became clear that many members did not speak
the dialect and in 1993 the executive decided that all announcements must be in English to
ensure clear understanding. As time went by recitations and skits which had once been presented
entirely in the dialect, were given English translation. By the year 2000 the entire program was in
English.
Historical Background of the Waterloo area:
Waterloo County’s first white settlers came from Pennsylvania between 1800 and 1820. Their
ancestors who came from Switzerland had sojourned in the Palatinate correctly called
Rheinpfalz or Niederpfalz during the 1700’s. In the century following, many of the descendants of
these Palatinate settlers migrated to America, landing at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On the ship passenger lists, this stream of immigrants was classified as Palatinate German,
although it included substantial groups from an area just west of the Rhine known as Alsace
Lorraine. In their new North American home, they became known as Pennsylvania Deutsch; their
English speaking neighbors eventually referred to them as the Pennsylvania Dutch. That
designation has been attached to their dialect which is rooted in the Pfalzisch German, so named
because it is still used today in the region known as Pfalz.
By 1800 and the early decades following, land costs in Pennsylvania had risen to over $100 an
acre. This fact, coupled with loyalist motivations toward the British Crown, led many to consider
Canada as a new home.
The Mennonite settlements in Upper Canada up to 1823 were located at The Twenty (now the
Vineland area), York County (north of Toronto), and on The Beasley Tract (now Waterloo
Region). The earliest expansion took place northward of Waterloo Township into Woolwich
Township. By 1824 Amish Mennonite settlers moved into the area west of the Beasley Tract,
40,000 acres first called the German Block, later comprising the major portion of Wilmot
Township. These settlers came largely from Swiss Alsatian stock living in Alsace as well as from
the south of Baden, a former state in Germany.
The Pennsylvania Germans in Waterloo County a designation which has persisted although a
substantial group never lived in Pennsylvania had many things in common. Their common
dialect was undoubtedly the most pervasive, for it was retained and used widely in homes,
churches and communities for at least a century; it is still in use by a substantial number of
persons. They were also a religious people, whether from the earliest Mennonite and Amish
Mennonite stock, or of the slightly later Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Baptist persuasions. The
early farmers, villagers and townsfolk were loyal to their own denominational groups, but
markedly tolerant of one another’s faith.
• Pennsylvania German Customs and Cookery – Beatrice Miller Snyder 1979
Some Early Settler Family Names in the Waterloo area:
Baer, Bauman, Bean, Bechtel, Bergey, Betzner, Bingeman, Bleam, Bock, Bomberger, Brech,
Bricker, Brubacher, Clemens, Clemmer, Cressman, Detweiler, Eby, Erb, Geiger, Gingrich, Groff,
Groh, Hallman, Hammacher, Hoffman, Honsberger, Kinzie, Koch, Martin, Moyer, Pannebecker,
Reichert, Reist, Rosenberger, Sararus, Schneider, Shantz, Schoerg/Sherk/Shirk, Schiedel,
Shupe, Sittler, Schneider/Snider/Snyder, Stauffer, Wanner, Weber, Wideman, Wismer, Witmer,
Woolner, Zimmerman
For further information see these historical/genealogy sites:
Waterloo Historical Society www.whs.ca
Ontario Genealogical Society www.ogs.on.ca
Waterloo Branch, OGS www.WaterlooOGS.ca
Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario www.mcso.org
Mennonite Archives of Ontario www.grebel.uwaterloo.ca/mao/
Ontario Heritage Trust www.heritagetrust.on.ca
19th Century Migration www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html
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