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Jacob Jacob Penner
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Educator.
Born at Lichtenau, a Russian Mennonite village of the Molotschna Colony within the Russian Empire [now Ukraine], on 12 December 1891, son of Jacob Penner (1854-1922) and Maria Wiens (1853-1920), he attended local village schools and underwent teachers training at the Central School in Halbstadt, Molotschna. Upon graduation (1912), he began working as a teacher at a local elementary school. During the Russian Civil War, he met and married Margaretha [Margareta] Braun (1895-1958) on 20 May 1918. They had seven children; Mary Penner (1919-2012, wife of Jake Wiens), John Jacob Penner (1921-1986), Jacob “Jake” Penner (1923-2021), Rudolph ”Rudy” Penner (1925-2009), Anna Margarete “Anne” Penner (1928-2022, wife of George Krahn), Erica Penner (1930-2023, wife of Henry Lepp), and Margaret Penner (1936-2005, wife of John Martens). He would later re-marry to Justina Dueck (1897-1989, widow of Abram Goertzen) on 6 August 1960. As circumstances and conditions became increasingly uncertain, the family decided to leave their old home and begin their journey to Canada in 1925.
They arrived at Springstein in December 1925 and remained with relatives for about a month before taking up temporary residence on Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg. They moved to Ste. Elizabeth in April 1926 where he worked on several farms, including one at 1-5-2 East in Rural Municipality of Morris (1926). In early November 1927, he decided to pursue his former profession and moved his family to Gretna where he learned English, potentially either at Gretna Normal School or evening classes at Gretna School. By the autumn of 1929, he enrolled at Central Normal School and was practise-teaching in Winnipeg schools by the year's end. He briefly returned to farming during the summer of 1930 prior to signing his first teaching contract in Manitoba that fall, whereafter he taught at Sunny Valley School (1930-1934), Woolwich School (1934-1941), Rosengard School (1941-1947), Blumenhof School (1947-1952, Principal), Gravel Ridge School (1952-1955), Moray School (1955-1958), Rocky School (1958-1960), and Slawna School (1960-1961). He retired to Steinbach in the summer of 1961, following 31 years of teaching in Manitoba and another approximately 12 years in Ukraine.
He died at Bethesda Hospital in Steinbach on 24 March 1969 and was buried in the Steinbach Memorial Cemetery.
1926 and 1931 Canada censuses, Library and Archives Canada.
Diary of Margaretha (Braun) Penner. [Held by Charlotte McCrae].
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 26 March 1969, page 40.
St. Boniface estate files (ATG 0064A), #10155 - Jacob Jacob Penner, GR5707, Archives of Manitoba.
Obituary [John Jacob Penner], Winnipeg Free Press, 19 February 1986, page 33.
Obituary [Justina Dueck], Winnipeg Free Press, 10 March 1989, page 38.
Obituary [Justina Dueck], Steinbach Carillon News, 15 March 1989, page 9B.
Obituary [Rudy Penner], Legacy.
Obituary [Anna Margaretha Krahn], MemoriesChapel.
Obituary [Erica Lepp], MemoriesChapel.
Steinbach Memorial Cemetery burial transcriptions, FindAGrave.
Steinbach Heritage Cemetery burial transcriptions, FindAGrave.
Sargent Avenue Mennonite Cemetery burial transcriptions, FindAGrave.
Northern Lights Cemetery burial transcriptions [Edmonton], FindAGrave.
This page was prepared by Nathan Kramer and Charlotte McCrae.
Page revised: 24 February 2024
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