Woman details her flight from Orthodox Mennonite society
In October of 2015, Emma Drummond left her Orthodox Mennonite community in Gorrie, northwest of Listowel, for the modern world. Her aunt and uncle picked her up just after midnight and drove her to their home in Hanover.
Two years later, Drummond wrote about her experience for the CBC Nonfiction Prize and was selected alongside 28 others for the long list.
“Growing up in the Mennonite community I was always a little different and didn’t have someone to talk to, so I put it into writing,” she said during a phone interview. “I did a lot of journaling ... I have this love for books. It’s kind of an escape from the real world.”
Two weeks after leaving the community, she was enrolled at Sacred Heart High School in Walkerton.
This past June, she graduated and then moved with her uncle and aunt — Philip and Anne Schuessler — to Waterloo, where she is currently taking a year off school to work at a Swiss Chalet to save up for college where she hopes to study massage therapy.
“I was kind of disappointed to not make the shortlist,” Drummond said, noting the pool of entries was deep and only five of entries from right across Canada made the shortlist.
The story is titled “Getaway” and is really the middle, most pivotal part of a longer story that could be made into a book.
“I had a life before and a life after,” she said.
Drummond explained that the Orthodox Mennonite community she grew up in is similar to the Old Order Mennonites, but much stricter and with no technology of any kind.
“I definitely think there are a lot of misunderstandings between the Mennonite community and modern society,” she said. “For someone like me, the Mennonite community would probably be seen as more negative than positive, but that’s not to say the Mennonites are not a positive thing.”
Drummond pointed to her relationship with her sister.
“It’s not that I don’t like her or her decision, it’s that I don’t agree with the philosophy.”
She said the community functions and continues by constantly enforcing a separation from the modern world and the quiet lifestyle, close to nature, can be attractive for some.
“There are a lot of great Mennonites out there,” she said. “I want to stay away from classifying them as a good thing or a bad thing. Who am I to judge?”
Drummond said it is hard for her to understand how people can live so closed off from the rest of the world, because she found it hard herself.
“But I think some people are genuinely happy to be Mennonite,” she said.
Over the past two years, Drummond said she is finding it more and more easy to adjust to the new world she’s in. She said she is keen on keeping up with world events and enjoys working, although admits it took her a longer than expected to learn.
“As time goes by, the less surprising every new thing is,” she said.