Mennonite Heritage and
Agricultural Museum
Each of the 8 buildings tells a different story.
To the west of the Friesen House is one of the few remaining outdoor toilets built as a WPA work project.
To learn more about the WPA toilet project, click the outhouse image.
The Friesen House kitchen has the interesting features of a reproduction cauldron and hearth. Usually these elements were in a detached "summer kitchen". The original cauldron (miagrope in Mennonite Low German) and hearth (spoaheat) in the Friesen House were removed in about 1922. Probably when they got the "modern day" wood burning cook stove shown in small photo at right.
The miagrope is bricked into the corner of the kitchen; the small front door closes off the firebox, allowing the kettle to heat quickly with a minimum of fuel. The miagrope was used for cooking, washing clothes, making soap, rendering lard, and heating water for scalding the hog on butchering day.
The spoaheat was used throughout the summer months for family and company cooking, also for the busy season of canning the summer garden harvest. The spoaheat has a cast iron top used for "stovetop" cooking. The bottom is like a "Russien" oven where ithe top door was used to bake zwieback and the bottom door was the fire box. These ovens were fueled with grass and/or straw.
The description of the Friesen House came in part from "They Sought a New Land" by Darlene Schroeder.
Friesen House
The Friesen House was built in 1911 for Bernhard H. and Sara Voth Friesen on their farmstead 1/2 mile east of Goessel. The house is an example of the type of home found in the Goessel community in the late 1800s and early 1900s as the immigrants became more assimilated into American society. Many abandoned their small houses (or house-barn combinations) built during the first years after their settlement on the Kansas prairie.
The furnishings were used by area Mennonites and illustrate how they shifted their preferences from handmade furniture to more decorative, mass-produced furniture. The rhubank in the large room upstairs demonstrates that some handmade furniture continued to be used in these modern homes, but were often placed in rooms not generally visible to guests. Parlors were furnished with decorative furniture, musical instruments and record players.
Images of the "Mother" Landmark Oak Tree in Chortitza, Ukraine, that died in the late 1990's (Estamated to be over 700 yr. old when it died.)
Mennonite Life April 1958 - vol. 13 no. 2
The acorn that sprouted this English oak tree in 1997 came from Russia.
When the Mennonites emigrated from Prussia to Russia in the late 1700s, the mother tree was already an estimated 500 years old. It was a well-known landmark at the Mennonite Colony of Chortiza in Ukraine. The "mother" tree died in the late 1990s, but it has a number of "daughters" in Mennonite communities of the U.S. and Canada.
"Modern day" wood burning
cook stove.
In 2012 the house was reshingled and the porch deck was redone. This was accomplished with the help of donations from the Friesen family and Museum supporters.
Aerial view of Friesen farm
1940's
2014-2024 Mennonite Heritage
and Agricultural Museum
Created by Fern Bartel nee Schmidt
Each of the 8 buildings tells a different story.
For a closer look at the Mennonite Russian oven click pdf of artical by J. D. Butler in the Mennonite Life Oct. 1949 pg. 16.