Plautdietsch culture was shaped by a religious choice: the Anabaptist decision, in the sixteenth century, to baptise adults and to stay out of the state's wars. That choice is why our families kept moving — every time a government withdrew the exemptions, someone packed.
Singing
Four-part singing without instruments was the norm in many congregations for centuries, and the Gesangbuch travelled in every trunk. In some communities the old slow-tune singing is still alive.
Work and land
Villages were laid out as a single street — the Strassendorf — with the fields behind. The same plan was repeated in Chortitza, in Manitoba, in Chihuahua and in the Chaco, a century and an ocean apart. Where you find that layout on a map, a Mennonite surveyor once walked.
Family
Large families, the Waisenamt (the orphans' office that managed inheritances), the Sunday visit, the faspa with coffee at four: the small institutions that held a village together and often outlived the village itself.