Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo, about 60 miles west of Toronto, is located in the center of Ontario’s main German settlement area. Waterloo and neighboring Kitchener are commonly referred to as the Twin-Cities, reflecting the close ties and integrated character of both communities.
Founded by Pennsylvania German Mennonites at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Waterloo has developed into an important academic center, being home to two universities (University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University) and internationally renowned think tanks and research institutes, such as the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the Academic Council for United Nations Studies, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. With several German clubs located in close-by Kitchener, Waterloo does not have a genuine German life, yet the community participates in events like Oktoberfest. According to the census of 2001, 23,130 out of a total of 86,085 residents, belong to the German ethnic group (Statistics Canada Census, 2001).Waterloo was founded by Pennsylvania German immigrant Abraham Erb in 1806. Erb settled in what is now the city’s center for its water access at a tributary of the Grand River. Here he built a grist and sawmill that attracted farmers from the surrounding mostly German Mennonite countryside. Located in the midst of a large Pennsylvania German colony, Waterloo over the years developed into Waterloo County’s agricultural center. Corresponding with the end of Mennonite migration from Pennsylvania, immigrants from Germany began to arrive in the community from the 1820s on. They were craftsmen, laborers, and artisans. Building onto the community’s Pennsylvania German foundations, they established a self-sufficient local economy, encompassing breweries, mills, and two foundries, as well as various artisan shops and businesses.
Even though their arrival changed the character of the pioneer settlement, this change was not as dramatic as in neighboring Berlin, which during the second half of the nineteenth century developed into Waterloo County’s industrial and administrative center. Waterloo, on the other hand, always remained closely linked to its Pennsylvania German agricultural hinterland through its busy grain and cattle market, as well as through steady expansion of the community’s various wheat trade-related industries.Waterloo always benefited from its close proximity to its twin-city partner Berlin, now Kitchener. Berlin’s immediate access to the Grand Trunk railway in 1856 turned both communities into inland ports, guaranteeing the continuing influx of new immigrants into Waterloo as well. By 1868 the village of Waterloo had a population of close to 1,800 residents, who were mostly German immigrants; eight years later the community was incorporated as a town.
Waterloo always participated in the area’s rich German cultural and denominational life, albeit at a significantly smaller scale than neighboring Berlin. German-language newspapers such as Der Morgenstern (Morning Star), Der Canadische Bauernfre- und (The Canadian Farmer’s Friend), and Der Deutsche Reformer (The German Reformer) operated out of the community at various times during the nineteenth century. Waterloo had a Turnverein (sports club), a brass band (established in the 1860s), and a German male choir (established during the 1870s). Waterloo also hosted a number of Saengerfests, which were large-scale choir festivals with visitors from Canada and the northern states of the United States. In 1873 Waterloo resident and musical leader Henry A. Zoellner drafted the constitution of the German- Canadian Saengerbund, defining the goal to unite all German singing societies in Canada under one roof, and between August 31 and September 3, 1874, the first large international Saengerfest of the Canadian National Saengerbund was held in Waterloo.
Waterloo hosted its largest Saengerfest in 1902 with participating choirs coming from as far away as Cleveland, Detroit, Erie, Rochester, and Toledo. With participating choirs from Canada and the United States, Saengerfests helped establish a common identity among German immigrants in those two countries.The local ethnic German church was an important focal point of community life from the early beginnings. Reflecting the European German immigrants’ predominant faith, Waterloo’s first German Lutheran church was built in 1837. A new church building, erected in 1882, accommodated a congregation of 1,200 people, indicating the strength of the Lutheran congregation, as well as the high level of German-language maintenance in the community. At the beginning of the twentieth century more than half the population of Waterloo still attended a Germanspeaking congregation. Next to the local choirs and the Saengerfests, German churches were the main contributors to language retention as well as to Waterloo’s unique ethnic identity.
In 1911 Waterloo’s continuing longstanding tradition in education was established by the founding of the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary as Canada’s first institution to train pastors for Lutheran congregations within the country. Prior to this, Canada’s Lutheran clergy was exclusively trained in Germany and the United States. Placed in the midst of a predominantly Lutheran and German community, the seminary contributed greatly to Waterloo’s German Canadian identity. It later became integrated into Wilfrid Laurier University.
The famous Seagram’s distillery stands out among Waterloo’s many successful business establishments. Grown out of Waterloo’s second gristmill, Granite Mills, Seagram’s developed into a world- renowned brand name. Originating in the 1860s, when the first mutual insurance company was established in the community, Waterloo also became known all over Canada as one of the country’s leading insurance centers, hosting the head offices of several national insurance companies.
One ofWaterloo’s foremost residents, local businessman E. W. B. Snider, was also instrumental in the creation of the Ontario Hydro Electric Power System. In February 1902 he announced his idea of bringing electric power from Niagara Falls to the local communities. His relentless involvement in the scheme earned him the name “Father of Hydro.”By the outbreak of World War I, the community had undergone significant changes. Even though 76 percent of Waterloo residents in the 1911 census identified themselves as members of the German ethnic group, less than 10 percent had been born in Germany. Waterloo had developed from a German immigrant town into a truly Canadian community, with most residents being first- and second-generation Canadians. And yet, during World War I the Canadian public’s perception was that Waterloo, though less than neighboring Berlin, was a German community, putting the residents’ loyalty into question. Former Waterloo mayor and wartime member of Parliament for the riding of Waterloo North, William Weichel, who was a son of German immigrants, took a strong stand in the House of Commons and publicly addressed the war’s challenges from the local German Canadian perspective. Answering the Speech from the Throne in February 1915, Weichel emphasized that his constituents were loyal citizens of Canada. Being Canadian and being proud of one’s ethnic heritage, he argued, was not mutually exclusive. Despite Weichel’s numerous attempts to create an understanding for the peculiar challenges the war presented to German Canadians, his hometown community was not spared the eruption of tensions and anti-German feelings challenging German Canadians all over Canada. On May 5, i9i6, Waterloo’s remaining small German organization, the Acadian Club, was raided by soldiers of the 118th Overseas Battalion that was stationed in the community. Even though this act of aggression was a spill-over effect from neighboring Berlin, which in the public’s eye became synonymous with Germanness and disloyalty, the war imposed a loyalty question onto Waterloo as well.
Waterloo residents’ and businesses’ outstanding contributions to the Canadian Patriotic Fund, which were the highest per capita for all of Canada, as well as to the war effort at large, must at least partially be seen as a desperate attempt to prove their community’s loyalty.Waterloo’s German origins became less visible after World War I. Being home to two universities and several national insurance companies, Waterloo in 2005 presents itself as a rather typical Canadian city. However, the continuing German presence in the community is clearly indicated in the 2001 census, in which close to 27 percent of Waterloo residents were counted as being of German ethnic origin (Statistics Canada, Census 2001). The German group in the early twenty-first century consists of descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants, post—World War II immigrants from Germany, as well as many ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe who chose Canada as their new homeland after being expelled from Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltics after World War II. The newly founded Centre for German Studies at the University of Waterloo is a clear manifestation of the community’s continuing strong German influence.
Ulrich Frisse
See also Berlin/Kitchener, Ontario; Canada, Germans in (during World Wars I and II); Ontario; Ontario, German-Language Press in; Waterloo County, Ontario
References and Further Reading
McLaughlin, Kenneth. Waterloo: An
Illustrated History. Canada: Windsor, 1990. Rowell, Marg, Ed Devitt, and Pat McKegney.
An Illustrated History of Waterloo, Ontario, in Celebration of its 125th Anniversary 1857—1982. Waterloo, ON: Waterloo Printing, 1982.
Statistics Canada, Census 2001, http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/ home/index.cfm (May 15, 2005).
Wells, Clayton W “A Historical Sketch of the Town of Waterloo, Ontario.” Waterloo Historical Society 16 (1928): 22—65.