The Community’s Hidden Infrastructure

The women’s plans depend on practical networks of food, animals, maps, money, and quiet cooperation.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Care Work Holds the Colony

Work Behind the Debate Labor Continues Women who do not attend the meetings keep the animals and households functioning. Their work makes the assembly possible even as it remains largely invisible. A Divided Community The Do Nothing women do not share the planners’ decision. The women must prepare without knowing whether silence means neutrality, refusal, or possible disclosure.

Animals Become Essential

Survival Has Hooves A Moving Household The women need horses, livestock, feed, and clean straw for the journey. Animals are not symbols alone; they are transport and food. Ownership Challenged Mariche Loewen questions whether taking colony animals amounts to theft. Salome Friesen argues that the women have a rightful stake in resources that sustain them.

The Horses Are Hidden

Protecting Ruth and Cheryl A Quiet Transfer Autje Loewen and Neitje Friesen secretly take Greta’s horses to Chortiza and ask the Koop brothers to shelter them. The move prevents the horses from being sold for bail money. Cost and Judgment The girls’ arrangement prompts a dispute over virtue, consent, and survival. Mariche Loewen rejects the colony’s purity standard when it is used to condemn the younger women.

The Safe and Supplies

Resources for Departure August’s Preparation August Epp removes the co-op safe and gathers food, a map, dynamite, and practical supplies. His covert labor turns an idea into a journey that can begin. An Unsolved Lock The women do not know the safe’s code, and dynamite may destroy the money. The preparation offers resources without resolving how they will be used.

Children Ready to Move

The Groundwork Below Nettie’s Report Nettie/Melvin tells the women that the children are clean, fed, and supplied with clothing packed in containers. Her practical preparation makes the exodus more than a proposal. A Necessary Network The women coordinate buggies, teams, food, and a meeting point behind the schoolhouse. Their escape depends on collective labor across the colony.

June 6, 2009, while the men are in the city

June 6–7, 2009, as the departure is planned

Night of June 6, 2009

June 6–7, 2009, before the convoy leaves

June 7, 2009, shortly before departure