Joyce (Schumm) Zehr

Joyce Zehr was born in 1940, the sixth child of Henry and Edna (Schlegel) Schumm. The Schumms had 11 children and farmed Lot 33, Concession 16, of East Zorra Township. Upon the death of her grandfather in 1953, Joyce’s maternal grandmother, Annie (Yantzi, Schlegel) Ropp, also came to live with their family. Deitsch was the language of this family. Joyce attended Facey’s Public School, S.S. No. 7 East Zorra Township, and graduated from grade 8.  The Schumm farm was beside the East Zorra Amish Mennonite Church, where Joyce was baptized and attended the youth group known as the Literary Society. As a young woman Joyce worked in a store in Tavistock. In 1960 she married Daniel Zehr and moved 7 km. south to the Zehr farm where Daniel had grown up and continued to farm. As Joyce put it, “I moved from one apple farm to another apple farm.” After marrying, they attended her husband’s home congregation, the Cassel Mennonite Church. They were blessed with six children. Joyce assisted with the dairy herd and apple orchard as well as tending a large garden. She was active in the Sunday school programs and the women’s sewing circle. Although, both Joyce and Daniel grew up in Deitsch-speaking homes, they shifted to English when their children were born but continued speaking Deitsch to their parents and the older generation in the community. Shortly after their 25th wedding anniversary, Daniel was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1987. Left to raise her two youngest children, Joyce sold the farm to her son and moved to Tavistock. For the past several years, Joyce has lived at Village Manor, an apartment community for seniors in Tavistock.