Built in 1878, Reimer House is a typical Mennonite home moved from the nearby village of Hochfeld. It features a chambered ceiling, detailing on the outside of the window frames, and dovetail log construction at the outside corners of the house. The house was lived in until approximately 1980, relocating to the PTM grounds shortly thereafter.
The Reimer family consisted of great-grandparents Peter and Maria (Ginter) Fehr; grandparents Isaac and Elizabeth (Friesen) Fehr; parents Frank C. and Margaret (Fehr) Reimer; and children Annie, Nettie, Cornelius, Margaret, and Frank.
The house was originally built by Peter and Maria Fehr in approximately 1878–1879. Later, Isaac and wife Elizabeth (Friesen) Fehr owned the house and their second daughter, Margaret (Fehr) and her husband Frank C. Reimer, lived with her parents until they moved out in 1957.
Margaret and Frank continued to live in the house with their children until 1980, at which time most of them had moved out.
The main entrance was located at the far south of the house and entered the kitchen area from spring through fall. In winter, however, the entry was on the east side through a narrow breezeway between the house and barn. The north door led outside to the summer kitchen and outhouse, and this room was used at the parents’ bedroom.
The kitchen was the largest room in the house and the hub of activity. Before electricity, the house was heated by wood burning stoves, then oil heaters. Electricity came to Hochfeld in 1951, and the refrigerator that is presently in the southeast corner is original to the house. The actual cooking area was on the north side between the parents’ bedroom and the pantry, and a furnace and fireplace were in the northwest corner. In the middle of the room was a large table where many meals, conversations, and games happened. Baths were also taken in the kitchen in a large metal tub that was brought in.
When the house was lived in by the Fehr family, there was a small “boys’ room” in the southeast corner; a small square piece of wood can be seen on the ceiling that covers a “smoke” hole. The door in the northeast corner led upstairs to the attic, which was used as storage as well as for hanging hams in the summer.
The pantry shelves on the west side of the house were used for home canned foods and other non-perishable items, and the large white bin was for flour. The cream separator was kept in this room as well. The hatch to the basement cellar (which was used for cool storage, potatoes, onions, and carrots) was on the floor under the stairs that led to the attic, and the wooden latch on the side of the stairs was used to hold the hatch door open.
The living room was used more when company came over and mostly for adults, although this is also where the grandmother stayed when she lived with the family. Up to four children slept in the bedroom with curtains hung from the beams to separate them and provide some privacy.
The photographs in the entry reflect the Reimer family’s time there and the house in its early days. A barn was once attached to the east side of the log house, and would have led to the east door in the kitchen.
