Harry Joseph Martens: Farmer. Mennonite. Volunteer. Conversationalist. Born July 30, 1942, in Osler, Sask.; died Jan. 9, 2025, in Saskatoon; of complications from esophageal cancer; aged 82.
Harry Joseph MartensCourtesy of family
Harry Martens was considered a bit of an eccentric and to some, considered a gossip. I thought of him more as a man with boundless curiosity and the ability to connect with any living being, human or animal.
Born and raised on a farm just outside of Osler, Sask., the son of a dairy farmer, Harry was an experienced and gifted herdsman.
Mornings in the barn started at 5:30 where cows were milked and life lessons were dispensed. He did not have a high-school diploma, but as a man deeply connected to his Mennonite faith, his actions would teach others the principles of what we refer to now as equity, diversity and inclusion. He referred to his barn as “the United Nations” where every creature needed to respect the other and where the biblical ethic of “the last shall be first” was enacted. Most of all, he understood that different people needed different opportunities and that, sometimes, sleeping in and missing chores wasn’t always cause for dismissal, but a sign of struggle or circumstance.
He married Eva Martens (from the Blumenthal village line of Martens). They met when Harry and a friend were driving around the small Mennonite hamlets. He spotted Eva walking with her friend and the two women were invited for a ride. The rest is history, and the story poetic, considering Eva spent most of her life behind the wheel with Harry in the passenger seat (he thought she was a more alert driver). The couple raised three girls, Sheila, Laura and Anna.
In the late 1990s, I approached him asking for a job milking cows (a lucrative gig relative to other local alternatives such as babysitting or picking bottles from the ditch). While others may have thought a 14-year-old young woman was not fit for the job, he hired me without hesitation. (Later, Anna told me her father believed women were better suited to the relational nature of dairy farming.)
Harry’s long-time, conservative employee might have been less than thrilled to work alongside an opinionated teenaged girl (who would later come out as queer) but there was a place for everyone in Mr. Martens’s barn.
When cats fought over a five-gallon pail full of fresh milk, he would calmly assure them that there was enough for all. When a nervous cow, fresh from calving, was feeling sensitive postpartum, he would speak gently to her and never rush. When he perceived that the herd of dry cows were bored, he moved them to a pasture closer to the highway so that they could get some entertainment. When one of his Holsteins was ranked “excellent,” he celebrated with a Pepsi party for family and friends in her stall.
Harry believed in the basics of harm-reduction well before these concepts were in the public conversation. He took Jesus’s teachings in the Gospel seriously – it meant that he spent years visiting (upon request) prisoners at the federal penitentiary in Prince Albert, Sask. His was not an evangelical mission; it was a commitment to listening carefully, and when smoking was banned in prisons, he said, “Smoking is probably the least harmful thing that happens in prison.”
In 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he watched, horrified as an American preacher prayed on TV for success in battle. He called the prayer hotline and asked how advocating for war fit within Jesus’s ministry of non-violence. After being hung up on and redialling a few times, he felt a sense of victory when the phone number was removed from the bottom of the screen.
In 2016, Harry and Eva were recognized for their volunteer efforts with the Saskatchewan Volunteer Medal.
In later years, as Harry’s health declined, the dairy was sold. That left more time for watching Saskatoon Blades’ games, taking in plays at the Barn Playhouse. He also enjoyed driving along the South Saskatchewan River crossing over on the small ferries; you could also often find him hanging out at the Osler Restaurant. When he could no longer drive, Anna ensured he was in his usual pew at Osler Mennonite Church.
Harry died peacefully, surrounded by family and loved ones.
It may have been easy to assume many things about Harry Martens, but he had a knack for defying those expectations.
Jan Guenther Braun is a friend and mentee of Harry Martens, who was her church elder.
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